Posted on 04/15/2007 4:43:46 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Europe's bio-threat readiness questioned
Image: European Community Europe discusses how to prepare itself in the face of bio-terrorism threats and "perversions" of science, not to mention naturally occurring bio-threats to human health.
By Brooks Tigner in Brussels for ISN Security Watch (11/04/07)
The EU must work much closer with its 27 national capitals and across the Atlantic to combat the growing threat of bio-terrorism, according to EU and US policymakers and scientists.
The European Commission aims to fire up discussion of the issue and prompt some solutions when it issues a consultative document on bio-preparedness in the coming weeks.
While Washington is pushing ahead with high levels of government spending and close public-private coordination to protect the US population against bio-attacks, policy in Europe still lacks focus and is splintered into separate national policies, despite universal concern among EU and national experts that their continent is highly vulnerable to attack. Pan-European research is just as fragmented, though current and forthcoming EU-funded projects aim to pull researchers in the same direction.
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There is no policy coherence in bio-preparedness in general across Europe, whether the issue is one of vaccine production, security at bio- and virological laboratories or national immunization policies.
(Excerpt) Read more at isn.ethz.ch ...
http://www.examiner.com/a-736514~Marine_s_Last_Request_Inspires_Charity.html
Marine’s Last Request Inspires Charity
Mary Conboy holds her son Adam Conboy’s dress cap while standing in front of his portraits at her Philadelphia home
Wednesday, May 16, 2007. Five days before jrwas killed in Iraq in May 2006, the 21-year-old called his mother and asked that she send 40 sets of bed sheets over for him and his comrades. He told her of the rough sleeping conditions the soldiers endured and jokingly said, ‘C’mon Mom, get Operation Bedding going.’ Without realizing it, Adam had just set up his own memorial fund. (AP Photo/George Widman)
(AP Photo/George Widman)
Mary Conboy holds her son Adam Conboy’s dress cap while standing in front of his portraits at her Philadelphia home Wednesday, May 16, 2007. Five days before jrwas killed in Iraq in May 2006, the 21-year-old called his mother and asked that she send 40 sets of bed sheets over for him and his comrades. He told her of the rough sleeping conditions the soldiers endured and jokingly said, “C’mon Mom, get Operation Bedding going.” Without realizing it, Adam had just set up his own memorial fund.
By ALISON LAPP, The Associated Press
2007-05-19 07:08:25.0
Current rank: Not ranked
PHILADELPHIA -
Five days before Lance Cpl. Adam C. Conboy was killed in Iraq, he inspired his own memorial fund.
During a Sunday morning phone call from the Anbar province, he described staying 20 men per room in an old schoolhouse, packed into bunk beds in the scorching heat. The stench, he said, was overwhelming.
He asked his mother if she could send clean sheets - 40 sets of them, one for each member of his platoon.
“C’mon Mom, get Operation Bedding going,” he joked.
He was killed the next Friday, May 12, 2006, by non-hostile fire. He had been in Iraq eight weeks.
Friends told his mother to expect flowers to start pouring in.
“I told people I didn’t need flowers,” Mary Conboy said. “In lieu of that, I took donations to get the bedding Adam asked for out to the guys.”
Operation Bedding has since grown from a son’s spontaneous quip to a mother’s tribute to her fallen Marine. Mary Conboy runs a homespun charity effort from her backyard, sending troops in Iraq packages that contain everything from bedding to sweat socks to canned tuna.
Adam Conboy’s platoon got its packages by July, and the company that replaced it received the next shipment. Schools began sending donations, and Mary Conboy started getting requests from different military units interested in the care packages.
But shipping the bedding, toiletries, snacks and books is costly. Mary Conboy estimates she spends $1,000 to get a shipment to Iraq.
To help with the cost, neighbor Donna Palmer decided to turn a housecleaning flea market into a fundraising event.
“I benefit because then I get rid of all the junk in my house,” she said, “but really I’m helping a dear friend fulfill her son’s last request.”
The event scheduled for Saturday, Armed Forces Day, was to feature about 50 vendors, a motorcycle parade, a color guard salute and live music.
It was to be held in Gorgas Park, in the city’s Roxborough section, around the corner from Adam Conboy’s childhood home. The goal is to raise $10,000.
Charles Conboy, Adam’s father, said the funds that keep Operation Bedding afloat are a distraction for him from the pain of losing his son, as well as a distraction for the troops in Iraq “from what’s over there, at least for a couple hours while they rip through the packages.”
In a DVD sent to the family, Adam Conboy’s corps members describe using baby wipes from the packages when they had no running water for bathing and receiving shaving cream just as superiors were demanding they dry shave beards thick from days of growth.
“There was mad fighting over those pillows,” one Marine said, “fighting for them, fighting with them, everything.”
Mary Conboy said pillows and pepperoni sticks are the troops’ favorites, and sometimes the goodies serve a practical purpose.
One Marine told her about meeting an Iraqi child while he had candy in his pockets.
“You show me where an IED is, and I’ll give you the candy,” he told the child, who led him right to one of the explosives.
“It was on the route where they would have gone that week,” Mary Conboy said. “When I talk to people who’ve made donations, I tell them, ‘You might have saved six Marines’ lives.’”
Adam Conboy knew he wanted to fight for his country after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He was 17.
His mother told him he was too young. When he signed himself up at age 20, he sent his younger brother to give her the news.
“I said, ‘There’s something wrong here,’” Mary Conboy said, smiling. “’You joined the Marines, and you’re afraid to tell your mother? You might want to toughen up.’”
Fellow Marines on the DVD say he did. They nicknamed him “Daddy” because at 21, he was the oldest among them and handled tense situations with humor.
