Iran's military said Friday it successfully test-fired a missile not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously, a development that raised concerns in the United States and Israel.

Israeli warplanes have struck Gaza after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed four Israelis near a West Bank settlement.

Police and Israeli settlers pieced together the story: The Israelis picked up a hitchhiker, who was dressed like an Orthodox Jew. He was the bomber and the blast killed everyone in the vehicle.

Officials said four bodies were found after the fire was put out. A fifth body was discovered in the ruins of the vehicle a while later, Israel Radio reported.

Poland wants to change the official name of the Auschwitz death camp on the United Nation's world heritage directory to emphasize that it was run by German Nazis, not Poles, Culture Ministry spokesman Jan Kasprzyk said.

A car explosion near a Gaza mosque killed a top Palestinian militant on Friday, triggering gun battles in which three others died after fighters accused Palestinian security chiefs of collaborating with Israel.

Chris Floyd --> Bush is pursuing a remarkably effective "win-win" strategy in Iraq, a highly flexible vision that is even now ripening to fruition. The savage militias, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, sectarian hatred and gruesome tortures that are turning Iraq into a howling moonscape of fear and chaos are but precision tools in the artful hands of the Leader, as he patiently crafts the ultimate victory.

Nearly nine hours of calls show the responses of emergency operators to callers amid the chaos of the attacks.

The words of the operators - but not the callers - were released following a lawsuit filed by the New York Times and a group of victims' relatives.

Russia's top diplomat embarrassed his Western partners yesterday...

Moments after the Western powers insisted to reporters that they were on the same page with Russia and China regarding the Iranian nuclear threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov contradicted them, saying he saw no evidence that Iran's program had a military component or that it posed a threat.

U.N. Atomic Energy chief Mohammed ElBaradei urged the international community Thursday to steer away from threats of sanctions against Iran to prevent the dispute over the country's nuclear intentions from spiraling out of control.

ElBaradei, speaking in Doha, emphasized that Iran is not "an imminent threat" and urged countries to "lower the pitch" in their effort to stop Iran's nuclear work.

At least 17 people have been killed and 263 hurt after a series of earthquakes in western Iran, state media has said.

Sami Abu Zohri, a Hamas spokesman, said: "The initial results show that the Israelis voted for Olmert's plan, which is a declaration of war on the Palestinians and the liquidation of Palestinian rights. The occupation is pushing the area towards greater escalation."

Under Mr Olmert's disengagement strategy, Israel would unilaterally turn its $2 billion razor-wire and concrete West Bank separation barrier into a political border, withdrawing from small settlements outside it in return for securing its hold on the large settlements within.

A trial of a live virus, nasal spray vaccine for bird flu is scheduled to take place in April, 2006. This experimental vaccine trial is extremely risky and could possibly cause a bird flu outbreak.

Thousands of Iranian troops will start a week-long military maneouvre in the Gulf tomorrow to ready armed forces for warding off "threats", a senior commander announced on state television.

It seems behind every rock there is another dead body when it comes to the incredible case of Ambassador Leo Wanta, the man holding 27.5 trillion dollars in trust for the American people.

The (US) Navy will send an aircraft carrier strike group, with four ships, a 60-plane air wing and 6,500 sailors, to Caribbean and South American waters for a major training exercise.

Some defense analysts suggested that the unusual two-month-long deployment, set to begin in early April, could be interpreted as a show of force by anti-American governments in Venezuela and Cuba.

The cataclysmic consequences of unsustainable development pose a challenge to the world that will make the war on terror seem a mere distraction, a global environmental conference heard.

In a keynote speech opening the fourth biennial State of the Planet conference at New York's Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project, said ignorance, misplaced priorities and indifference were keeping the world firmly on a path to disaster.

"Everything we think is at the core of our geopolitics -- the war on terror, Islamic fundamentalism -- have almost nothing to do with the real challenges we face on this planet," Sachs said.

Charlie, like his father Martin Sheen is a free thinker and now at great risk to himself and his career is speaking freely as well. Bravo Charlie. The intent of this hastily built web site is to give Charlie Sheen the support he so deserves, it's also hoped that the sentiments expressed here will encourage others to step into the light as well.

Washington Post --> Richard Clarke, formerly the White House's chief anti-terrorism official, that within a day of the attacks Bush was inquiring if Saddam might have had a hand in them. When told no -- "But, Mr. President, al-Qaeda did this," Clarke told him -- it became instantly clear that this was not the answer Bush wanted. "'Look into Iraq, Saddam,' the president said testily."

Similarly, Bob Woodward says in his book, "Plan of Attack," that not only was Bush fixated on Iraq, but by Thanksgiving of 2001, he already had told Don Rumsfeld to prepare a plan for the invasion of that country. "Let's get started on this," the president said, cautioning the defense secretary not to tell anyone. Rumsfeld said that eventually he would have to take CIA Director George Tenet into his confidence. "'Fine."' Woodward quotes Bush as saying -- "but not now."

"I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Iran on Thursday the "international community is united" in the dispute over its nuclear program, but a Tehran envoy defiantly rejected a U.N. call to reimpose a freeze on uranium enrichment.

Jill Carroll was dropped off near an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, according to Iraqi police. From there, she was able to speak with US officials, and was briefly interviewed by Baghdad TV. She said she was treated well by her captors, and they never threatened her. She also said she did not know why she was kidnapped.

If the deadlock over the ID Cards Bill had not been broken the government could have used the Parliament Act to overrule peers and force the legislation through.

...you don't have to have it until 2010.
but, anyone who renews a passport will have their details put on a national ID database immediately.

Here is the full list of the 49 types of information which the Identity Cards Bill says should be on the register.

Personal information

* full name
* other names by which person is or has been known
* date of birth
* place of birth
* gender
* address of principal place of residence in the United Kingdom
* the address of every other place in the United Kingdom where person has a place of residence.

Identifying information

* a photograph of head and shoulders
* signature
* fingerprints
* other biometric information

Residential status

* nationality
* entitlement to remain in the United Kingdom where that entitlement derives from a grant of leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, the terms and conditions of that leave

Personal reference numbers

* National Identity Registration Number
* the number of any ID card issued
* allocated national insurance number
* the number of any relevant immigration document
* the number of their United Kingdom passport
* the number of any passport issued to the individual by or on behalf of the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or by or on behalf of an international organisation
* the number of any document that can be used by them (in some or all circumstances) instead of a passport;
* the number of any identity card issued to him/her by the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom
* any reference number allocated to him/her by the secretary of state in connection with an application made by him for permission to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom
* the number of any work permit relating to him/her;
* any driver number given to him/her by a driving licence;
* the number of any designated document which is held by him/her and is a document the number of which does not fall within any of the preceding sub-paragraphs
* the date of expiry or period of validity of a document the number of which is recorded by virtue of this paragraph.

Record history

* information falling within the preceding paragraphs that has previously been recorded about him/her in the Register
* particulars of changes affecting that information and of changes made to his/her entry in the Register
* date of death.

