Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin made a stab at salvaging France's beleaguered image overseas on Tuesday, in a US television interview focused on the outbreak of urban violence in the country.

Villepin told the US television network CNN that the wave of unrest in French suburbs this month could not be described as "riots", and that it was not rooted in ethnic or religious divisions.

Diebold would rather lose all of its voting machine business in North Carolina than open its source code to state election officials as required by law, the Associated Press reports.

In what some allege is a thinly veiled attempt to normalize surveillance, a federal agency is pumping more money into Big Brother programs that track students despite declining needs for school security.

The four Western peace activists kidnapped in Iraq have been identified by their Chicago-based Christian antiwar group, which blamed their plight on the U.S. and the U.K. governments.

"We are angry because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions of the U.S. and U.K. governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people," the statement said.

Referring to US bombing of civilians and the recent disclosure that US troops used white phosphorus, Mr Kilfoyle said: "I would very much like to know whether the prime minister was privy to this."

Internet Television Peercasting Network

...allows anyone to create and broadcast their own TV show or a Channel full of shows. Not small streaming videos, but FULL-Screen, TV-Quality video.
...does not transcode the content, but rather offers it in it?s native encoding, and does not limit the file sizes/length of video.
...goal is to become the platform for producers of all sizes (from individuals to studios and everyone in between) to have a democratized TV broadcasting system.

The sponsorship of terrorism by western governments, targeting their own populations, has been a taboo subject. Although major scandals have received cursory coverage in the media, the subject has been allowed to immediately disappear without discussion or investigation. Therefore the appearance this year of two major studies of this subject is a welcome breakthrough, and provides essential reading for anyone struggling to understand the events of September 11, 2001 and the post September 11 world.

A man claiming to be a former Syrian intelligence agent in Lebanon has said on Syrian state television that Lebanese officials tortured him and offered bribes to persuade him to present false testimony against Syria to a UN commission investigating the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.

All serious and intelligent journalists today know that the U.S. government has massive media management brigades to carefully control what Americans see in the media and, thus, what they are very likely to believe about things of which they have no direct experience, such as high-level politics, finance and foreign affairs. They also know that the government is extremely effective in secretly censoring the news by using devices such as "embedded reporting" in nations like Afghanistan and Iraq which the U.S. government invades, occupies, and governs.

Free men and women think freely. They do not submit to Party Speak, a crucial fact of life George Orwell made all intelligent people aware of fifty years ago. Only those who think freely can be free. Those who think as the Party dictates through its Media are Party slaves, not free people.

Bush gave an unflinching defense of his war strategy on Wednesday, refusing to set a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals and asserting that once-shaky Iraqi troops are proving increasingly capable.
Democrats dismissed his words as a stay-the-course speech with no real strategy for success.

Shimon Peres plans to quit the left-leaning Labor Party, his political home for decades, and back Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new centrist party, Kadima, in Israel's March parliamentary elections, Israeli television reported.

As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

According to Italian media reports on Tuesday, an international theological commission will advise
Pope Benedict to eliminate the teaching about limbo from the Catholic catechism.

The Catholic Church teaches that babies who die before they can be baptised go to limbo, whose name comes from the Latin for "border" or "edge", because they deserve neither heaven nor hell.

The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age.

The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.

Surgeons in France have carried out the first face transplant, it has been reported.

If the public simply refuse to acknowledge that copying books or movies or software is wrong, then in a democracy, it will eventually cease to be wrong. People elect the legislators, and legislators make the laws.

The US Air Force has unveiled its first hand-held laser weapon that gives security forces a non-lethal option for controlling crowds and protecting areas like checkpoints, according to service officials.

Note: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Note: GRAPHIC CONTENT

A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell has launched a stinging attack on US Vice-President Dick Cheney over abuse of prisoners by US troops.

We were biased, all right - in favor of uncovering the news that powerful people wanted to keep hidden: conflicts of interest at the Department of Interior, secret meetings between Vice President Cheney and the oil industry, backdoor shenanigans by lobbyists at the FCC, corruption in Congress, neglect of wounded veterans returning from Iraq, Pentagon cost overruns, the manipulation of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq.

We were way ahead of the news curve on these stories, and the administration turned its hit men loose on us.

In a wise and fortunate society, ruthless and amoral forces are kept out of power - blocked by effective constitutional checks backed up by the society's "moral capital" endowing its elites with a genuine love of the greater good.

America, regrettably, is not now in that fortunate position. And nowhere is that clearer than in the way our present rulers have been working to bend and distort those "Christian" moral values they love to trumpet.

The senior European diplomat could not have been clearer: "You don't talk about torture in the morning and then say in the afternoon: 'Democratise yourself'."

A key witness in the UN commissioned probe into the death of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri has died in a car crash. Nawwar Habib Dunna, was killed on Saturday night after the vehicle he was travelling in plunged down a ditch on a road some 30 kilometres east of the capital Beirut.

The conduct of at least a dozen representatives and senators is now being scrutinized by a small army of federal prosecutors and FBI agents. According to sources familiar with the inquiry, a federal task force, which includes investigators from the Interior.

...remember the supposed Al-Qaeda statements of 9/10 that "tomorrow is zero hour" and "the match begins tomorrow"?
The government claims these intercepts were not translated by the intelligence services until after 9/11. But given the administration's lies about pre-war intelligence on Iraq, and given that Sibel Edmonds also testified that the government pressured her to CHANGE THE DATE of her translations of pre-911 intelligence, do you buy that?

Capt. Jeff Pirozzi, Camp Taqaddum, Iraq ---> "The bottom line up front is that our ultimate goal in 2003 was the security of Israel and the lucrative oil fields in northern and southern Iraq."

"While our European ancestors were hanging from trees, these ancient people were writing algebra and solving quadratic equations. Now we feel compelled to strong-arm them into accepting the spoils of capitalism and "laissez-faire" society.
...do you honestly believe that Sunnis, Shias and Kurds want our Western ideas of entertainment and freedom imposed on them?"

Sunday Herald ---> ...we all know that Dubya is crazy; what's new?

...the fact that these things have been said before doesn't make them any less serious. We can't allow boredom to dull our moral sensibilities to what is beginning to look like the crime of the century.

Toronto Star ---> North America is on a fascist trajectory. We must recognize this threat for what it is, and we must change course.

"We're fighting a war on terror," he said in response to a question about the prisons. "We're doing quite well. Inevitably, we're going to have to capture some terrorists and inevitably they're going to have to have some due process. It's going to be done lawfully."