Mary Conboy said she plans to continue Operation Bedding until the troops come home. Her husband, Gary Warner, built a shed in their backyard to hold donations that crowded them out of their dining room.
Charles Conboy helps pack boxes and takes them to a bulk mailing center. Mary Conboy’s six other children, ages 2 to 20, also have rallied around the cause.
When Adam Conboy originally asked his mother to send 40 sets of bedding, Mary Conboy laughed, but wasn’t surprised.
“It was very typical Adam,” she said. “Just like when he was little. He was always the one to have all the neighborhood kids over for Popsicles.”
[photo of many 5 gallon buckets of coins]
http://www.examiner.com/a-735890~Shipwreck_Yields_Estimated__500M_Haul.html
Shipwreck Yields Estimated $500M Haul
In this photo provided by Odyssey Marine Exploration, Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm, left, examines coins recovered from the ‘Black Swan’ shipwreck with an unidentified member of the conservation team Thursday, May 17, 2007, at an undisclosed location. (AP Photo/Odyssey Marine Exploration)
(AP Photo/Odyssey Marine Exploration)
In this photo provided by Odyssey Marine Exploration, Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm, left, examines coins recovered from the “Black Swan” shipwreck with an unidentified member of the conservation team Thursday, May 17, 2007, at an undisclosed location.
By MITCH STACY, The Associated Press
2007-05-18 22:27:38.0
Current rank: # 55 of 4,896
TAMPA, Fla. -
Deep-sea explorers said Friday they have hauled up what could be the richest sunken treasure ever discovered: hundreds of thousands of colonial-era silver and gold coins worth an estimated $500 million from a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean.
A chartered cargo jet recently landed in the United States to unload hundreds of plastic containers packed with the 500,000 coins, which are expected to fetch an average of $1,000 each from collectors and investors.
“For this colonial era, I think (the find) is unprecedented,” said rare coin expert Nick Bruyer, who was contracted by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration to examine a batch of coins from the wreck. “I don’t know of anything equal or comparable to it.”
Citing security concerns, the company declined to release any details about the ship or the wreck site.
Company co-founder Greg Stemm said a formal announcement will come later, but court records indicate the coins might have come from the wreck of a 17th century merchant ship found off southwestern England.
Because the shipwreck was found in an area where many colonial-era vessels went down, the company is still uncertain about its nationality, size and age, Stemm said, although evidence points to a specific known shipwreck.
The site is beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country, he said.
“Rather than a shout of glee, it’s more being able to exhale for the first time in a long time,” Stemm said of the haul, by far the biggest in Odyssey’s 13-year history.
He would not say if the loot was taken from the same wreck site near the English Channel that Odyssey recently petitioned a federal court for permission to salvage.
In seeking exclusive rights to that site, an Odyssey attorney told a federal judge last fall that the company likely had found the remains of a 17th-century merchant vessel that sank with valuable cargo aboard, about 40 miles off the southwestern tip of England. A judge granted those rights Wednesday.
In keeping with the secretive nature of the project dubbed “Black Swan,” Odyssey also is not discussing details of the coins, such as their type, denomination or country of origin.
Bruyer said he observed a wide variety of coins that probably were never circulated. He said the currency was in much better condition than artifacts yielded by most shipwrecks of a similar age.
The coins - mostly silver pieces - could fetch several hundred to several thousand dollars each, with some possibly commanding much more, he said.
Value is determined by rarity, condition and the story behind them.
Other experts said the condition and value of the coins could vary so much that the price estimate was little more than an educated guess.
“It’s absolutely impossible to accurately determine the value without knowing the contents and the condition of the retrieved coins. It’s like trying to appraise a house or a car over the phone,” said Donn Pearlman, a rare coin expert and spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild.
Experts said that controlled release of the coins into the market along with aggressive marketing should keep prices at a premium.
The richest-ever shipwreck haul was yielded by the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622. Treasure-hunting pioneer Mel Fisher found it in 1985, retrieving a reported $400 million in coins and other loot.
Odyssey likely will return to the same spot for more coins and artifacts.
“We have treated this site with kid gloves and the archaeological work done by our team out there is unsurpassed,” Odyssey CEO John Morris said. “We are thoroughly documenting and recording the site, which we believe will have immense historical significance.”
Odyssey stock shot up 80.9 percent Friday, closing at $8.32.
The company salvaged more than 50,000 coins and other artifacts from the wreck of the SS Republic off Savannah, Ga., in 2003, making millions. But Odyssey posted losses in 2005 and 2006 while using its state-of-the-art ships and deep-water robotic equipment to hunt for the next mother lode.
“The outside world now understands that what we do is a real business and is repeatable and not just a lucky one-shot deal,” Stemm said.
In January, Odyssey won permission from the Spanish government to resume a suspended search for the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar.
Historians believe the 157-foot warship was carrying nine tons of gold coins to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France. Odyssey believes those coins could also fetch more than $500 million.
But under the terms of an agreement, Odyssey will have to share any finds with the British government. The company will get 80 percent of the first $45 million and about 50 percent of the proceeds thereafter.
Odyssey also is seeking exclusive rights to what is believed to be an Italian-registered passenger vessel that sank during World War I in the Mediterranean Sea east of Sardinia, and to another discovered in the Mediterranean about 100 miles west of Gibraltar.
[predicted the U.S. strikes for May 27 and July 7 [before]]
http://www.crusade-media.com/news67.html
Spain fears al-Qaeda attack in France
23rd April 2007
Madrid - The Spanish intelligence service fears that al-Qaeda militants could attack a target in Spain or in France in the coming weeks, possibly before the French election runoff, a media report said on Monday.