Registration and ID card history

* the date of every application for registration made by him/her
* the date of every application by him/her for a modification of the contents of his entry
* the date of every application by him/her confirming the contents of his entry (with or without changes)
* the reason for any omission from the information recorded in his/her entry
* particulars (in addition to its number) of every ID card issued to him/her
* whether each such card is in force and, if not, why not

New York Magazine --> The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll

SF Gate --> Long Live The 9/11 Conspiracy!

CNN --> Do you agree with Charlie Sheen that the U.S. government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks?

Justin Raimondo --> ...the war in Iraq is about to escalate

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

...soon in the sky above you.

"We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United States territory," Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner at Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection Bureau, told the House Transportation subcommittee.

...a UAV equipped with low-light and infrared cameras to keep watch on its citizens.

The European Space Agency's chief scientist has said there should be a "Noah's Ark" on the Moon, in case life on Earth is wiped out by an asteroid or nuclear holocaust.

Dr Bernard Foing said the ark should be a repository for the DNA of every single species of plant and animal.

The "emotional social intelligence prosthetic" device, which El Kaliouby is constructing along with MIT colleagues Rosalind Picard and Alea Teeters, consists of a camera small enough to be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses, connected to a hand-held computer running image recognition software plus software that can read the emotions these images show. If the wearer seems to be failing to engage his or her listener, the software makes the hand-held computer vibrate.

Howard Kallogian, a Republican candidate, argues the picture, which he claims he took in Bahgdad, is proof that Iraq is 'calm' and 'stable' contrary to press reports.

The George W Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neo-conservatives who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to former administration officials.

The secret cabal got what it wanted: no negotiations with Tehran," Wilkerson wrote in an e-mail to Inter Press Service (IPS).
The Iranian negotiating offer, transmitted to the State Department in early May 2003 by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, acknowledged that Iran would have to address US concerns about its nuclear program, although it made no specific concession in advance of the talks, according to Flynt Leverett, then the National Security Council's senior director for Middle East Affairs.

The Boston Globe --> Bush said he invaded Iraq to rid the world of a madman. It is ever more clearer Bush went mad to start it.

What upset him the most about Iraq? "The total disregard for human life," he says, matter of factly. "I mean, you do what you do at the time because you feel like you need to. But then to watch it get kind of covered up, shoved under a rug ... 'Oh, that did not happen'."

What kind of abuses did he witness? "Well, I mean, I have seen innocent people being killed. IEDs go off and [you] just zap any farmer that is close to you. You know, those people were out there trying to make a living, but on the other hand, you get hit by four or five of those IEDs and you get pretty tired of that, too."

Casey told us how, from the top down, there was little regard for the Iraqis, who were routinely called "hajjis", the Iraq equivalent of "gook". "They basically jam into your head: 'This is hajji! This is hajji!' You totally take the human being out of it and make them into a video game."

A 13-year-old boy has been charged with a felony for sending two e-mails threatening President George W. Bush ahead of his upcoming visit to Cincinnati, Ohio, local media reported.

Ted Turner took shots Tuesday at the media for its coverage of sex and violence, at himself for losing control of the news network he founded, and at the Bush administration for going to war in Iraq.

The United States ordered its diplomats and contractors on Wednesday to cut off contacts with Palestinian ministries after a Hamas-led government was sworn in, the State Department said.

A directive, distributed to diplomats and other officials in the region by e-mail, instructed them with immediate effect not to have contacts with Hamas-appointed government ministers or those who work for them, whether they are members of the Islamic militant group or not, officials said.

Assuring the judge he is working to become "a new man," disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced Wednesday to nearly six years in prison for committing fraud in the purchase of a fleet of gambling boats.

He will remain free while helping prosecutors with a vast bribery investigation involving members of Congress.

A diplomatic deadlock over Iran is set to end on Thursday, when the foreign ministers of Russia and China are expected to line up with the US and the European Union and endorse plans for the United Nations to call for Tehran to halt parts of its nuclear programme.

Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for Abu Ali. However, the judge noted that no one in the United States was injured in these plots, and no weapons were ever found in Abu Ali's possession.

"In terms of satisfying its needs, Tehran cannot remain dependent on international suppliers," the Iranian government said in the statement.

"Iran would welcome the creation of an international nuclear fuel center on its territory with the participation of other countries and in the framework of an international consortium."

"Today Israeli democracy has spoken clearly. Israel wants Kadima," Olmert said in a speech at the centrist party's election headquarters after exit polls in Tuesday's vote gave it 29-32 seats in the 120-member parliament.

'Our suggestion to Asian countries is: don't take this continuous financing of the US current account deficit as given. If something happens then East Asian economies have to be prepared,' said Masahiro Kawai from the Asian Development Bank.

Noam Chomsky --> I've received many requests to comment on the article by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (henceforth M-W), published in the London Review of Books, which has been circulating extensively on the internet and has elicited a storm of controversy. A few thoughts on the matter follow.

Executive Summary

Germans risk two years in prison if they illegally download films and music for private use under a new law agreed yesterday. Anybody who downloads films for commercial use could be jailed for up to five years.

The measures, some of the toughest in Europe, were announced after an aggressive campaign by the film industry in Germany.

If you're looking for a reason why Zacarias Moussaoui suddenly testified today to a version of the 9/11 plotline that sounds more like the Official story than even the official Whitewash Commission report, this video may have the answer.

Kurt Nimmo --> Simply put, both Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid are patsies, two doltish fall guys provided to put a sinister (if pathetic) face on the beast our government and corporate media call "al-Qaeda."

More Stars Go Public with Demands for 9/11 Investigation, Others to Follow.

"I'm tired of all the BUSHIT."
Under "offense," it says: "Lewd decals."
The ticket is for $100.

U.S. commanders in Iraq on Monday accused powerful Shi'ite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that U.S.-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque.

Struggling to revive his troubled presidency, President Bush replaced longtime chief of staff Andy Card with budget director Joshua Bolten on Tuesday and gave Bolten authority to make further changes in a White House staff that even Republicans have complained is tired, insular and lacking fresh ideas.

A French union leader claimed three million people had taken to the streets of France on Tuesday against the government's youth jobs law, describing it as a "historic figure."

Did You Know that Signing the Wrong Law and Violating the Constitution is Just a Technicality?

Unconstitutional, yes. Illegal, yes. A violation of the separation of powers, yes.

But, of course, the Democrats have never challenged the practice of subverting democracy.

Prime Minister Tony Blair today branded growing anti-Americanism around the world as "madness" in the face of the challenges confronting global peace in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Baghdad provincial governor Hussein al-Tahan said on Monday he would suspend all cooperation with U.S. forces until an independent investigation is launched into the killing of 20 Shi'ites in a mosque.

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

Charlie Sheen felt compelled to respond to one of many hit-pieces against him, a column written for the London Guardian and carried by British commonwealth newspapers worldwide.