People now know that:
1) This administration is incompetent
2) This administration is corrupt
3) This administration lies
4) The GOP is a festering open sore of
corruption and greed

Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University:
For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

...main concern is that, intentionally or otherwise, an extra-terrestrial signal picked up by the Seti team could cause widespread damage to computers if released on to the internet without being checked.

Two Southern California engineers have created a mathematical theory of surprise.

The Vatican newspaper said on Tuesday that homosexuality risked "destabilizing people and society", had no social or moral value and could never match the importance of the relationship between a man and a woman.

The four activists were shown in an insurgent video broadcast on Arab television Tuesday, with a previously unknown group claiming responsibility for the kidnapping.

The bomb was exploded by suicide bomber in front of Chittagong Court and in the Court of Gazipur, private television channel Ntv reported Tuesday.

"You have to question ... the president on a lot of decisions he's made," Turner said. "He might just think launching nuclear weapons would be a good thing to do. ... He thought Iraq was."

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

Koulamata ---> "This is a movie about the recent French riots in suburb.
I hope you will enjoy this movies and have a better understand of what is happening in my country!"

...this is real political stuff, the kind of thing the First Amendment was invented for.

A growing number of professionals in the health care field are reporting that a relationship exists between the epidemic in neurodevelopmental disorders of autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and speech or language delay all across the country, and the use of thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative used in childhood vaccines.

Vaccines are the only medicines that Americans are mandated to receive as a condition for attendance in school and day care, and for some types of employment. Parents who receive federal assistance are also required to show proof that their children have been vaccinated.

As chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson proved to be a disastrous zealot. Internal investigators found he repeatedly broke federal law and ethics rules in overreaching his authority and packing the payroll with Republican ideologues.

Modern History You Can't Afford to Ignore - Part II

"This day is not Black Friday. It is Green Friday! where people in Capitalist countries perform the ritual of worshipping our Lord, Jesus, by buying gifts in His name that no one needs and that they cannot afford. It's good business and it's good for business".

'Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder.'

'the peace of the world must never again be destroyed by the will and wickedness of one man.'

Carpet bombing, cluster bombs and napalm against Iraqi civilians.

Why does a US military ethicist commit suicide in Iraq?
A note found in his trailer seemed to offer clues. Written in what the Army determined was his handwriting, the colonel appeared to be struggling with a final question.

"How is honor possible in a war like the one in Iraq?"

At the beginning of his clashes with the American officials in Iraq, Allawi said that he informed the military governor Jay Garner "If you believe that an Iraqi politician, like me, would receive orders from an American officer, you should just forget about it."

How Goldman Sachs is Carving Up its $11 Billion Money Pie

"He thinks that would be an admission he's screwed up, and he can't bring himself to do that," a former senior staffer lamented.

"Iran's nuclear weapon development cannot be stopped by any current military or diplomatic options."

The report instead recommends that the United States convince Israel to "mothball" its Dimona nuclear reactor and agree to international monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, something it has refused to do.

Israel, to date, has never officially confirmed that it does not have nuclear weapons, nor denied it. Credible reports of Israel's sizable arsenal of nuclear bombs are well-documented, as well as their stable of missiles and aircrafts to deliver them any where in the Middle East.

The blogs are posted on an unclassified, government-wide Web site, part of a rechristened CIA office for monitoring, translating and analyzing publicly available information called the DNI Open Source Center. The center, which officially opened this month under the aegis of the new director for national intelligence, marks the latest wave of reorganization to come out of the recommendations of several commissions that analyzed the failures of intelligence collection related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Justin Raimondo ---> When someone is accused of a crime, a key component of determining their innocence or guilt is assigning a motive - and this remains the biggest mystery of the Scooter Libby affair. Why did the vice president's then-chief of staff embark on a campaign to expose a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, and put her and her colleagues in danger?

The pro-Kremlin United Russia party dominated parliamentary elections in Chechnya as predicted, winning around 60 percent of the votes.

EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini has warned that any European Union nation found to have allowed secret CIA prison camps to operate on their soil could have their EU voting rights suspended.

A number of European countries have opened inquiries into alleged CIA plane landings, including Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden.

...many in Congress want more answers.

...an Evangelical Christian Looks at Bush's Skull and Bones Initiation

Saddam Hussein harangued the judge at the second session of his trial on Monday before it was adjourned to grant co-defendants time to find new counsel after one of their lawyers was killed and another fled Iraq.

After less than three hours of hearings, including videotaped testimony from a witness who has since died, Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin ordered a one-week adjournment until December 5, just 10 days before Iraq holds parliamentary elections.

...for about $100 Web sites will sell the last 100 phone numbers you have dialed to anyone who knows your phone number.

The Web sites are not illegal, according to the report.

...dolphins "produced 317 distinct forms of play behavior during the five years that they were observed"
...dolphin games show remarkable cooperation and creativity.
Dolphins seem to deliberately make their games difficult, possibly in order to learn from them. And such pastimes may play a key role in the development of culture and in evolution?both among dolphins and other species, including humans.

"We did it just to make a point. Tell them to stop lying, Bush and Cheney,"
"Bring our soldiers home."
"Was it not freedom of speech? Yes or No?"

Time Reporter Viveca Novak has been subpoenaed to the grand jury investigating the leak of the indentity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald is interested in her testimony about conversations she had with Rove lawyer Robert Luskin beginning in May, 2004.

Some stories are almost impossible to contemplate. This is one of them.

Col. Ted Westhusing, a military ethicist who volunteered to go to Iraq, was upset by what he saw. His apparent suicide raises questions.

George W. Bush is so desperate for allies that his hapless Asian tour took him to Ulan Bator, a first for an American president, so he could mingle with the yaks and give personal thanks for Mongolia's contribution of some 160 soldiers to "the coalition of the willing."
Dick Cheney, whose honest-and-ethical poll number hit 29 percent in Newsweek's latest survey, is so radioactive that he vanished into his bunker for weeks at a time during the storms Katrina and Scootergate.

The whole world can see that both men are on the run.

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace argued this morning that President Bush never tried to link al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

Sick 'initiation' of rookie marines

A young Royal Marine is FORCED into a barbaric naked fight with another recruit and then KICKED unconscious by a superior in a brutal booze-fuelled initiation ceremony.

...the shocking ritual-covertly filmed by a commando-is alleged to be one of many imposed on recruits.

WARNING: THIS FILM CONTAINS SCENES OF VIOLENCE AND NUDITY.