Private radio station Cadena Ser, which is close to the governing Socialists, said the information is contained in the latest intelligence report on Al-Qaeda activity, compiled after April 11 suicide bombings in Algiers claimed by the network.
In Spain, the service is focusing on the possibility of an attack on May 27 during local elections, or during the America’s Cup yachting competition which ends on July 7 in Valencia in the east of the country.
In France, the network could strike before May 6, the day of the second round runoff between rightwinger Nicolas Sarkozy and socialist Segolene Royal, the radio station said on its website.
Earlier this month, Spain’s top anti-terrorist judge warned that the country, in particular its north African enclaves, is threatened by Islamist attacks following suicide bombings in Morocco and Algeria.
Judge Baltasar Garzon, one of six investigating judges for Spain’s National Court, told La Vanguardia daily that “there’s a big risk that Spain could be the subject of a new Islamist attack.”
Baltasar, who has successfully prosecuted Al-Qaeda operatives, added that Spain’s tiny north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, on the border with Morocco, are particularly at risk.
His remarks came after two suicide bomb attacks in Algiers killed at least 24 people, and three suspected members of an Islamist cell blew themselves up as they were pursued by police in Morocco.
The attacks in Algiers were claimed by Al-Qaeda’s branch in north Africa.
A statement posted on a website which often carries Al-Qaeda messages claiming responsibility for the bombings included a warning against Spain.
Related Stories:
DEBKAfile: Will al Qaeda use violence to prevent Sarcozy becoming French president? The Madrid rail bombing worked in Spain:
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4108
Jihadis aspire to ‘conquer France’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3390982,00.html
Officials: Algerian Boming Is First Wave of New Al Qaeda ‘Spring Offensive’
http://www.crusade-media.com/news65.html
Al-Qaeda plotting radioactive/nuclear attack on West
23rd April 2007
Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq are planning a mass-casualty strike against British and other western targets, possibly with radioactive-dispersal weapons, according to a secret British security intelligence assessment.
The warning is one of two reported since Friday from British and European counter-terrorism officials that a reinvigorated al-Qaeda is mustering fresh resources for a major attack on the West.
“They have got to do something soon that is radical otherwise they start losing credibility,” a British security source told London’s Sunday Times
The newspaper reported yesterday that al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq are planning “large-scale” terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets with the help of supporters in Iran. The other western nations were not named.
The information, from a leaked report by Britain’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, the country’s premier organization for assessing international and domestic terrorist threats, appears to provide evidence that al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq, the newspaper said.
Produced earlier this month, the intelligence assessment quotes one al-Qaeda leader in Iraq saying he was planning an attack on “a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in an attempt to “shake the Roman throne,” a reference to the West.
Analysts believe the reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where more than 200,000 people died in nuclear attacks on Japan at the end of the Second World War, is unlikely to be a literal boast, the newspaper said.
Despite aspiring to a nuclear capability, some believe al-Qaeda is not thought to have acquired weapons-grade material.
However, several plots involving “dirty bombs” — conventional explosive devices surrounded by radioactive material — have been foiled. What’s more, an al-Qaeda leader in Iraq last year called on nuclear scientists to apply their knowledge of biological and radiological weapons to “the field of jihad.” (Read more at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aEkw8aDv7fbA )
Also as reported by Crusade Media in June 2006 Al Qaeda have nuclear weapons which they purchased on the black market and are planning to use them in an operation named the ‘American Hiroshima’. This latest message from al-Qaeda in Iraq referring to their planned attack on “a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki”. (Read more at: http://www.crusade-media.com/news1.html )
“It could be just a reference to a huge explosion,” a counter-terrorist source, referring to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki claims, told the newspaper.
The assessment says al-Qaeda would “ideally” like to carry out an attack before Prime Minister Tony Blair steps down this summer.
It also makes it clear that senior al-Qaeda figures in the Iraq region have been in recent contact with operatives in Britain.
But it says there is “no indication” an attack would specifically target Britain, “although we are aware that AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) . . . networks are active in Britain.”
Details from the assessment follow a Friday report in London’s Financial Times quoting unnamed European officials and terrorism specialists saying al-Qaeda is reaching out from its base in Pakistan to turn militant Islamist groups in the Middle East and Africa into franchises charged with intensifying attacks on western targets.
The efforts could see radical Islamist groups use al-Qaeda expertise to switch their attention from local targets to western interests in their countries and abroad. “For al-Qaeda, this is a force multiplier,” a British terrorism official told the newspaper.
The more immediate concern, however, appears to be al-Qaeda in Iraq, backed by Iran, and its suspected intent to stage a mass-casualty assault against the West.
The concerns over a plot to attack Britain before Mr. Blair steps down stem from a letter written by Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd and senior al-Qaeda commander.
According to the intelligence assessment, Mr. Hadi “stressed the need to take care to ensure that the attack was successful and on a large scale.”
The plan was to be relayed to an Iran-based al-Qaeda facilitator.
Al-Qaeda’s attempts to expand across the Middle East and North Africa, while still at an early stage, follow the rebuilding of the group’s core in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, near the Afghan border, after six years of U.S.-led military action.
The group’s central organization appears to have reconstituted around about 20 senior figures in farms and compounds that also act as training camps, western officials told The Financial Times.
While there is no evidence of a formal relationship between al-Qaeda, a Sunni group, and Iran’s Shia regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, experts suggest that Iran’s leaders may be turning a blind eye to the terrorist organization’s activities.
It was revealed last year that up to 150 Britons had travelled to Iraq to fight as part of al-Qaeda’s “foreign legion.” A number are thought to have returned to Britain, after receiving terrorist training, to form sleeper cells, according to the newspaper.