Two hundred years ago, when the United States was a modest commercial republic, the president could take a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue?by himself?and talk to anyone who approached him. If he wasn?t on a walk outdoors, he was most likely at home, and you could speak to him by knocking on the door of the White House and presenting yourself.

Today? The president moves about like Caesar Augustus, with a vast, graded court of civil and military aides, doctors, secretaries, valets, hairdressers, makeup artists, bodyguards, drivers, baggage handlers, cooks, food tasters, Praetorian guards, snipers, centurions, bulletproof limos, a portable hospital, and an armored rostrum. And that?s when he travels in the U.S.

A former British Army mole in the IRA has claimed that MI5 arranged a weapons-buying trip to America in which he obtained detonators, later used by terrorists to murder soldiers and police officers.

When President Bush signed a law banning torture he quietly signed a statement saying he could bypass it. Earlier this month, Bush signed the USA Patriot Act but signed a statement that said he did not consider oversight rules binding.

Interview with the Boston Globe reporter who broke the story -->

...behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

US troops have mounted two raids against Iraqi Shiite forces in Baghdad, killing up to 20 gunmen in a raid on a radical mosque and arresting more than 40 Interior Ministry personnel guarding a secret prison.

Details were sketchy today, but the two operations looked like US strikes against sectarian Shiite militias of the kind the US ambassador has said must be eliminated if Iraq is to form a unity government and halt a slide toward civil war.

...open source is becoming the paradigm of choice, said Greg Stein, chairman of the Apache Software Foundation.
...in five to ten years, "all of your software will be free.

The signs suggest an anti-Republican wave is building, says nonpartisan electoral handicapper Stuart Rothenberg, whose Rothenberg Political Report is closely followed in Washington. "The only question is how high, how big, how much force it will have. I think it will be considerable."

Paige Craig, the West Point dropout and former Marine intelligence specialist who is the Lincoln Group's president, says the practice is not propaganda. The word carries such baggage, such suggestions of mind control. So in an industry in which euphemism thrives, a more elegant word is deployed.
"We call it 'influence,' " says Craig, whose business has 12 U.S. government contracts totaling more than $130 million.

A prominent Pakistani analyst on Saturday said that despite all its best efforts, the United States has failed to trigger Shiite-Sunni riots in Iraq and has now alleged Iranian involvement in disturbances in the war-devastated country.

We're not racists, we're LEGAL Americans," Minuteman members yelled under American flags whipping in a fierce wind. "Those people are Communists."

Go home ....... Nazi racists!" yelled members of an opposing group of circling counterprotesters.

Eric Margolis --> Please, Mr. President, no more "mission accomplished," no more victories. Your debacle in Iraq recalls King Phyrrus' famous lament, "One more such victory and we are ruined."

The Bush administration invaded Iraq for two key reasons: 1) To seize Iraq's vast oil reserves and turn Iraq into a base to dominate the Mideast; 2) To destroy one of Israel's two main enemies (Iran being the other).

Three years later, the first goal remains elusive while the second was achieved. Large parts of Iraq -- once the Arab world's most developed nation -- are in ruins, anarchy, or approaching civil war.

Most Americans are blind to reality. They are unaware of the flagrant bias in our policies and the price we pay for this bias. Despite the wonders of the Information Age, the public is not informed about how these harmful policies are established. Among those who know the truth, almost all remain totally silent, afraid to speak out. This self-imposed censorship unwittingly has led us into great trouble, even into the ultimate in wrong deeds - initiating wars.

Despite those measures in Congress, impeachment remains a decidedly grassroots movement. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted: "It's all over the blogosphere. It's the cover story in the current Harper's. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed an impeachment resolution. Antiwar activists, civil libertarians, all the usual-suspect constituencies have growing impeachment tendencies. But it's reaching beyond the usual suspects."

As predicted in '1984', our routines are being monitored by tracking devices, videos, phones.

Buried deep in the arcanum of some recently released economic statistics are indications that the world is tiring of its role as America's charge card.

The first lady's office shows that she has replaced her entire high command after five years in charge of the East Wing.

When Palestinian deaths occur, especially militant deaths, the Israeli government?s version of the story is taken as fact in the mainstream US media. In most cases, articles covering the death of Palestinians only include large Israeli quotes, without citing Palestinian witnesses and other credible nongovernmental organization sources. This continues to be the case after human rights groups have released reports stating Israel has indiscriminately shot at civilians, even using them as human shields. In as early as 2001, Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated, ?At least 470 Palestinians have been killed, most of them unlawfully by Israeli security forces when their lives [Israeli Security Forces] and the lives of others were not in danger.? Since the AI/HRW report, more than 3,350 Palestinians have been killed. It is remarkable how so many can accept the Israeli government as the sole, objective source when it forcibly occupies the Palestinian territories.

For the first time since 1972, the United States is planning to fly to the moon, but instead of a quick, Apollo-like visit, astronauts intend to build a permanent base and live there while they prepare what may be the most ambitious undertaking in history -- putting human beings on Mars.

After Iraq, US Tries to Dupe the World Community again...

...one person at one point asks why there are ballots of candidate A stacked on top of the ballots of candidate B? Another person then yells at the others to get away from the tables. And that they should stop asking questions!

George W. Bush's Uncle Bucky (William H.T. Bush), brother of George H.W. Bush, has collected about $1.9 million in cash, plus $800,000 in stocks, from the recent sale of Engineered Support Systems, Inc. ESSI, of which Bush was a director, was sold to DRS Technologies for $1.7 billion at the end of January, after the company experienced record growth from expanded military contracts, most related to activity in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The contracts, some awarded on a no-bid basis, include a $77-million deal to refit military vehicles with armor for use in Iraq.

High levels of depleted uranium (DU) have been measured in the atmosphere in Britain, transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia. Scientists cited the U.S. bombing of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 and the "Shock and Awe" bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003 as one of the main reasons.

Top officials from Syria and Iran, close allies under severe pressure from the international community, stood together to denounce Israel's nuclear programme as a threat to the Middle East.

The US military deny accusations of massive over-reaction when attacked. But video evidence from one incident has led the official story to unravel.

With the rapid merging of fashion and technology, future brands of haute couture will probably owe more to Cisco Systems than Coco Chanel.

Time --> Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities...
The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it.

The aircraft would fly in a figure-eight pattern over an area deemed a likely site of a missile launch. Onboard infrared sensors would detect the launch and feed that information into a computer that would direct the laser turret to point at the ascending missile. The turret would then fire two lower-powered solid-state lasers ? one to track the missile and one to measure atmospheric distortion ? before shooting the high-powered chemical laser at the target.

John Mearsheimer says that the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in a American-based scientific publication.

Most scholars, policymakers and journalists know that "the whole subject of the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is a third-rail issue," he said. "Publishers understand that if they publish a piece like ours it would cause them all sorts of problems."

If you raise a criticism of Israel or our country's policy towards the conflict, you immediately are targeted, within the Jewish community, as being either disloyal (if you are Jewish) or anti-Semitic (if you are not Jewish). This is nonsense and has got to stop.