Researchers at the University of Utah have discovered that when a gene called smedwi-2 is silenced in the adult stem cells of planarians, the quarter-inch long worm is unable to carry out a biological process that has mystified scientists for centuries: regeneration.

Recurrent or unremitting fear has the same deleterious effects on the human body that running persistently at 80 to 100 miles per hour has on a car. Many illnesses are more likely to occur as a result, including heart disease, stroke and depression. Thus, we should focus our efforts on avoiding the ordinary killers such as heart attacks that develop as a result of our unremitting worries rather than extraordinary occurrences or exotic diseases. Consider: in 2001 terrorists killed 2,978 people in the U.S., including five from anthrax attacks. That same year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease killed 700,142; cancer, 553,768; accidents, 101,537; and suicide, 30,622. Murders (not including 9/11) accounted for only 17,330 deaths.

To conquer fear we must return it to its primitive place as an instinct reserved for protecting us from true physical dangers. We must stop overpersonalizing it. We must resist those in the media and elsewhere who highlight the wrong dangers and hype the need to respond--making the threat seem even more real. We must regain our footing by exerting order over controllable aspects of our lives. We must replace our unreal fears with real courage.

Why is the world's most powerful man so worried about a TV station?

There are two torture debates going on in America today: One is about fantasy, and the other is about reality.

The measure "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies."
The Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."

"This is deeply shocking. What is happening in the UK is of such magnitude that is has created anger in Amnesty as a worldwide movement. The UK has been at the forefront of establishing international law and helping human rights. It is in danger of simply throwing that away and I don't think backbenchers and the public realise that."

A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.

On 17 November 2005, the Attorney General (AG) submitted a motion to the Supreme Court of Israel on behalf of the Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, and the Chief of the Israeli Army, Dan Halutz, requesting a second hearing before the Supreme Court in the "human shields" case. The AG argued that the Supreme Court's recent decision created a new legal precedent, which will have a negative and harmful effect on the military's operations in the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territories, that it is legally flawed, and that a second hearing before an expanded panel of the Court to re-consider the decision is justified under these circumstances.

Iran?s hard-line president called for the Bush administration to be tried on war crimes charges related to Iraq and denounced the West for its stance on Iran?s controversial nuclear programme, state-run television reported today.

"You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq should be tried as war criminals in courts."

"They speak as if they are the lords of the world."

These attacks are too well-focused at specific groups, such as: ~ Christians in churches, Muslims in mosques, trucks carrying female Marines, an entire sniper squad, hospitals, etc. These precision attacks require detailed knowledge of convoy routes and, employment of sophisticated explosives and advanced timing devices, as well as total mainstream media control to ensure that the desired psychological and physical aftermath of the attacks, become reality.

Israel says insurgents infiltrated Marines.

The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House.

As secrecy aids the blood flow of those in power, so combating it aids those seeking to improve the flow of public debate. Presented with a scoop, the reporter does not stop and ask whether it might embarrass a prime minister. Embarrassment starts from the moment the reporter knows it, for his task is to pass what he knows into the public domain.

But separatists and human rights groups have dismissed the vote as a farce because of continuing violence.

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Chechnya says the polling stations he was able to visit were memorable for their absence of voters and for the presence of armed guards.

Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws - namely, the Patriot Act - to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans.

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

A twin-engine plane carrying President George W. Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, made an emergency landing in Nashville on Saturday when smoke was detected in the cockpit, officials said.

A key witness in the trial of those charged over the assassination of Venezuelan state prosecutor Danilo Anderson has identified FBI and CIA agents as being involved in planning his death.

A few months ago, retired Army Lt. General William Odom called the war in Iraq, "the greatest strategic disaster in American history". Since then, he?s added to his criticism saying that, "The army is broken" and "we need a basic strategic change of direction" or "we?re going to pay a higher and higher price over a longer period of time."

Masato Tashiro, head of virology at Tokyo's National Institute of Infectious Disease - a WHO-collaborating centre for bird flu - showed a slide at a meeting of virologists in Marburg, Germany, on 19 November listing "several dozen" outbreaks in people, 300 deaths, 3000 people placed in isolation, and seven human-to-human transmissions. The meeting was reported in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Running water was restored to a major Chinese city of 3.8 million on Sunday following a five-day shutdown caused by a chemical spill, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Sea levels around the world are rising twice as fast as they were 150 years ago because of human-induced global warming.
Sea levels are now rising almost 2mm per year, compared to 1mm annually for the last several thousand years, a team of scientists at Rutgers University and other institutions said.

An earthquake measuring at least magnitude-5.9 shook a sparsely populated area of southern Iran on Sunday, flattening seven villages and killing 10 people, officials said. The temblor was felt as far away as Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti and other younger activists swept Fatah primaries.

Satellite images could help determine if the CIA ran secret prisons in Europe, according to a Swiss lawmaker who is drawing up a report on the issue for the Council of Europe human rights watchdog.

"With the help of precise geographic coordinates which I have obtained, it would be possible to obtain high-definition satellite images taken between the beginning of 2002 and now."

...an Internet-based system that facilitates ad hoc brainstorming sessions (called Exchanges) that individuals and organizations around the world can join. Users (called Participants) of ideologi can either submit answers to a countless number of active Exchanges, or submit their own questions to initiate an Exchange within ideologi....

One man said he had been whipped with a cable and then had salt rubbed in the wound, while another said his captors had tried to pull out his toenails.

...according to estimates by Vatican investigators, one in 10 of Brazil's priests was involved in some form of sexual misdemeanour.
Paedophilia trial reveals vulnerability of the poor.

A newsreader from one of the last remaining television stations openly critical of the Kremlin has been ordered off the air.

...security men in black uniforms prevented her from entering the news studio of Ren TV.

US troops who burned the corpses of two suspected Taleban fighters killed in a gun battle in Afghanistan committed no crime, military investigators say.

...a stinging indictment of the 9/11 commission and of Pentagon authorities blocking the testimony of key military officers as to foreknowledge of vital information on the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. Justice Department's probe of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is broader than previously thought, examining his dealings with four lawmakers, former and current congressional aides and two former Bush administration officials, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Video

One US research group estimates there to be some eight to 15 secret detention sites throughout the world in at least eight countries. It's believed that detainees are being moved from site to site to evade public knowledge and scrutiny and that foreign intelligence agents are being used to extract information, usually through torture and ill-treatment.

Besides the repetitive playing of rap music, they have been made to talk by harsh treatment that includes water boarding, in which water is poured over the face to make them think they are drowning.
The inmates rarely see daylight, and the CIA gives them the bare minimum to make sure they do not die in U.S. custody. That includes the cans of Ensure and shots of vitamin B12.