The terrorist threat rating in Britain has remained at “severe,” meaning an attack is “highly likely,” since last August’s discovery of an alleged London-based plot to destroy a fleet of airborne trans-Atlantic jetliners bound for the United States.
http://www.crusade-media.com/news66.html
http://www.crusade-media.com/news1.html
Al Qaeda has Nuclear Weapons
1 June 2006
A month after September 11, senior Bush administration officials were told that an al Qaeda terrorist cell had control of a 10-kiloton atomic bomb from Russia and were plotting to detonate it in New York City. CIA director George Tenet told President Bush that the source, code-named “Dragonfire,” had said the nuclear device was already on American soil. The briefing sent President Bush “though the roof” causing him to order his national security team to give nuclear terrorism priority over every other threat to America. Six months earlier the CIA’s Counterterrorism Centre had picked up chatter in Al Qaeda channels about an “American Hiroshima”.
Concerned that Al Qaeda could have smuggled a nuclear weapon into Washington as well, the president ordered Vice President Dick Cheney to leave the capital for an “undisclosed location,” where he would remain for many weeks to follow. This was standard procedure to ensure “continuity of government” in case of a decapitation strike against the U.S. political leadership. Several hundred federal employees from more than a dozen government agencies joined the vice president at this secret site. The president also immediately dispatched NEST specialists (Nuclear Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers) to New York to search for the weapon.
After anxious weeks of investigation, including surreptitious tests for radioactive material in New York and other major cities, Dragonfire’s report was found to be false. New York’s mayor and police chief would not learn of the threat for another year. However the incident brought home to the American administration how volatile and potentially destructive this “war on terror” could be.
To date, the only confirmed case of attempted nuclear terrorism occurred in Russia on November 23, 1995, when Chechen separatists put a crude bomb containing 70 pounds of a mixture of cesium-137 and dynamite in Moscow’s Ismailovsky Park. The rebels decided not to detonate this “dirty bomb,” but instead informed a national television station to its location. This demonstration of the Chechen insurgents’ capability to commit ruthless terror underscored their long-standing interest in all things nuclear. As early as 1992, Chechnya’s first rebel president, Dzhokhar Dudayev, began planning for nuclear terrorism, including a specific initiative to hijack a Russian nuclear submarine from the Pacific Fleet in the Far East. The plan called for seven Slavic-looking Chechens to seize a submarine from the naval base near Vladivostok, attach explosive devices to the nuclear reactor section and to one of the nuclear-tipped missiles on board, and then demand withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. After the plot was discovered, Russian authorities disparaged it, and yet it is ominous to note that the former chief of staff of the Chechen rebel army, Islam Khasukhanov, had once served as second-in-command of a Pacific Fleet nuclear submarine.
For Movsar Barayev, the leader of the rebel unit that took 800 hostages only a few blocks from the Kremlin, the Dubrovka Theater was his second-choice target. Initially, Barayev planned to seize the Kurchatov Institute, one of Russia’s leading nuclear design centers, with 26 operating nuclear reactors and enough HEU to make thousands of nuclear weapons. Though far from optimal, the security at Kurchatov proved formidable enough for Barayev to pass up the nuclear facility for a softer target.
Chechen separatists have had a long-standing interest in acquiring nuclear weapons and material to use in their campaign against Russia. In addition to surveying Kurchatov, Chechen militants have conducted surveillance of the railway system and special trains designed for shipping nuclear weapons across Russia. They also succeeded in acquiring radioactive materials from a Grozny nuclear waste plant in January 2000 and stealing radioactive metals – possibly including some plutonium – from the Volgodonskaya nuclear power station the southern region of Rostov between July 2001 and July 2002.
Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist organizations are among Chechen militants’ major sources of financial support. Al Qaeda operatives were alleged to have negotiated with Chechen separatists in Russia to buy a nuclear warhead, which the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed to have acquired from Russian arsenals. While the Chechens’ target of choice for their first nuclear terrorist attack will surely be Moscow, if the Chechens are successful in acquiring several nuclear bombs, their Al Qaeda brethren would be likely consumers.
The collapse of the Soviet Union presented an enormous threat to nuclear security with the Soviet’s ominous arsenal spread across four separate states. Efforts to transport weapons from Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine to Russia required significant speed and diplomatic muscle during a period of extreme political and economic chaos. The Soviet Ministry of Defense had to move 22,000 tactical nuclear weapons to Russia as the country was coming apart at the seams. Inflation had jumped over 2,000 percent, which fueled corruption and criminality throughout Russian society. In the slogan of that era, “Everything was for sale.” In light of these realities, is it conceivable that all nuclear weapons were recovered without a single loss? In 1991, then U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney observed, “If the Soviets do an excellent job at retaining control over their stockpile of nuclear weapons— let’s assume they’ve got 25,000 to 30,000; that’s a ballpark figure—and they are 99 percent successful, that would mean you could still have as many as 250 that they were not able to control.” The bottom line today is summarized best by an American intelligence officer who spent many years tracking this issue. In his words: “We don’t know with any confidence what has gone missing, and neither do they.”
These bombs included suitcase nuclear devices; suitcase backpacks (yadernyi ranets), such as the Army’s RA-155 and Navy’s RA-115-01 (to be used underwater), which weighed as little as 65 pounds and could be detonated by one solider in ten minutes, producing a yield of between 0.5 and 2 kilotons.
Reports of Bin Laden having obtained nuclear suitcases, first surfaced in 1998, in various international papers and magazines. In 1996 members of the Chechen Mafia purportedly sold twenty of these nuclear suitcases in Grozny to representatives of Osama bin Laden and the mujahadeen. For the weapons, bin Laden paid $30 million in cash and two tons of heroin that had been refined in his laboratories in Afghanistan. The street value of the heroin was in excess of $700 million.