Affect, care, cooperation and responsibility are the four central principles of a new ethics that humanity urgently needs to adopt, in order to avoid becoming extinct as "a victim of itself."

"The world is not made up of objects but of relationships. It was cooperation that made possible the leap from animal to humanity, and without it we are dehumanised, which is what occurs in the case of capitalism."

A must see Flash written by Chris Floyd

Here's one definition of a dictator or at least one practicing to become one. It's a head of state able to decide alone with unchallengeable authority whether or not to take a nation to war for any reason. Here's an add-on to that definition. If a leader does it for any reason other than to respond to an attack by another nation or clear evidence an attack is coming, that leader is also a war criminal.

Ralph Nader --> Attention please, good people! Adjust your routines and come to the aid of your country, and your children with your thoughtful patriotism. Don't just hope for impeachment, demand the resignation now of the mad hatters in the White House -- George W. Bush and Richard Cheney.

Government cracks down on dissent in name of 'anti-terrorism'...

Or maybe, pacifism is simply terrorism.

A founding member of the elite counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force, suggested that President Bush's invasion of Iraq may have started World War III, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

"The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward."

"The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way."

Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles.

China on Friday confirmed that a 29-year-old woman in Shanghai died of the H5N1 bird flu, bringing to ten the total of deaths from bird flu, Xinhua New Agency reported.

Also a girl in Jakarta died of bird flu Thursday.

Scientists in northeastern Ethiopia said Saturday that they have discovered the skull of a small human ancestor that could be a missing link between the extinct Homo erectus and modern man.

The hominid cranium found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old.

The clash occurred after a gauntlet of riot police blocked the path of protesters marching to a jail where demonstrators arrested in previous protests were being held. Police beat their shields with truncheons and advanced on the crowd.

Four explosions ripped through the air, apparently percussion grenades set off by police, and protesters began to disperse, yelling: "Fascists!" But police detained at least a score of people, loading them into trucks. At least two people lay injured on the ground, and one was seen being taken away by ambulance.

Earlier, rows of black-clad police blocked the central Oktyabrskaya Square where Opposition leaders had called for a midday rally. Officers pushed the crowd of about 3,000 back in a bid to end a week of unprecedented protests in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic. Demonstrators shouted "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!"

The Federal Election Commission last night released proposed new rules that leave almost all Internet political activity unregulated except for the purchase of campaign ads on Web sites.

Most bloggers and individual Web users are exempted from regulation and will be free to support and attack federal candidates, much as newspapers are allowed.

For the most part, leading advocates of the blogger community welcomed the proposed rules.

The statement came a day after the release of an unclassified Pentagon report that cited two captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians collected information from sources "inside the American Central Command" and that battlefield intelligence was provided to then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.

"To my mind, from my understanding it's absolutely nonsense and it's ridiculous," spokeswoman for Russia's U.N. mission in New York said, adding that the U.S. government had not shown Russia the evidence cited in the report. "Somebody wants to say something, and did - and there is no evidence to prove it."

83% says U.S. government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks.

An estimated 2 billion people, or one-third of the world's population, are infected with the tuberculosis bacillus. Five to 10 percent of those infected will become sick or infectious in their lifetime.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that cases of tuberculosis that were resistant to the two drugs considered the first-line of treatment rose 13 percent.

Video

The head of the U.S.-led program to rebuild Iraq said Thursday that the Iraqi government can no longer count on U.S. funds and must rely on its own revenues and other foreign aid, particularly from Persian Gulf nations.

Russia had a military intelligence unit operating in Iraq up through the 2003 U.S. invasion and fall of Baghdad, a Russian analyst said Friday as the Pentagon reported Moscow fed Saddam Hussein's government with intelligence on the American military.

Jason Miller --> Analysis of the Long, Repulsive History of the United States Inflicting Torture on Its "Suspected Enemies" (in Conjunction with a Review of A Question of Torture by Alfred W. McCoy)

The Army has discharged without criminal charges a Schofield Barracks soldier who was involved in the 2004 killing of a 13-year-old girl and wounding of her sister and mother in Iraq.

Americans who tuned in for one of President George W. Bush's rare press conferences saw a cornered animal trying to squirm his way out of trouble by doing what he has always done - evading the truth.

Is President Bush the leader of our government, or is he just a right-wing talk-show host?

Even some Republicans are now horrified by the influence Bush has given to the evangelical right...

Bird flu has killed a young girl in Cambodia, the first human victim of the virus in the poor southeast Asian nation in almost a year, while China said on Friday a woman in the city of Shanghai had died from it.

Attorney Thomas Nelson discusses his lawsuit against the National Security Agency and his evidence that the Bush administration's secret domestic surveillance is much broader than reported and may include secret physical searches.

The United States has informally asked Japan to suspend its plans to develop an Iranian oil field as part of world efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a Japanese newspaper said on Thursday.

It is because the Iraqis refuse to surrender their sovereignty to multinational corporations that Iraq is being destroyed so blatantly.

Rasner then placed the FBI's central Texas "Terrorist Watch List" on the screen. On a list of approximately ten groups, Food Not Bombs was listed seventh. Indymedia was listed tenth, with a reference specifically to IndyConference 2005. The Communist Party of Texas also made the list. Rasner explained that these groups could have links to terrorist activity.

Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization that recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and serves vegetarian meals to the public at no cost. Austin Indymedia is an open newswire in which readers may publish news, events and commentary.

The British hostage, Norman Kember, and his two Canadian colleagues were free last night after a rescue mission led by the SAS into one of the most dangerous parts of Baghdad. The troops found the three tied up but unharmed. No shots were fired. The kidnappers had fled, apparently on hearing troops arrive, according to a British official.

Mr Lieberman, a far-right settler born in Moldova, could be the surprise of the Israeli election on Tuesday. Polls show he could be a coalition kingmaker with around 10 seats in the Knesset.

A death sentence here and abroad...

Police in the capital of Belarus stormed a central square early on Friday after four days of protest over the re-election of the country's president.

About 200 demonstrators were taken away by riot police in Oktyabrskaya Square in a raid at around 3 a.m. local time in Minsk.

Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.

The Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere.

The administration is negotiating a second no-bid contract for a Philippine company to install radiation detectors in its home country.

Tensions heated up on Paris' verdant Esplanade des Invalides, with riot police using tear gas on rowdy protesters who threw grapefruit-sized chunks of concrete at police officers.

In the attack on Serbia, 2 per cent of Nato?s missiles hit military targets; the rest hit hospitals, schools, factories, churches and broadcasting studios. Echoing Blair and a clutch of Clinton officials, a massed media chorus declared that "we" had to stop "something approaching genocide" in Kosovo, as Timothy Garton Ash wrote in 2002 in the Guardian. "Echoes of the Holocaust," said the front pages of the Daily Mirror and the Sun. The Observer warned of a "Balkan Final Solution."