A year after the U.S.-led "Operation Phantom Fury" damaged or destroyed 36,000 homes, 60 schools and 65 mosques in Fallujah, Iraq, residents inside the city continue to suffer from lack of compensation, slow reconstruction and high rates of illness.

The Study Centre for Human Rights and Democracy based in Fallujah (SCHRD) estimates the number of people killed in the city during the U.S.-led operation in October and November 2004 at 4,000 to 6,000, most of them civilians. Mass graves were dug on the outskirts of the city for thousands of the bodies.

Poland will pull its troops out of Iraq in 2006 but it may move the deadline for withdrawal from January to mid-year.

The troops are part of the Polish contingent in Iraq.
Another 50 Lithuanian troops that are part of the Dutch contingent will remain there.

Los Angeles Times ---> A teenager critically wounded that day, speaking about the incident for the first time, said in an interview that police shot him for no reason, delivering a final bullet at point-blank range with what he thought was an assault rifle. Members of another family said one of those killed was mentally disabled, a childlike innocent who made a rare foray from home in a desperate effort to find relief from the flood.

John Pilger ---> The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge." The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and information and to the World Wide Web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power.

The US military ran a Guantanamo Bay-type detention centre in Kosovo, a top Council of Europe official said.

The Council of Europe's Human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles said he had been 'shocked' by conditions at the barbed wire-rimmed centre inside a US military base.

"I do believe that an explanation should be given for this base in Kosovo, as for other potentially suspect sites' in Europe"

Evidence linking Padilla to 'dirty bomb' plot may have been obtained under 'harsh questioning.'

Are you and Laura going to hit the sack tonight and toss and turn or stare out of the window worried that Jenna or Barbara may be killed in Iraq? Are you going to jump at every single ringing of the telephone, or hearts beating wildly run to every knock at the door; fearing the Angel of Death in an Army uniform? I didn't think so.

If one is to believe the media reports of late, it would appear that all eyes are turning toward Syria as the next "terrorist" nation to find themselves in the cross-hairs of the neo-con juggernaut. Not long ago, I was presenting the evidence of a probable "preemptive" or "retaliatory" strike in the making upon the Islamic Republic of Iran, and long before that, I was guessing Syria. I suppose it really doesn't matter who draws the short straw. They're both on the Administration's short list, and their day is coming soon enough.

At least 14 people died, hundreds more were injured and thousands of houses collapsed when a magnitude-5.7 earthquake struck near a popular tourist destination in east China on Saturday, officials said.

The nightmare of nuclear war in Europe - a spectre that haunted the world for half a century - stood revealed yesterday in terrible detail.

News organizations in the U.K. can no longer report the contents of the al-Jazeera Bombing memo.
...a report from London's Channel 4 News questions this first and historic use of the Official Secrets Act against the press. Their reporting concludes that White House pressure led to the threat of legal action against The Daily Mirror.

A blog by Al Jazeera Staffers

During the High Court case yesterday, Rabinder Singh QC, representing the bereaved families, asked Mr Justice Collins to grant permission for a ground-breaking legal challenge against a government refusal in May to hold an "effective, independent public inquiry".

A chart-topping singer, involved in Brazil's campaign against HIV/Aids, has been barred from performing in front of Pope Benedict XVI because of her views on contraception.

A 1997 study by the US Department of Agriculture estimated that the US wastes about 43 billion kilograms of food a year. That is about 27 per cent of US production, but the true figure is as much as 50 per cent, according to ten years of research by Timothy Jones at the University of Arizona.

...shops throw out the most food to keep their offerings fresh.

A key witness against Saddam Hussein has died of cancer, but his testimony has been recorded on audio and video tape for presentation in the trial scheduled to begin next week.

...oh...what a pity.
...Well..."the key-witness-tape" will do just fine.

A former Canadian Minister of Defence has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on with Alien "ET" Civilizations. Paul Hellyer, Canada's Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."
Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."
"Now is the time for open disclosure that there are ethical Extraterrestrial civilizations visiting Earth," a spokesperson for the Non-Governmental Organizations stated. "Our Canadian government needs to openly address these important issues of the possible deployment of weapons in outer space and war plans against ethical Extraterrestrial societies."

As temperatures plummet in China?s north-eastern province of Heilongjiang on Friday, millions of residents in the city of Harbin remain without water as authorities evacuate hundreds of villagers living along the contaminated Songhua River.

"If it stays there for a certain length of time, the land beside the river will absorb the chemicals and they could get into the food chain," said Mr Gao. "If the contamination was bad, it could take several years to eradicate the chemicals."

On the 9th of December 2005, a Denver woman is scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court. Her crime: refusing to show ID on a public bus. At stake is nothing less than the right of Americans to travel freely in their own country.

Cindy Sheehan Resumes War Protest Near President Bush's Crawford Ranch.

Chris Floyd ---> This poison has gone deep into the American bloodstream, and its virulence has been increased a thousandfold by the current regime. Bush's exit won't cure the body politic of this wasting disease.

...a revolutionary technology - holographic media.
With uncompressed storage capacities achieving 1.6 TeraBytes per disk and data rates as high as 120 MBPs

"Holographic media makes it possible for millions of pages of information and high definition images to be held on one small, relatively inexpensive disc."

"...a half million 300-page books can be stored on a single disc."

One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl: 'The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him.'

The $100 bills were all new. They came wrapped in plastic and loaded on wooden pallets . Altogether, the money weighed 15 tons, enough to fill three U.S. military helicopters. It totaled $1.4 billion.

In a little-known operation during the final days of the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, American military helicopters flew the shipment of cash to Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan?s largest city.

The United Nations envoy who investigates torture allegations said the United States has "something to hide" at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the German weekly Die Zeit reported in its latest edition.

Uzbekistan has told the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that it can no longer use its territory or airspace for the peacekeeping mission in neighbouring Afghanistan, NATO officials said on Wednesday.

Russia on Thursday said it was ready to enter into an unprecedented nuclear deal with Iran aimed at breaking the deadlock in the international dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.
Under the deal, Iran would be allowed to convert uranium inside Iran under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but send it to Russia for enrichment.

...in Bolivia, a man named Evo Morales represents another incarnation of the spirit of Simon Bolivar, as he fights to squelch US imperial interests in his nation. Standing on the brink of winning the presidency in the elections scheduled for December, Morales represents the next link in the chain of fierce Latin American resistance to US exploitation of their people and resources.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is pleased to announce that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton will be the Keynote Speaker at the annual ZOA Louis Brandeis Award Dinner. He will also receive ZOA?s Defender of Israel award.