In 1997, Boris Yeltsin’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, General Alexander Lebed, acknowledged that 84 of some 132 such weapons were not accounted for in Russia. These weapons are miniature nuclear devices (0.1 to 1kilotons), small enough to fit into a suitcase carried by a single individual. The Russian government reacted to Lebed’s claim in classic Soviet style, combining wholesale denial with efforts to discredit the messenger. U.S. government sources have never succeeded in getting to the bottom of this matter.
It has not only been the various intelligence agencies of America, UK, Israel, Egypt and Pakistan finding this alarming intel, it also has come straight from Al Qaeda:
In an interview with Time magazine in December 1998, Bin Laden asserts that acquiring weapons of any type, including chemical and nuclear, is a Muslim “religious duty.”
However in November 2001, Osama Bin Laden clearly spells it out and states that he is in possession of chemical and nuclear weapons. He states this in a special interview with Hamid Mir, the editor of Dawn newspaper, at an undisclosed location near Kabul. This was the first and up until now the last interview given by Osama to any journalist after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. The correspondent was taken blindfolded in a jeep from Kabul on the night of November 7 to a place where it was extremely cold and one could hear the sound of anti aircraft guns firing away. After a wait of some time, Osama arrived with about a dozen bodyguards and his number two, Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
In the interview Bin Laden states “I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent”. When Hamid Mir asks him he got the weapons, bin Laden tells him to go to the next question.
Mir recalled telling al-Zawahiri it was difficult to believe that Al Qaeda had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn’t have the equipment to maintain or use them.
Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri laughed and he said ‘Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available”. “They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs,” Mir quoted al-Zawahiri as saying.
After the 911 attacks on America some Islamic clerics criticized bin Laden for not issuing a warning to America prior to the attacks and an offer of convert to Islam. However, since then bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have issued various warnings and offers of truces to both the US and it European allies.
Consider the religious fatwa titled “A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels” that Osama bin Laden secured from Shaykh Nasir bin Hamd al-Fahd, a young and prominent Saudi cleric justifying the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against Americans, in May 2003:
“Anyone who considers America’s aggressions against Muslims and their lands during the past decades will conclude that striking her is permissible on the basis of the rule of treating one as one has been treated. No other argument need be mentioned. Some brothers have totaled the number of Muslims killed directly or indirectly by their weapons and come up with a figure of nearly ten million....If a bomb that killed ten million of them and burned as much of their land as they have burned Muslim land was dropped on them, it would be permissible, with no need to mention any other argument. We might need other arguments if we wanted to annihilate more than this number of them”.
Recently in January 2006 in an audio tape, directed to the American population, bin Laden said “: “The new operations of al-Qaeda has not happened not because we could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared and you’ll see it in your homeland very soon.” But the voice on the tape, also offered a truce: “We do not mind establishing a long-term truce between us and you.”
In August 2005 Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a video. In it he stated: “O nations of the crusade alliance, we proposed that you at least stop your aggression against the Muslims. The Lion of Islam, mujahid Sheikh Osama bin Laden, may God preserve him, offered you a truce until you leave the Land of Islam. Has Sheikh Osama bin Laden not informed you that you will not dream of security until we live it in reality in Palestine and before all infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, may peace be upon him [= Saudi Arabia]? You, however, shed rivers of blood in our land so we exploded volcanoes of anger in your land. Our message to you is crystal clear: Your salvation will only come in your withdrawal from our land, in stopping the robbing of our oil and resources, and in stopping your support for the corrupt and corrupting leaders. Those who collaborated with America in Iraq and Afghanistan will, God willing, bear the consequences of this collaboration soon.”
Zawahiri put special emphasis on the growing threats to the United States. “What you have seen, O Americans, in New York and Washington and the losses you are having in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial clashes. If you continue the same policy of aggression against Muslims, God willing, you will see the horror what will make you forget what you had seen in Vietnam,” he warned.
In April 2006 bin Laden issued a further audio tape. In it the speaker on the tape said that along with their governments, the people of the West bear responsibility for what he called a “Zionist-crusader war against Islam”. He seems to be gearing the West for another attack in which civilians will be as much a target as their governments – more so than the 911 attacks.
Bin Laden is quoted as saying: “The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to its rulers and masters,” he said. “They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and our houses are bombed and our people are killed.” He said that the decision by some Western powers to cut funding to the Palestinian government since the militant group Hamas won elections there was further proof of this anti-Islamic campaign.
It has being reported that Mir met with an Egyptian engineer recently, who had lost an eye after one of bin Laden’s nuclear tests in Kunar, Afganistan. The Pakistani journalist said that the encounter with the engineer greatly disturbed and depressed him since it provided further assurance that a nuclear nightmare for America is about to dawn.
Mir believes that an “American Hiroshima” will occur as soon as the U.S. launches an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “Al-Qaeda and Iran,” he says, “have a long, secret relationship.”
That relationship dates back to June 21, 1996, when bin Laden attended a terror summit in Tehran. The gathering attracted terror leaders from various places throughout the world, including Ramadan Shallah (the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), Ahmad Salah (Egyptian Islamic Jihad), Imad al-Alami and Mustafa al-Liddawi (HAMAS), Ahmad Jibril (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Abdallah Ocalan (the Kurdish People Party), Muhammad Ali Ahmad (al Qaeda), and Imad Mugniyah (Hezbollah). The summit resulted in the creation of the “Committee of Three” that would meet on a regular basis for the “coordination, planning, and execution of attacks” against the United States and Israel. The committee members were Ahmad Salah, Imad Mugniyah and bin Laden.