Google is again embroiled in a censorship scandal after being caught blocking information about Charlie Sheen's 9/11 comments, despite the fact that every other major search engine had indexed the pages.

In an issue of the journal Science focusing on global warming, climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona reported that if global trends continue, Earth could ultimately see sea levels 20 feet higher than they are now.

China said on Thursday, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin left Beijing, that Beijing and Moscow are in accord on Iran's nuclear standoff with the West.

House Democrats want President Bush to say whether he knew of what they call a "fundamental constitutional problem" with the $39 billion deficit reduction package he signed last month.

Some things you need to know before the world ends...

The reprocessing of nuclear fuel from other nations and from within the US means that the US government will have access to (and control over) an exceptional amount of plutonium, with the potential for use in next generation nuclear weapons (like the "bunker-buster") that Bush and Pentagon officials are keen to develop. Bush has requested $27.7 million to be spent on the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. A January 31 press release by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) notes that "reprocessing just the spent fuel rods produced by US reactors in one year would result in some 20 metric tons of plutonium - enough to build over 3000 nuclear weapons".

Could it be possible that the Israeli army raid on a Jericho prison on March 14 was done without careful coordination between Israel, the United States and Britain? Could it also be possible that the timing of the onslaught was equally innocent, of no political consequence, and not linked in any way to the Palestinians' ability to withstand Israeli blackmail, US threats and European intimidation following the Hamas election victory in January 2006?

Paul Craig Roberts --> There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people even seem to notice. . .

The US military is investigating two incidents in which American soldiers killed at least 26 Iraqi civilians and then claimed that they were either guerrillas or had died in cross fire.

The growing evidence of retaliatory killings of unarmed Iraqi families, often including children, by US soldiers seemingly bent on punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark comparisons with the massacre of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.

US troops have been notorious among Iraqis for their willingness to shoot any Iraqi they see in the aftermath of an insurgent attack. But it is only now that convincing and detailed information is becoming available about the killings.

This is not my America. It is an America perverted by Republican stewardship. A nation that under GOP rule has abandoned its founding ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all. True Americans--coast to coast, young and old--now bow their heads silently in collective shame for a nation that has lost its way.

A number of writings have recently appeared with the thesis that the announced plans of the Teheran government to institute a Teheran Oil Bourse, perhaps as early as this month, is the real hidden reason behind the evident march to war on Iran from the Anglo-American powers. The thesis is in our opinion mistaken for many reasons, not the least, that war on Iran has been in planning since the 1990's, as an integral part of the US Greater Middle East strategy.

...his views on the world, 9/11 and much more. Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it.

MIT engineers report they may have found a way for structures -- and materials -- to move in this way, essentially morphing from one shape into another.

The discovery could lead to an airplane that morphs on demand from the shape that is most energy efficient to another better suited to agility, or to a boat whose hull changes shape to allow more efficient movement in choppy, calm or shallow waters.

Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn Beck.

Get ready to show your license, registration - and get fingerprinted on the spot.

Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii.
The tests in Kansas are part of a bigger $3.6 million upgrade to the KBI's statewide fingerprint database.

Scientists believe they may have discovered a reason why the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus cannot yet jump easily between humans.

The bombing itself - all 78 days of it - was executed in violation of international law, a classic case of aggression, held by the Nuremberg Tribunal to be the supreme international crime in that it holds within it the accumulated evil of all other war crimes.

Terrorists haven't given up; they're tough-minded, they like to kill. There's going to be more tough fighting ahead. No question that sectarian violence must be confronted by the Iraqi government and a better-trained police force. Yet we're making progress. And that's important for the American people to understand.

We're making progress because of -- we've got a strategy for victory, and we're making progress because the men and women of the United States military are showing magnificent courage and they're making important sacrifices.

And that's why I went into Iraq...

Q They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.

THE PRESIDENT: Look -- excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained --

Q I'm talking about Iraq --

THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.

Since the election of 1992, the extreme political left has fought a losing battle. Their views on the economy, marriage, abortion, guns, the death penalty, health care, welfare, taxes, and a dozen other major domestic policy issues have been exposed as unpopular, unmarketable and unquestioned losers at the ballot box.

Starve the Palestinians

This is not good. The people running this country sound convinced that reality is whatever they say it is.

The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

A man was taken into custody after he was seen throwing a suspicious package over the White House fence on Wednesday, the Secret Service said.

March 20, 2006 ...a photoset -->

President Bush said Tuesday that American forces will remain in Iraq for years...

Bush said U.S. forces were essential for the stability of Iraq and restraining al-Qaida in the Middle East.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that he approves of talks between U.S. and Iranian officials on Iraq, but warned that the United States must not try to "bully" Iran.

Life in the Shadows of the Empire

An interview with Chalmers Johnson...

Most empires try to disguise that military aspect of things. Our problem is: For some reason, we love our military. We regard it as a microcosm of our society and as an institution that works. There's nothing more hypocritical, or constantly invoked by our politicians, than "support our boys."

Bush gave a delusional speech that shows he is detached from reality. "We?re going to help the Iraqis build a strong democracy that will be an inspiration throughout the Middle East, a democracy that?ll be a partner in the global war against the terrorists."

The fantasy Iraq that Bush painted was only his warm-up. He went on to tell his Cleveland audience that American could not be safe unless Iraq was a democracy. What a weak, pitiful, vulnerable place Bush?s America must be. Unless a small, devastated Middle Eastern country is a democracy, America cannot be safe. Who in the Cleveland audience could possibly have believed this utter nonsense.

BBC --> The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States.

Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions.

A US film distributor has signed a deal to release The Road to Guantanamo, about three British Muslims held at the detention camp, in the US and Canada.

Besides bringing antibiotics and painkillers, military personnel nationwide are heading back to Iraq with a cache of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications.

The question that journalists don?t ask Bush...

The United States is headed for a financial crisis unless it alters its course of racking up big budget deficits year after year, Comptroller General David Walker told a British audience on Tuesday.

President Bush's new, 19,322-word national security report is a stunning document that parents should not permit their children to read.

Bush's message to our children in this surreal document is that situational ethics is right. Increasingly, that is how the rest of the world perceives us -- as believing that the end justifies the means.

"On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney did not express any regret for predicting in the days before the invasion that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators or his assessment 10 months ago that the insurgency was in its 'last throes.' On the contrary, he said the optimistic statements 'were basically accurate, reflect reality.'"

The United States has lost its moral compass and fallen out of step with the rest of the world in the wake of September 11, the former United Nations human rights commissioner warned tonight.

Mary Robinson expressed sadness and regret at America?s erosion of human rights as part of its "War on Terror".

Two wild swans found in central Stockholm last week died of the highly pathogenic strain of H5 bird flu.

An Army dog handler at Abu Ghraib was convicted Tuesday of tormenting prisoners with his snarling animal and competing with a comrade to make the Iraqis soil themselves.

Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was found guilty at a court-martial of six of 13 counts. The judge later dismissed one of those six counts, saying it duplicated another.

A sentencing hearing began in the afternoon. The five charges carried up to 8 1/2 years behind bars.

"The government has decided to decree a state of emergency. While we have not detected any cases ourselves, we must take all necessary precautions and use all means at our disposal to protect our people and avoid this epidemic affecting us," the outgoing premier said after the weekly cabinet meeting.

Justin Raimondo --> Why is American policy in the Middle East skewed in favor of Israel?

Police arrested 17 protesters and pulled several others wearing orange jumpsuits from a makeshift prison cell Monday in the heart of the city's financial district.

National Jewish Front leader Baruch Marzel called on the Israel Defense Forces to assassinate the far-left leader of the Gush Shalom movement Uri Avnery.

Speaking Monday in Jerusalem and Ramle, Marzel said left-wing activists are bringing destruction upon themselves and said they sometimes harm the interests of Israel no less than do the country's external enemies.

Paul Craig Roberts --> The chief chaplain for the New York City Corrections Department told a Tucson audience that "the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House."

Created on the principle that "you are with us or against us," Bush?s administration is all of one mind. They are all neocons. There are no real conservatives or traditional Republicans in the Bush administration.

Neocons don?t believe in debate. They specialize in slandering critics and stamping out debate. Dissent is not possible within the Bush administration, because dissent is equated with treason and anti-Americanism.

The United States' diplomatic approach to human rights is, in its own way, every bit as partisan and partial as some of the notorious human-rights offenders who have conspired to emasculate the Human Rights Commission over the years.

U.S. Marines killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes last November. Was it self-defense, an accident or cold-blooded revenge?

Metal roofs littered streets, wooden houses lay in splinters and banana plantations were stripped bare after the most powerful cyclone to hit Australia in three decades lashed the country's eastern coast Monday.

"I made it clear, and I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel," said Bush.

A missing Nepalese teenager popularly known as "Buddha Boy" reappeared briefly on Sunday, his followers say.

"They shelled houses and set them ablaze. We found burned children inside the house. God will damn them (the US soldiers)," said an unidentified eye witness who was standing near the burned out house.

Guardian --> The insidious erosion of our civil liberties will accelerate dramatically if the government wins the battle over identity cards.

Every time that card is swiped, the central database logs the transaction so that an accurate plot of your life is drawn. The state will know everything that it needs to know; so will big corporations, the police, the Inland Revenue, HM Customs, MI5 and any damned official or commercial busybody that wants access to your life. The government and Home Office have presented this as an incidental benefit, but it is at the heart of their purpose.

The Bush administration argued Friday that a newly enacted law wipes out hundreds of pending court cases by detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are challenging their confinement.

AP insists on conducting its own activities in the dark, and refuses to answer even the simplest questions about its system of international news reporting.

Most of all, it refuses to explain why it erased footage of an Israeli soldier intentionally shooting a Palestinian boy.

The witnesses state that there was no Palestinian resistance--no "clash," no "crossfire," not even any stone-throwing. At one point, after most of the vehicles had finally driven away, an Israeli soldier stuck his gun out of his armored vehicle, aimed at a pre-pubescent boy nearby, and pulled the trigger.

an AP cameraman had filmed the entire incident. This cameraman had then followed what apparently is the usual routine. He sent his video--an extremely valuable commodity, since it contained documentary evidence of a war crime--to the AP control bureau for the region. This bureau is in Israel.

What happened next is unfathomable. Did AP broadcast it? No. Did AP place the video in safe-keeping, available for an investigation of this crime? No.

According to its cameraman, AP erased it.

Uri Avnery --> Israel, Britain and the USA's abhorrent act in Jericho.

In the thesaurus I find quite a number of synonyms: loathing, revulsion, dislike, nausea, distaste, aversion, antipathy, abomination, repulsion, abhorrence, repugnance, odium, detestation and some more. They are all present in my feelings about the action that took place in Jericho on Tuesday Mar.14 2006

A New Approach: Organizing Voters to End War.

The Anti-War Movement Becoming a Political Force That Cannot Be Ignored.

Robert Fisk --> The US press is supposed to be challenging the lies of this war...

The Foreign Office condemned Israel yesterday after a young Palestinian girl was killed in a what her family describe as a hail of bullets in the northern West Bank on Friday.

Pictures -->

So much for targeting insurgents...
U.S.-led raid kills civilians north of Bagdad.

And anyone who knows these facts, who sees these facts, and fails to cry out against them ? if only in your own heart ? will be forever tainted by this same blood.

Thousands of protesters thronged the main square of the Belarusian capital on Sunday in defiance of a government ban, refusing to recognize a presidential vote that appeared all but certain to give the iron-fisted incumbent a third term.

Belarus opposition presidential candidate Alexander Milinkevich demanded the election be annulled, calling an exit poll that shows President Alexander Lukashenko winning reelection a "lie."

Telecommunications researchers have demonstrated a novel communications network design that would provide both ultra-high-speed wireless and wired access services from the same signals carried on a single optical fiber.

The new hybrid system could allow dual wired/wireless transmission of the same content such as high-definition television, data and voice up to 100 times faster than current networks.

NYT --> ...a Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse

The White House says spying on terrorism suspects without court approval is OK. What about physical searches?

Tropical Cyclone Larry was expected to hit the north-eastern state early Monday with wind gusts of up to 280 kilometres (175 mph) an hour and storm surges of up to two metres (6.6 feet), the weather bureau said.

...the cyclone, pressing in from the Coral Sea east of Townsville, could worsen to Category Five -- the highest -- by the time it made landfall.

Mandatory evacuations were enforced in several coastal areas including holiday resorts in the path of the cyclone.

A Mississippi couple whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina said two men who later identified themselves as Secret Service agents pretended to be Fox News journalists when surveying their neighborhood in advance of a March 8 visit from President Bush.

The following Wednesday, Bush flew to the small, working-class town. He appeared with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) outside the Akins home to call attention to federal efforts to aid in reconstruction.

"Our job and our purpose is to help people like the Akins rebuild," Bush said.

Leaving Iraq now would be like handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a column published on Sunday, the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," he wrote in an essay in The Washington Post.

...ok, Rumsfeld, you don't understand...or you pretend you don't?
if you insist on playing "semantics"...

Staying in Iraq is giving away the country to evil.
Staying in Iraq is giving up peace.
Staying in Iraq is wrong.
Staying in Iraq is pain.
You ARE the attacker and killer and tears-maker.
You ARE serving lies and fear to the world.
You, your propaganda, your ideas and your terror are bad for health.

Now...Answer me, who is the Nazis?

Mysterious cell-phone text messages warning of bloodshed on election day spread in the Belarusian capital Saturday, a day before presidential voting that the opposition alleged was likely to be fraudulent.

The government has banned rallies on election day, and the head of the KGB said this week that any protesters who take to the streets could be subject to charges of terrorism.