For the last few days we have been reading some flattering reports concerning the latest political moves of Sharon undertaken in his newly born peace loving persona. Sharon, a notorious war criminal, a man who has managed to prove time after time that he is totally lacking in any sense of moral guard or ethical consideration, has now managed to convince the Western media that he is the Israeli ?voice of responsibility?. Make no mistake, Sharon and the Israeli people are indeed devoted ?peace? lovers, yet, it is rather critically important to mention that the Israeli notion of peace is pretty remote from any notion of peace familiar to the rest of humanity.

Current levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the last 650,000 years.

That is the conclusion of new European studies looking at ice taken from 3km below the surface of Antarctica.

The scientists say their research shows present day warming to be exceptional.

November,1986
---------------

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts

thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison

thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger

thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot

thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes

thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through

thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces

thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers

thanks for laboratory AIDS

thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs

thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business

thanks for a nation of finks - yes, thanks for all the memories... all right, let's see your arms... you always were a headache and you always were a bore

thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

Could the president of the United States have conceivably believed it would have been a good idea to blow up the offices of a news organization that is respected in much of the Arab world, killing innocent people in the process?

The European Union has severely criticised Israeli policies in east Jerusalem, saying they demonstrate a clear intention to consolidate Israel's annexation of the Arab half of the city. The criticisms are in a report presented to EU foreign ministers this week but not yet publicly released.

Israel expressed serious concerns about the report.
...said the report amounted to an anti-Israel position.

Some of us thought it was all about the dissemination of the institutions of a civil society - above all a free press, in which journalists could work without fear of being murdered. Then we heard about the Bush plan to blow up al-Jazeera.

Following intense US pressure, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday issued an unprecedented condemnation of Monday's Hizbullah attacks on northern Israel.

Israeli officials expressed satisfaction that the statement did not include any attempt to "balance it," referring to Israel's response to the Hizbullah attack, and that for the first time ever it placed full responsibility for the violence on Hizbullah's shoulders.

...a lack of curiosity appears particularly evident among the nation's three largest newspapers.

The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair took place at a time when Whitehall officials, intelligence officers, and British military commanders were expressing outrage at the scale of the US assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, in which up to 1,000 civilians are feared to have died. Pictures of the attack shown on al-Jazeera had infuriated US generals. The government was also arguing with Washington about the number of extra British troops to be sent to Iraq at a time when it was feared they would be endangered by what a separately leaked Foreign Office memo called "heavy-handed" US military tactics.

"Israeli activities in Jerusalem are in violation of both its Roadmap (peace plan) obligations and international law."

Islam is often looked upon as a "extremist", "terrorist", or "fundamental" religion. Many people hate Islam and do not want to acknowledge its true teachings. In many cases, the media?s reports about Islam are incorrect due to ignorance. This is one of the reasons why the West often hates Islam. In contrast to what many Westerners think of Islam, Islam is a peaceful religion, which does not promote any forms of uncalled for fighting or "terrorist" actions.

...there are three Islamic countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey) that have had female heads of states. In contrast, most Westerns nations such as the United States, "who condemn Islamic countries for their oppression of women, have yet to see a non-white, male president, let alone a female"

"...if the Western powers begin to appreciate the legitimacy of grievances in the Middle East, the West and Islamic movements will get along peacefully"

There is a close connection between the rise of genetic engineering and mixing of viruses in the early 1970s and the outbreak of HIV in the late 1970s. This connection persists in the form of the many unprecedented "emerging diseases" caused by "new viruses" that continue up to the present time.

The US yesterday threatened to block a record-breaking arms deal under which Spain would sell ships and aircraft to Venezuela.

In George W. Bush?s America, protest and free speech are illegal acts.

History shows us that government attempts to silence its citizens leads to tyranny. America, however, has a long and proud history of rising up against tyranny ? something the White House should remember as it continues to try and stifle lawful protests guaranteed by the Constitution.

The Sydney Morning Herald ---> The twin towers did not fall because aircraft hit them. Demolition explosive charges made them collapse.

Did a plane actually hit the Pentagon? Photos taken on September 11, 2001, show no cabin, no tail and no engines.

...a September 2000 document called Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, produced by a neo-conservative think tank, Project for the New American Century - it argued for a dramatic build-up in US military spending, but warned this transformation "is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbour".

Physicists suspect they have created the first molecules from atoms that meld matter with antimatter.

The annual Thanksgiving Day proclamation Bush issued captured the paradoxical American commitments to observing religious freedom for all while surviving as one nation under God. In his version of the ritual document originated by the Founding Fathers, Bush asked God "to watch over America."

The former diplomat who claimed the name of his CIA agent wife was leaked by the White House in an attempt to smear him today said Tony Blair had been "double-crossed" by Bush aides in the run-up to the Iraq war.

No matter how painful the facts raised by this site may be, we -- as patriotic Americans and people of good faith -- must look at the evidence for ourselves.

...the majority of Internet users in the world are file-sharers. Under this proposal, their privacy would be stripped away under the same rubric used to hunt terrorists.

...the CIA devised "no touch" torture methods. "Although seemingly less brutal, 'no touch' torture leaves deep psychological scars on both victims and interrogators," writes Alfred W. McCoy, professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The victims often need long treatment to recover from trauma far more crippling than physical pain. The perpetrators can suffer a dangerous expansion of ego, leading to escalating cruelty and lasting emotional problems." As Abu Ghraib vividly demonstrates, the "no touch" methods were abandoned, ostensibly at Cheney?s behest, for the "escalating cruelty" of rape and the Black and Decker technique.

Charges include murdering medical personnel, attacking ambulances, and destroying hospitals in Fallujah.

Fox News is refusing to air an advertisement critical of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, citing its lawyers' contention that the spot is factually incorrect.

In Bhutan, the word that means "greed" also means "poison." They've given up on trying to keep up with Western Civilization....in fact, they never did try to keep up. Instead of 'gross national product," (GNP), they measure their country's success by something called GNH....Gross National Happiness. In fact, their official greeting is "Tashi Delek!" which means "Good Luck!"

How Americans Feel Living Under this Bush Presidency

Corruption has always been part of our political system - the money, access and power attainable through shady deals and pay-to-play schemes is often too enticing to resist. But the culture of corruption that swept into Washington with the appointment of George W. Bush is a sight to behold. The tentacles of corruption have spread throughout the GOP and now that the bagman is under investigation, Republicans are running for cover.