Mir’s position that al-Qaeda’s nuclear weapons may have already been forward deployed to the United States confirms the report of Sharif al-Masri, a key al-Qaida operative who was arrested in Pakistan in November 2000.
Al Masri, an Egyptian national with ties to al-Zawahiri, said that al-Qaeda had made arrangements to smuggle nuclear weapons and supplies to Mexico, From Mexico, he said, the weapons were to be transported across the border and into the United States with the help of a Latino street gang.
Mir also maintains that numerous sleeper agents are in place in major cities throughout the United States to prepare for the nuclear holocaust. Many of these agents, he says, are Algerians and Chechens who obtained European passports and are posing as Christian and Jews.
He further says that many of these agents have been in the United States since bin Laden’s issuance of his “Declaration of War on Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Holy Places.” That fatwa was issued Aug. 23, 1996
http://www.aina.org/news/20070517101056.htm
Marxists and Islamo-fascists of the World Unite!
Posted GMT 5-17-2007 15:10:56
Forget the proletariat! Now it is Marxists and radical Muslims of the world unite!
If any doubt still existed regarding bonds being formed between the hardcore left and elements within Islam, one needed to look no further than the leftist “Festival of Resistence” conference held at the University of Toronto last weekend for confirmation.
As indicated by the causes they represented, the contemporary Marxists gathered there seem to have given up on the Western proletariat ever becoming revolutionary and placed their hopes elsewhere in their unending, hate-filled struggle to destroy capitalism. In the audience were members from such stimulating groups as the environment, First Nations, the anti-war movement and the transgendered (Was Marx a cross dresser?). But while diverse in nature, the one commonality they all possessed, one can be assured, was hatred of capitalism, Israel, the United States and of Western civilization.
But, as reported in the Canadian newspaper, The National Post, the conference’s opening night was not given over to any of these ragtag, would-be revolutionaries to rail against the ills of capitalism or George Bush, as one would expect, but rather was dedicated to forging unity between Marxists and Muslims. To this end, the keynote speaker the first evening was a controversial local Muslim, Zafar Bangash, a Muslim imam and the director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought.
Bangash is currently at the center of a controversy to bring a mosque to Newmarket, a town north of Toronto. The people opposing the project say they are not objecting to their community getting its first Muslim place of worship but rather are against Bangash himself, whom they regard as an Islamic extremist.
In an interview earlier this year with a Toronto newspaper, the imam defended himself against the charge, saying he was definitely neither a racist nor a terrorist nor an advocator of violence. But the Pakistan-born immigrant admitted he is against “Israeli state policies”, since they are responsible for crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
“How could that be radical?” he said. “Is it permissible to starve millions of people?”
However, in the same story, Bangash is cited for having written after 9/11, as the editor of a Muslim newspaper, that Osama bin Laden was someone who “stands up to the West in the name of Islam” and that there was a “far greater tragedy taking place in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan.” In the same interview, Bangash also called stories, in which he was supposed to have said America knew about 9/11 beforehand and that Canada is a “fully paid-up member of the Anglo-Saxon Mafia, which is responsible for most of the genocides in the world”, fabrications.
At the Marxism conference, Bangash, according to The National Post reporter, “railed” against a Jewish group that complained the teams in his soccer league had lovely names like Jihad and Hezbollah. But despite the violent, warlike messages these names send, the controversial imam said his presence at the event was to due to humane reasons like “…justice, inequality and poverty”, common themes that concerned all the participants.
It was an irony of the evening, however, that Bangash interrupted his delivery to his audience of atheists in order to go and pray. And while Marxism has always been virulently anti-religious, the heirs of Marx and Lenin present said not a word. On the contrary! According to the newspaper report, they shouted down a Trotskyist who said he opposed all religions, indicating how much times have changed for the radical left.
But as much as things appear to have changed, they still remain the same for the class haters. The supposedly humane causes they now espouse conveniently serve as cover for their eternal hatred of capitalism and of the United States, much like the cause of the “oppressed” working class did before the fall of the Berlin Wall. These Western Marxists are also ignoring and betraying their brother Iraqi communists who have good reason to oppose Muslim extremists and ironically, unlike their Western counterparts, want American troops to stay in their country.
Moreover, the radical left is also still willing to make alliances with anyone who can further their goals of destroying both objects of their animosity, a tradition stretching back to Lenin. And while Marx, author of the famous words ‘religion is the opiate of the people’, would probably never have advocated an alliance with Islam, his modern followers see a staunch ally in Muslim radicals, since both sets of extremists share a rabid hatred of the United States.
Muslim moderate Tarek Fatah, a critic of Bangash according to the newspaper story, perhaps summed up best the essence of such an alliance of hatred when he said: “For atheists, considered worthy of the death penalty by Islamists, to team up with their ultimate opponents in attacking Canadian civic society, demonstrates the fundamental bankruptcy of these two political ideologies.” Bankrupt, indeed!
By Stephen Brown
FrontPageMagazine.com
© 2007, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.aina.org/news/20070518101254.htm
The Situation of Christians in Iraq is Dire
Posted GMT 5-18-2007 15:12:54
Baghdad (CNA) — The Patriarch of the Ancient Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Addai II, has called on the Prime Minister and the Iraqi parliament to put an end to the tragic situation that Christians in Iraq are enduring due to the constant threats and attacks against them.
“Those who are in positions of responsibility must put an end to the persecution of Christians because all of us, Muslims and Christians, are part of one family, we are children of the same land,” the patriarch said.
“The violence against Christians in Iraq, but especially in Baghdad and Mosul, is against the spirit of Islam,’ Mar Addai said, adding his voice to that of the other Patriarchs, Mar Emmanuel III Delly of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Mar Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Orthodox Church of the East and Mar Gregotios Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syrian Catholic Church.