Please join us from April 1 to 14, 2006 for the March to Redeem the Soul of America, inspired by the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, a march that will lift up the Iraq War, official misconduct and oil profiteering for consideration and redemption by the American people and people around the world.

The march, which will start in Irving, Texas will carry the message of immediate withdrawal from Iraq reinforced by the ExxonMobil War Boycott directly into the heartland of Texas Oil Country and precisely to the Bush ranch in Crawford.

The purpose is to educate and to call on Texans and all Americans to examine their views on the war, its relationship to the American economy and to America's future, particularly with respect to oil.

The touchstone of the march will be the teachings and work of Dr. and Ms. King.

Cindy Sheehan will join us on this march and at the extended events planned for the Third Anniversary of the Crawford Peace House on Easter Weekend, April 14 to 16. Join us on Good Friday as we march from the Crawford Peace House to Camp Casey.

In this send-up of "Monopoly," players don't pass "Go" and they don't go directly to jail - they go to Guantanamo Bay.
Instead of losing cash for landing on certain squares, they lose civil liberties. And the "Mr. Monopoly" character at the center of the board is replaced by a scowling former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

"Patriot Act: The Home Version" pokes fun at "the historic abuse of governmental powers" by the recently renewed anti-terrorism law.

The object of the game is not to amass the most money or real estate, but to be the last player to retain civil liberties.

"I've had people complain to me that when they play, nobody wins. They say `We're all in Guantanamo and nobody has any civil liberties left,'" creator Michael Kabbash said. "I'm like `Yeah, that's the point.'"

Naeim Giladi --> I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called "cruel Zionism." I write about it because I was part of it.

Footage of World Trade Center wreckage aired during coverage of Operation Swarmer, a joint U.S.-Iraqi military operation that began March 16.
The footage aired during the 11 a.m. ET hour of the March 16 edition of Fox News Live.

As our ears prick to the drumbeat of Bush v. Iran, a highly respected researcher from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) warns that Washington is edging toward a policy of nuclear preemption, and Teheran knows it.

Although the post 9/11 doctrine of USA military strategy known as "Global Strike" is often promoted as a post nuclear plan, Hans M. Kristensen finds documentary evidence that a "nuclear option" is included.

News, info and analysis...

What Connects Iraq to Iran...

Scientists have developed artificial, super-strength muscles which are powered by alcohol and hydrogen.

...they say these artificial muscles are 100 times more powerful than the body's own.

KSG Faculty Research Working Paper Series.

This paper describes the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.

...from the $6.8 billion a month the Pentagon said it spent last year.
The administration has said it also will seek $50 billion in war funding for fiscal 2007.

...over 200 demonstrations taking place in cities and towns all over the world, including in Basra and Baghdad in Iraq."

"The government must listen to the voices of the people, which is calling on them to bring the troops home from Iraq and to solve the Iranian issue peacefully and diplomatically."

Hundreds of thousands of people will take to the streets around the world today to protest over the presence of British and American troops in Iraq, amid increasing official recognition that the country is slipping into civil war.

...demonstrations that marked the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley quietly revised the guidelines for determining access to classified government information last year, increasing emphasis on allegiance to the United States and allowing the government broader latitude in rejecting candidates without a clearly articulated cause.

Prime Minister Tony Blair faced further embarrassment after his Labour Party revealed it had received 24.5 million dollars in secret loans from wealthy supporters.

A spoof Prime Minister John Howard website that featured a soul searching "apology" speech for the Iraq war has been shut down under orders from the Australian Government.

Richard Neville, an Australian futurist and social commentator was "mystified" to discover his satirical website johnhowardpm.org had been blocked on Tuesday with no explanation from either his web hosting company, Yahoo or the domain name registrar, Melbourne IT.

Six US planes linked by campaigners to "extraordinary rendition" used UK airports 73 times since 2001, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has said.

In order to sell "Operation Swarmer" to a reluctant public, we are told the "insurgents hiding around Samarra" are in fact ?loyal to al-Qaeda's Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," an assertion often claimed and yet never verified, as the Straussian neocons, as Machiavellian liars and deceivers, are not in the habit of backing up their absurd claims with facts and documentation.

Professor Steve Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his last win to an unfair vote count.

The Age --> ...the new United States ambassador, Robert McCallum.

Both George Bush and Robert McCallum are members of Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society with a fixation on the symbols of death, the most powerful elite alumni network in the US. It's essentially a form of nepotism that keeps the same people in power, over and over and over again.

...ambassador-designate McCallum is coming to the position from his previous post of assistant attorney-general.

For more than a quarter century, Israeli policy has been in conflict with that of the United States and the international community. Israel's occupation of Palestine has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land.

More than 1 million people would march to increase pressure on the government

...a key union leader said the march could be followed by a general strike.

"If they don't listen to us we are going to have to think about moving to a general strike across the whole country," said Bernard Thibault, head of the Confederation of General Workers union, one of France's largest.

Paul Haggis, the Canadian director of "Crash", this year's Oscar winner for best picture, will lead a protest in Hollywood this weekend against the war in Iraq.

Haggis will be joined by other celebrities and politicians in the vanguard of the demonstration Saturday, which will assemble at noon at the legendary intersection of Hollywood and Vine and march through the heart of Tinseltown, the organizers said.

"This protest will commemorate the third anniversary of the criminal US 'Shock and Awe' invasion of Iraq, in which more than 100,000 Iraqis and 2,300 US troops have died," said ANSWER Coalition-LA, the anti-war umbrella organization organizing the protest.

- Equates to $1,500 for every man, woman and child in the world
- Is roughly four times Britain?s GDP
- Would buy all the tea in China. In fact it would buy all the tea in the world for the next 2,000 years.
- Is enough to solve the Palestinian crisis by rehousing every Israeli and Palestinian family in a £1.5m detached house

The U.S. Middle East policy is not in America's national interest and is motivated primarily by the country's pro-Israel lobby, according to a study published Thursday by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Chicago.

"No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical," write the authors of the study.

Molecular artwork could point way for nanotech applications.

Palestinian prime minister-designate Ismaeel Haneya said his Hamas-led government would support peace negotiations between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, CBS reported Friday.

"We have no problem, no argument with Abu Mazen (Abbas) if he would like to continue with negotiations," Haneya told the US television station Thursday. "I am not against negotiations."

A disabling mosquito-borne disease that has hit the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion has claimed 148 lives, and almost a third of the population has been affected.

Chikungunya, a disease believed to have originated in Africa, derives from a Swahili word meaning "that which bends up" because of its arthritic-type symptoms that leave victims stooped.

Moqassed Hospital in East Jerusalem allegedly refused to release a baby to its mother for two months until she paid her hospital bill.

The woman gave birth prematurely to triplets at Moqassed two months ago, and the babies needed extensive hospitalization. But due to the hospital's concern that the National Insurance Institute (NII) would not cover the costs, since the babies' father is a resident of the Palestinian Authority, the hospital allegedly decided to release only two of the babies, keeping the third as a "guarantee."