Saleh al-Fuqahaa was killed when soldiers fired to disperse a crowd throwing stones at an Israeli patrol.
At least 11 Palestinians, including schoolchildren, and three Israelis were wounded during the raid.

Europe's top human rights watchdog stepped up its probe into alleged secret CIA detention centers Wednesday, while more EU governments were investigating possible CIA flights across their countries.

Evidence that humans are pushing up global temperatures is growing ever stronger, ranging from a shrinking of ice in the Arctic to a warming of the Indian Ocean, many experts say.

BYU Physics professor Steven Jones has stated that the government agency tasked with examining the collapse of the World Trade Centers did NOT investigate any anomalies in the collapse of the buildings, failing to even examine any evidence regarding the buildings' impossible near free-fall speeds and symmetrical collapses, apparent demolition squibs, the fact that the buildings turned to dust in mid-air, the presence of molten metal in the basement areas in large pools in all of the buildings, or the unexplained straightening out of the upper 34 floors of the South Tower after they had precipitously leaned over and started toppling like a tree.


Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?
By Steven E. Jones
Department of Physics and Astronomy

Officials from Venezuela and Massachusetts have signed a deal to provide cheap heating oil to low-income homes in the US state.

The Vice President, who used multiple deferments to avoid serving his country during the Vietnam conflict, jumped into the fray big time last week and again on Monday with an acrid broadside against those who properly question the President?s motives for dragging the country into the bloody dead-end called Iraq.

Re-writing history may be wrong, but reviewing it is instructive. The record shows that Bush and Cheney's claims that they were duped by bad intelligence are disingenuous.

The attorney general last night threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed the contents of a document allegedly relating to a dispute between Tony Blair and George Bush over the conduct of military operations in Iraq.

Up to $US194 billion ($263 billion) in Iraqi oil revenues are going to multinational oil companies under long-term contracts, and not to the Iraqi people, a social and environmental group said.

Bloggers were recently arrested in Paris for daring to write that they were sympathetic with the social plight of the young people who were rioting at that time.
There is evidently a new get tough policy aimed at bloggers and other Internet freedom lovers who use the 'net as a vehicle for expressing their views and beliefs on what's happening in the world today.

"There have been many things swept under the carpet."

"...we may monitor your communications, if we consider it necessary..."

Israeli President Moshe Katsav says he has signed an order calling early elections for 28 March 2006 and dissolving parliament.

President George W. Bush was informed 10 days after the September 11, 2001 attacks that US intelligence had no proof of links between Iraq and that act of terror, The National Journal reported.

Citing government documents as well as past and present Bush administration officials, the magazine said the president was briefed on September 21, 2001 that evidence of cooperation between Iraq and the Al-Qaeda terror network was insufficient.

In phone messages obtained by ABC News, Jackson likens Jews to "leeches" and claims they conspired to leave him "penniless."
"They suck...they're like leeches...I'm so tired of it," Jackson tells former adviser Dieter Wiesner. "The Jews do it on purpose."

Russia's lower house of parliament today took the first step toward approval of a bill that would prevent foreign-funded rights groups from operating in the country - a move sure to heighten criticism of President Vladimir Putin's commitment to democracy.

China's Health Ministry said that the latest fatality - a 35-year-old farmer identified only by her surname, Xu - died on Tuesday after developing a fever and pneumonia-like symptoms following contact with sick and dead poultry.

Police arrested about a dozen protesters near US President George W. Bush's Texas ranch, including the sister of a noted opponent of the war in Iraq, witnesses said.

Among those detained near Bush's Prairie Chapel estate, where he was spending the Thanksgiving holiday, was Dede Miller, sister of Cindy Sheehan.

The administration has refused to provide the Sept. 21/01 President's Daily Brief, even on a classified basis, and won't say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.

A civil servant has been charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a government memo that a newspaper said Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded President Bush not to bomb the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.

...the Pentagon does refer to white phosphorus rounds as chemical weapons - at least if they're used by our enemies.

They would survive if they had proper nourishment, the agency says in a new report on world hunger.

...how much do we spend on military?

A thorough, documented, criminal indictment of George Herbert Walker Bush, establishing beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt as a supervisor in the conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy.

It is feared that thousands of bomblets lie unexploded in Iraq, capable of maiming or killing innocent civilians. This week, more than two years after they were dropped, Britain is finally being held to account

Japan will once again have a "military" in name, six decades after the United States stripped the country of the right to keep armed forces, in the first revision of the post-World War II constitution.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an alert Monday about a scam involving unsolicited e-mails, purportedly sent by the FBI, that tell computer users that their Internet surfing is being monitored by the agency.

Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held in a Navy brig as an enemy combatant for more than three years, was charged Tuesday with being part of a North American terrorist cell that sent money and recruits overseas to "murder, maim and kidnap."

However, absent from the indictment were the sensational allegations made earlier by top Justice Department officials: that Padilla sought to blow up U.S. hotels and apartment buildings and planned an attack on America with a radiological "dirty bomb."

Bushies, attempting to silence war critics, resort to intimidation.

A top U.S. Air Force general said Sunday that reports of civilian casualties in Iraq as a result of American military action were exaggerated.

Vice President Dick Cheney had his face covered by a mysterious giant "X" during CNN's live coverage of his speech from the American Enterprise Institute yesterday.

...Mr.Cheney didn't provide any evidence supporting his claim.

In a speech to political science students at the University of Toronto, the host of the CNBC current affairs show Hardball, Chris Matthews, had plenty of harsh words for U.S. President George W. Bush, as well as the political climate that has characterized his country for the last few years.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with two leading national class action law firms, today filed a lawsuit against Sony BMG, demanding that the company repair the damage done by the First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax software it included on over 24 million music CDs.

Modern History You Can't Afford to Ignore --->

"We feel this school is connected to suffering and death for the people of Latin America - a school that is paid for with our tax money," said SOA Watch founder Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest. "We are saying, 'Not in our name.'"

According to the magazine reports, the outgoing government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder acceded to the Israeli government's requests, and even agreed to pay about a third of the cost of the submarines. Construction of the submarines, which will take place at the shipyards in Kiel, will cost around 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion), of which a third will be financed by the German government.