“The actions of armed groups are forcing Christians from Baghdad, district by district. After Dora, the violence has become fiercer and has reached the western districts of the capital,” the website Baghdadhope reported.
In addition to being subjected to threats, killings, and protection payments, Christians are also being forced to leave their own homes leaving everything behind. The armed militants then force the Christians to pay an “exit fee” of $200 per person and $400 per car, the website explained.
In Dora, Addai II said, “Only the families that agree to give a daughter or sister in marriage to a Muslim can remain, which means that the entire nuclear family will progressively become Muslim.” Homes, he said, that are not seized by force are being legally turned over by family members of hostages, who are told that is the only way to see their loved ones released.
“God loves us and protects us and therefore we should not be afraid. He will not leave us alone because we are children of hope, and after the darkness the sun will shine again,” Addai II stated.
Analysts worry that the departure of the Christian community from Iraq, which has roots going back to antiquity, could make it more difficult to pacify the country.
© 2007, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.aina.org/news/2007051893539.htm
Muslim Riots Over Church Construction in Egypt Were Preplanned
Posted GMT 5-18-2007 14:35:39
The sectarian violence that erupted on Friday in the village of Bimha, in the Ayat district 70 kilometres south of Giza, seemed less a spontaneous outburst fuelled by wrangling among villagers than a premeditated act. Pamphlets had been distributed throughout the village before a mob, armed with everything from machetes to containers of kerosene, ran amok through the village. Within 40 minutes, 36 houses belonging to Christians had been burned and seven shops looted. Ten villagers were in hospital, two in a critical condition. At the time of going to press 35 alleged perpetrators were being questioned while another ten remain at large. A Christian man was subsequently detained, charged with throwing a plastic bag filled with inflammable liquids into a Muslim prayer area on Sunday.
Pamphlets distributed ahead of the violence called on Muslim villagers who wanted to “protect” their religion to gather after Friday prayers, in order to stop the construction of a church in their village. The pamphlet included the rumoured location of the church and concluded by saying that the time to act had come: “there must be no more laxity, no more laziness... it is necessary that every Muslim protects his religion otherwise all is lost.”
While there are reports that some Christians were threatened as early as Thursday, the security forces arrived three hours after the riot began. Observers have claimed that tardy responses are typical of the security forces’ strategy, which seems to involve a wait and see approach to sectarian violence, after which they move in, but only after the violence has abated. Then, they begin to attempt to clean up the mess.
Raouf Abdallah, a Coptic school teacher and part-time farmer, was working in his fields on Friday morning when he heard women screaming that their homes had been broken into and set on fire.
“When I arrived at my brother’s house, I was restrained by two older men who told me that I should stay out of the house while the others finished the job inside. They said that they didn’t want any killing, and that they were just there to destroy our belongings.”
The mob, said Abdallah, comprised all age groups, from the very young, to elderly men. “The ghafar [local guards] were also among rioters, they used their rifles to whip people,” he says. After putting out the fire in his brother’s house, he went to help extinguish fires in the homes of his aunt and fiancée. “They took all the electrical appliances, the jewellery I had bought my fiancée and burned what was left,” Raouf said. He also reports that in some incidents, Muslims tried to protect the property of their Christian neighbours.
“This is not the first time that this has happened in the Ayat area. Similar incidents have occurred in the villages of Girza, Izbit Wasfi Ghali, and in the town of Ayat itself,” says 38- year-old accountant and Bimha resident, Magdy Ayaad.
Bimha’s Christian families had long gathered in the home of fellow congregation members Atif and Arian Youssef in order to worship. Following negotiations between the clergy and security forces, it was agreed that a place of worship could be built, though without any domes or crosses which might anger the local community. After the first floor of the building was completed in 2005, construction was halted by security officials after complaints raised by local residents.
Subsequently a compromise was reached, with Christians allowed to pray in their old places of worship, the home of Atif and Arian Youssef. To compensate the two congregation members, whose home would henceforth be a dedicated space for worship, Atif was to receive money and land, while Arian opted to finish the church’s partially constructed building and make it his home. “The problem is that there is a great deal of fear, anger, and ignorance regarding the presence of a church especially among young people,” said Ayaad. When the rioting started, some 2,000 people began to demolish the partially constructed building.
“I predict that this will happen again now that the rioters know they can get away with it,” Ayaad said.
Ayat’s parish priest, Makary Labib, says that Christians are often forced to use roundabout ways to build places of worship. It is a result, he says, of the difficulties involved in obtaining a building permit for a church.
“No church had been built in the town of Ayat since 1962. A presidential decision was announced in 1973 allowing a permit for building, but then it was revoked. It wasn’t until 1996 that the church could open,” says Labib.
Asked about possible solutions to recurrent outbreaks of sectarian violence Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, the Coptic secretary-general of the liberal Wafd Party, said the question is raised on an almost monthly basis. “We talk about it for 24 hours then forget it for 30 days, until another problem happens,” he said.
“The media on both sides of the issue seem to bolster a position of fanaticism, while the true roots of the problem are cultural and educational,” argues Nour.
Coptic intellectual Kamal Zakhir finds that the most alarming dimension of this latest incident is the involvement of “simple villagers” and not extremist groups. It shows, he said, how deep-rooted fanaticism has become in society.
© 2007, Assyrian International News Agency.
http://www.aina.org/news/20070518111715.htm
Told to Convert or Die, 21 Assyrian Families Seek Shelter in Baghdad Churches
Posted GMT 5-18-2007 16:17:15
Baghdad (AINA) — The crisis for the Assyrian community in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood is deepening. Islamists are systematically targeting the Christian Assyrians (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs), forcing them to pay the jizya (AINA 4-17-2007, 3-18-2007), a “protection” tax demanded by the Koran, or convert within 24 hours or be killed. Dora is located 10 kilometers southwest of Baghdad.