According to researchers, Catholic Church infiltrated by Illuminists disguised as Jesuits with world domination as their goal and deception and war their main tools.

Howard Zinn --> How come so many people were so easily fooled?

According to Chalmers Johnson, in his book "The Sorrows of Empire," America already possesses more than 725 overseas bases. This incredible estimate comes from two official sources: The Department of Defense's "Base Structure Report," and "Worldwide Manpower Distribution by Geographical Area." Johnson claims that the figure is actually an underestimate, because many bases are "secret" or otherwise not listed on official books. As an example, Johnson quotes several sources who cite at least six US installations in Israel which are either operating or are under construction.

Pakistan on Thursday night said that a civil nuclear deal between the US and India would bring about the collapse of international agreements to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

The main aim of this collection of studies is to demonstrate that the true provenance of the imagery, like much 9-11 "evidence", cannot be relied upon at face value as it exists, and such photos should not be used as proof of anything until authentication. If even one faked "official" image can be proven, all official photos become suspect.

...it's hard to figure out how much of the democratic republic created by our founders still exists, and how long what's left will last. The country (along with the world) is in terrible trouble, though the extent of that trouble is both so sprawling and multifaceted that it's hard to get a hold on.

The amnesty, in a letter sent to all the Israeli candidates in the upcoming parliamentary elections said," these practices are regarded as a violation of human and international laws and that settlements and the Wall are against international law and a violation for the Palestinians' basic human rights."

Furthermore, it called for ending all these measures at once, calling on Israel not to impose punitive measures against the Palestinian people as a reply to Hamas victory in the latest parliamentary elections, pointing out that the international law prevents Israel, as an occupation authority, from using collective punishment against Palestinians.

Tokyo, Japan, Tuesday, March 14. The New York Times Tokyo Bureau Chief, Jim Brooks, said that he couldn't attend an official press function about 9/11 or he would be fired.

Prominent leaders from the Christian right have warned Republicans they must do more to advance conservative values.

Bush bankrupts the nation paying for a needless war -- while cutting budgets that could protect us against catastrophes like bird flu.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz instructed forces on Thursday to step up targeted killings and anti-terror operations in the West Bank.

Mofaz told a security meeting in Tel Aviv that the Jericho operation sent a clear message to the other side that Israel will not compromise when it comes to its national security principles.

A senior Iraqi police officer said autopsies on the bodies, which included five children, showed each had been shot in the head. Community leaders said they were outraged at the killings and demanded an explanation from the U.S. military.
Television footage showed the bodies in the Tikrit morgue -- five children, two men and four women.

The U.S. military said in a statement its troops had attacked a house in Ishaqi early on Wednesday to capture a "foreign fighter facilitator for the al Qaeda in Iraq network".

Delivering the keynote address at the Center for American Progress' "Iraq; Next Steps for U.S. Policy," Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security advisor for President Jimmy Carter, said that "within a year we should be able to complete a course of disengagement" and withdraw from Iraq.

Brzezinski cited several reasons for withdrawal, among them the "prohibitively expensive" cost of the war and the fact that American leadership and legitimacy has been severely undermined by the insurgency and damaged credibility.

"By some estimates," according to a recent article in Foreign Affairs, "the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the [U.S.] invasion has reached six figures - vastly more than have been killed by all international terrorists in all of history. Sanctions on Iraq probably were a necessary cause of death for an even greater number of Iraqis, most of them children."

Adam Budzanowski could almost feel his captors' mood sag when they rifled through his pockets and found his passport. The word Canada on the cover was a blow to the dozens of masked men who surrounded him in the nondescript basement somewhere in the Gaza Strip. They thought they had kidnapped an American.

A Firefighter Looks At Premeditated Murder At WTC.

The Bush administration could continue its policy of spying on targeted Americans without obtaining warrants, but only if it justifies the action to a small group of lawmakers, under legislation introduced yesterday by key Republican senators.

An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale rocked Indonesia's Maluku islands this week and triggered a small tsunami that killed at least two people and left three missing, an official and reports said.

Israel detected its first cases of H5N1 bird flu on Friday, saying the virus had killed thousands of turkeys and chicken on two farms, and hospitalized three people suspected of being infected.

1-list of interventions for "regime change"
2-list of air warfare campaigns
3-list of client states
4-list of states held by debt-leverage imperialism
5-list of foreign base hosts
6-list of murder toll
7-list of unsavory rightists supported
8-list of perverted international bodies
9-list of interventions for opposing liberation
10-list of interventions pre-1941
11-list of covert operations
12-list of front organizations
13-list of low intensity conflicts
14-list of proxy wars
15-list of foreign policy doctrines
16-list of propaganda campaigns

A visual look at where your tax dollars go.

Under an arrangement between prison officials and San Bernardino, high-risk parolees known to belong to street gangs will be released from custody on the condition that they wear a GPS bracelet on their ankles at all times.

They appear as moving dots on a map and if they try to remove the anklet or enter unauthorized areas the device sends an alert to a base station monitored by law enforcement officials.

The Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled.
The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later.

The invasive surgery could "enable assembly-line like fabrication of hybrid insect-Mems interfaces", Darpa says.

A winning bidder would have to deliver "an insect within five metres of a specific target located 100 metres away".

"The court is dysfunctional and highly prejudiced," Clark, a former US attorney general and member of the defence team, told reporters in Jordan after flying in from two days of hearings in neighbouring Iraq.
"Cutting off the president (Saddam) was absolutely unwarranted. He has international rights to a public trial," Clark said.

279 photographs and 19 videos from the Army's internal investigation record -->

Chris Floyd --> God only knows what festering psychic wounds drive these spiritual cripples and their obsession with death. But for them, power isn't real unless it's written on the body of another human being - a prisoner, guilty or not; an "enemy," real or imagined; or the multitude of slaughtered innocents whose only crime was living in a land that the cripples wanted to conquer.

The U.S. stood nearly alone today as it voted against the creation of a new U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the reform did not go far enough in keeping abusers off the panel.

The new Human Rights Council is meant to replace the 53-member Commission on Human Rights founded in 1946 to censure countries abusing their own citizens.

Finkelstein, the son of two Holocaust survivors who teaches political science at DePaul University in Chicago, spoke about his views of the "fabricated, concocted, illegitimate" Israeli-Arab conflict, while outside at least 150 members of the local Jewish community quietly protested the event.

The Jericho jail raid as a clear-cut example that Israel violated human rights by storming Palestinian territories and arresting Palestinians from jails dominated by the PA, describing it as an Israeli violation of human rights, international law and all previous signed agreements.

Bush has demanded and received permission to use nuclear ?bunker busters? in Iran in a preemptive strike.

The "bunker buster" is a cute sounding name for a nuclear horror. Air bursts are horrible enough, doing incredible destruction through heat, shock and high initial radiation. The fallout from an air burst is registered around the world. A surface or subsurface burst is even deadlier and more long lasting.