How much longer will Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld be able to ignore the growing clamor in Congress over the Able Danger ?information warfare? controversy? Rumsfeld never responded to letters regarding the matter sent weeks ago by House Armed Services Committee heads Duncan Hunter and Curt Weldon. Now Weldon has secured the signatures of hundreds of colleagues from both sides of the aisle to yet another letter demanding that Rumsfeld allow Able Danger whistleblowers like Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer to tell the story of how they identified Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers a year before the worst terror attacks ever on US soil.

Pentagon documents show that Rendon has the highest level of government clearance (above Top Secret), which helped it with its INC work - "a worldwide media blitz designed to turn Hussein?into the greatest threat to world peace."

U.S. forces mistakenly fired on a civilian vehicle outside an American base in a city north of Baghdad on Monday, killing three people, including a child, the military said.

All of the Bush administration's junkyard dogs are out on the attack, feigning righteous indignation that anyone would suggest that they manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people.

Iraqi leaders reached a tentative agreement Monday to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from their war-torn country.

Those who follow the American occupation of Iraq news may be familiar with a term used in media almost two years ago: The Triangle of Death, an area south of Baghdad, which constitutes of three relatively small towns; Yosfiya, Mahmoodiya and Latifiya. Of course it has nothing to do with death; on the contrary it is situated in one of the greenest, most beautiful and peaceful areas of Iraq, full of fruit orchards, vegetable farms where the Tigris and the Euphrates and many smaller canals flow calmly through the rural areas and hundreds of small villages.

...the Bush administration played the fear card with unbelievable effectiveness. For years, with its companion "war on terror", it trumped every other card in the American political deck. With an absurd system for color-coding dangers to Americans, the president, vice president and the highest officials in this land were able to paint the media a "high" incendiary orange and the Democrats an "elevated" bright yellow, functionally sidelining them.

Bush said Mongolia has stood with the United States as "brothers in the cause of freedom."

"Like the ideology of communism, the ideology of Islamic radicalism is destined to fail - because the will to power is no match for the universal desire to live in freedom," Bush said.

UNAids says there are an estimated 40.3m people currently living with the virus across the world, with almost 5m infected in 2005.

And it warns there are growing epidemics in Eastern Europe and Central and East Asia.

He also said senators and others now accusing President George W. Bush of misleading Americans into war were guilty of "revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety".

Devotees claim that Ram Bomjon, who is silently meditating beneath a tree, has not eaten or drunk anything since he sat down at his chosen spot six months ago.
Witnesses say they have seen light emanating from the teenager's forehead.

Washington and its European allies will forgo pushing for Iran's referral to the U.N. Security Council later this week, giving Russia more time in persuading Tehran to give up technology that could make nuclear arms, diplomats and officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

Americans will no longer import poultry products from the B.C. mainland until they get a full assessment of the situation in the five kilometre area around the affected farm.

Under circumstances such as this, Evans says countries could ban poultry products from an entire country, a distinct region like a province, or a closely affected area.

The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them "zealots" who claim a "monopoly on God".

The three-day conference in London, this Saturday through Monday, also brings together international legal and medical experts and leading human rights campaigners to inform and encourage action against torture and the practices that lead to it, such as secret detentions and renditions.

State officials have asked the CBS television show "60 Minutes" to postpone Sunday's scheduled segment highlighting a scientist's allegations that New Orleans is sinking and that residents should be induced to leave the city.

Top Bush Administration officials realize that if Democrats regain control of Congress; real investigations would start, with hearings and evidence, and witnesses-testifying under oath. That would mean certain impeachment; and if there is any justice in the world: indefinite imprisonment in a cage at Camp X-Ray with no "due process of law" - just the way they like it.

Police in Thailand say two bombs have exploded in the Muslim majority south of the country, wounding 12 people.
They say one bomb exploded in a restaurant and the second one nearby.

Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon has decided to quit his Likud Party and set up a new party for upcoming general elections, Army Radio reported late Sunday.

Global disaster will follow if the ice cap on Greenland melts. Now scientists say it is vanishing far faster than even they expected.

The disclosure, in The Los Angeles Times, came after a week of vitriolic debate on Iraq, amid growing demands for a speedy withdrawal of US troops and tirades from Bush spokesmen who all but branded as a traitor anyone who suggested that intelligence was deliberately skewed to make the case for war.

Yesterday Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, joined the fray, saying that talk of manipulation of intelligence "does great disservice to the country".

In Beijing, President George Bush said that a speedy pullout was "a recipe for disaster"

The Israeli assault on the chances of the Palestinian people to lead normal lives is evident in millions of different ways. Here, a family is hurt, there, a village. Here it's from ammunition, there from settlers, here it's a new military order. A lot of it is reported on our side, but spread out. The assault is intensified gradually. But the overall totality of the damage is not felt, because of the way it is gradually applied, dispersed over large areas.

British-trained police operating in Basra have tortured at least two civilians to death with electric drills, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Col Tim Collins, the controversial Iraq war commander, trained his soldiers to use white phosphorus, which burns through flesh to the bone, in combat against enemy troops.

The admission by the former Special Air Service officer, revealed in his autobiography Rules of Engagement, contradicts claims by the Ministry of Defence that the chemical was only ever used to create a smokescreen.

The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims before the Iraq war.

The Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, may have been killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Irked by a reporter who told him he seemed to be "off his game" at a Beijing public appearance, President George W. Bush sought to make a hasty exit from a news conference but was thwarted by locked doors.

...recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also committing terrorist murders against U.S. citizens on American soil, and then blaming it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba.

Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence ---> "The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money."

Pentagon intelligence sources are reporting that the situation on the ground is "out of control." Reports of "bestial" treatment involving U.S. personnel, private mercenaries from at least 25 countries, and Iraqi government forces are flooding out of Iraq. The "bestial" treatment includes rape, torture, sodomizing of children, and the gratuitous murder of innocent civilians.

It is time to start waving the bloody shirt. There is no longer any doubt that the men that the United States has installed in power in Iraq are monsters. Not only that, but they are monsters armed, trained and supported by George W. Bush's administration. The very same Bush administration that defends torture of captives in the so-called War on Terrorism is using 150,000 U.S. troops to support a regime in Baghdad for which torture, assassination and other war crimes are routine.

In his speech to last spring's National Media Reform Conference in St. Louis, Bill Moyers accused the Bush Administration not merely of attacking his highly regarded PBS program NOW but of declaring war on journalism itself. "We're seeing unfold a contemporary example of the age-old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable," explained Moyers.

Chris Floyd ---> Four years ago, President George W. Bush quietly assumed dictatorial powers with a secret executive order granting himself the right to imprison anyone on earth indefinitely, without charges or trial or indictment or evidence, simply by declaring them an "enemy combatant," on his say-so alone. This week, the assemblage of bootlickers and bagmen that befoul the U.S. Senate voted to codify the core of this global autocracy under the pretense of curtailing it.

With great self-fluffing fanfare, the Senate passed two measures ostensibly designed to stem the flood of torture and tyranny issuing from the White House. But the twinned amendments to a military spending bill have the curious effect of canceling each other out: The anti-torture measure leaves Bush's tyranny intact, while the anti-tyranny measure will allow torture to continue unabated. This switcheroo, we are told by one of the scam's sponsors, "will re-establish moral high ground for the United States," The Washington Post reports.

Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war...

ABC News ---> Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors.
...they are revealing specific details of the techniques, and their impact on confessions, because the public needs to know the direction their agency has chosen. All gave their accounts on the condition that their names and identities not be revealed.

Nearly half of Americans believe that the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain information is justified, according to a survey published on Thursday by the Pew Research Centre in Washington.

The House bill, also trimmed other social programs for the poor in an effort to reduce federal spending by $50 billion.

"The spread of democracy will make the Middle East a safer neighborhood for Israel. An American retreat from Iraq, on the other hand, would only strengthen the terrorists who seek the enslavement of Iraq and the eventual destruction of Israel," said Hadley.

Kurt Vonnegut, author of the 1969 anti-war classic Slaughterhouse Five, made the provocative remarks during an interview in New York for his new book, Man Without a Country, a collection of writings critical of US President George W. Bush.

"They are dying for their own self-respect," he said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."

On the Iraq war, he said: "What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back."

The venomous exchanges yesterday were provoked by the demand of John Murtha, the vastly experienced Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman and decorated Vietnam veteran, for an immediate withdrawal of the 160,000 US soldiers in Iraq, ending what he termed "a flawed policy wrapped in an illusion". His call, coming from one of the most hawkish Democrats in the House and an expert on military matters, created a sensation here. In a blistering response, Denis Hastert, the Republican speaker of the House, accused Mr Murtha of giving comfort to the enemy.

Faced with US torture, killing and collective punishment of civilians, support for the Iraqi resistance is growing.

We'll soon know the answer: A NASA/Stanford physics experiment called Gravity Probe B (GP-B) recently finished a year of gathering science data in Earth orbit. The results, which will take another year to analyze, should reveal the shape of space-time around Earth--and, possibly, the vortex.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, on Thursday revealed he would continue to investigate the matter with a new grand jury, a move believed to be linked to evidence given by the veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward earlier this week.

Mr Fitzgerald's decision to call a new grand jury, seen by legal experts as an important development, will keep an uncomfortable spotlight focused on the White House already dealing with mounting popular discontent with the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush's handling of pre-war intelligence.

THE mysterious source who gave America?s foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at the centre of one of Washington?s biggest political storms was Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according to lawyers close to the investigation.

An earthquake with a magnitude of at least 6.2 struck off the coast of Sumatra on Saturday, triggering a tsunami alert and prompting some residents to flee their homes, officials said.

Bush flew in from South Korea Saturday, where he had attended the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and held talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun.

The US president was due to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao Sunday before leaving for Mongolia Monday.

Former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts expressed his dire warning that the US government has fallen into the hands of psychopaths and that the Neo-Cons in the Bush administration may be set to stage another terror attack in the US as part of a black operation to demolish growing dissent and coerce the public to rally behind the government once again.

Police would be able to demand all cellphone, Blackberry and Internet subscriber information without a warrant, under a sweeping surveillance bill introduced in Parliament yesterday.

Saddam Hussein was attacked by two court clerks while undergoing questioning for his trial, Iraqi television has reported.

The commission aims to both frame and fuel a society-wide discussion of whether, or not, the administration of George W. Bush is guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other high crimes. It will do this by bringing the truth to light, and by applying exacting standards, to determine if unpardonable crimes have been committed. With a deep sense of responsibility to the people of the world, we have to seize this moment -- a time to change how people see and think about the Bush administration and its actions.

WARNING

The pictures are very disturbing and should only be viewed by a mature audience

In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians

Newly declassified documents from the Nixon years shed light on the Vietnam War, the struggle with the Soviet Union for global influence and a president who tried not to let public and congressional opinion get in his way.

"Publicly, we say one thing," he told aides. "Actually, we do another."

some key Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), have unearthed unreported evidence that indicates Congress was misled. This evidence includes Tenet?s testimony before Congress, dissenting views from the scientific community and statements made by members of the administration in early 2001.

"If further changes are not made, we will work to stop this bill from becoming law," the six wrote the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

Why did the 9/11 Commission ignore "Able Danger"?

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is dedicated to phasing out the human race in the interest of the health of the Earth, founder Les Knight told Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle.

"Wherever humans live, not much else lives," Knight said. "It isn't that we're evil and want to kill everything -- it's just how we live."

DuPont Co. hid studies showing the risks of a Teflon-related chemical used to line candy wrappers, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags and hundreds of other food containers, according to internal company documents and a former employee.

The chemical Zonyl can rub off the liner and get into food. Once in a person?s body, it can break down into perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts, known as PFOA, a related chemical used in the making of Teflon-coated cookware.

...indicted for eight charges of fraud by Chicago prosecutors with offences that carry a 40-year jail sentence.

...senators who had suggested that the Bush administration manipulated prewar intelligence were making "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."

A tense dispute over US control of the Internet in the run-up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) could eventually lead to the break-up of the global network and hamper seamless browsing, officials warned.

"The idea that the Internet is an unregulated haven, these days are finished," a source close to the talks said.

The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world behind closed doors. Not a word of what is said at Bilderberg meetings can be breathed outside. Meetings often feature future political leaders shortly before they become household names. Bill Clinton went in 1991 while still governor of Arkansas, Tony Blair was there two years later while still an opposition MP. Private networks like Bilderberg have helped to oil the wheels of global politics and globalisation for the past half a century."
-- BBC News

"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," he said. He had seen "pieces of these bombs explode into large fires that continued to burn on the skin even after people dumped water on the burns".

173 prisoners found beaten and starved in Iraq government bunker

...more Proof

Why It's Intellectually Valid and Politically and Spiritually Important

Have you heard what's been happening to the military?

Palestinian minister Mohammed Dahlan said the agreement would satisfy most people in Gaza.

"At least for now, travellers are not going to see any more Israelis. No Israeli is going to control their lives," he said.

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan praised the agreement for offering Palestinians freedom of movement and greater economic opportunity, his spokesman said.