Families are abandoning their homes and seeking refuge in Churches:
* 14 families have fled to the Al-So’ud Chaldean Church.
* 7 families have fled to Saint Odisho Assyrian Church. 3 families are in the church and 4 in the Saint Adai Patriarchate, the old church building.
* An unknown number of families have fled to Saint George Chaldean Church.
Islamic groups are preventing families from bringing any belongings as they flee their homes.
Hatem Al-Razaq, the sheik of the Al-Noor mosque in Dora, has toured Dora, visiting each Assyrian family and instructing them to pay 250,000 Iraqi dinars ($190), saying this sum is the jizya because “you are not Muslims.” Families that cannot pay this sum are told to send one family member to the mosque on Friday to announce their conversion to Islam. Families who refuse to do this must leave their homes immediately and not take any of their belongings with them because “your properties belong to the mosque.”
Families that do not leave and do not convert are threatened with death.
In a report by the Catholic News Agency (AINA 5-18-2007), Mar Addai II, the Patriarch of the Ancient Assyrian Church of the East, says “Only the families that agree to give a daughter or sister in marriage to a Muslim can remain, which means that the entire nuclear family will progressively become Muslim.” Also, Assyrian families are forced to turn over their homes as ransom for their kidnapped relatives.
© 2007, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.aina.org/news/20070518182239.htm
Muslims Burn Assyrian Church in Baghdad
Posted GMT 5-18-2007 23:22:39
(AINA) — According to the Assyrian website ankawa.com, a group of armed Muslims set fire to St. George Assyrian Church in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad. The group of men poured gasoline on the church and set it on fire. This is the same church that was bombed in the first of a wave of bombings of Assyrian churches (AINA 10-16-2004). When St. George was bombed in 2004, the church Cross was not damaged; the bombers tore the cross down with their hands after the bombing.
In the past four weeks, the Assyrian (also known as Chaldean and Syriac) community in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood has been systematically targetted by Islamists, who have demanded that the Christian Assyrians pay the jizya (AINA 4-17-2007, 3-18-2007), a “protection” tax demanded by the Koran, or convert within 24 hours or be killed. Assyrian families have sought refuge in Churches (AINA 5-18-2007).
Dora is located 10 kilometers southwest of Baghdad.
© 2007, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
www.littlegreenfootballs.com
UC Irvine Muslim Students Attack FBI Agent with Cinderblock
An unbelievable story from the University of California Irvine,
where the Muslim Students Union is holding a virulently anti-Israel
hate week, and at the same time trying to claim victimhood: FBI
actions at UCI questioned.
The OC Register says the “FBI” is being questioned. But notice—the
students not only tried to detain the agent, they threw a
cinderblock at his car.
...he noticed a silver Ford Taurus with blackened windows following
him.
Ahmed said he stopped the truck in view of other campus observers
and stood in front of the Taurus, trying to look through the
blackened windshield and asking the driver to identify himself. When
he would not speak, Ahmed said he tried to take a photo of the car’s
license plate with his camera phone.
“He could have just rolled down his window and said, `I’m an FBI
agent,’ and that would have been the end of it,” Ahmed said. “There
was nothing improper going on.”
Instead, according to Ahmed, the driver revved his engine
threateningly and began pushing him backward with the car’s front
bumper. Ahmed said he then began calling for help, and dozens of
other students ran over to assist.
...
Regarding the allegations that an FBI agent endangered a student,
Eimiller said, “The fair thing to do is to let the cops investigate
it.” She added that a student threw a cinderblock at the agent.
The agent did not violate any policy by refusing to identify
himself, Eimiller said, because he was not conducting an arrest.
The Council on American Islamic Relations is seething.
On Thursday, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern
California chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations in
Anaheim, said his office “has received many calls from students and
parents at UCI expressing extreme concern about the safety and
privacy of their students on campus” since Monday.
“The calls came all day yesterday and today,” Ayloush said
Thursday. “It’s understandable that law enforcement might sometimes
need to verify certain tips, but the problem in this situation was
the manner in which it was conducted.”
(Hat tip: Killgore.)
Thanks to milford421 for this and the last post:
Video: UC Irvine MSU Antisemitism Revealed
Watch this video...www.littlegreenfootballs.com
You’re not going to believe this one; video of an evil antisemitic
rant by Amir Abdel Malik Ali, in a private room at the Muslim
Students Union hatefest this week at University of California
Irvine. Absolutely sickening, with paranoid conspiracy theories
about the Mossad being behind 9/11, and claims that “Zionist Jews”
are plotting around the world to make Muslims look bad.
The student recording the video is thrown out when they notice him.
This is really nasty stuff.
(Video player requires Flash Player.)
Here’s a post about the video at the OC Blog: UCI Intifada:
Preaching Terror on Campus.
Thanks to Milford421 for this:
Police officers slain just south of the border - Explosives Stolen
http://www.fox11az.com/news/topstories/stories/KMSB_20070516_br_policeattacked.7676677d.html
Police officers slain just south of the border
09:09 AM MST on Thursday, May 17, 2007
By Bob Richardson, Fox 11 News
Slideshow: Arizpe Shootout following Cananea murders
Russia: Activists Prevented From Attending Opposition Rally
SAMARA, May 18, 2007 (RFE/RL) — Opposition activists have staged a
March of Dissent rally on the sidelines of the EU-Russia summit, while
some of their counterparts were prevented from attending.
RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Oleg Kusov said that protesters
were greeted with a strong police presence.
“After every 10 meters there was a column of policemen. They were in
plainclothes, but nevertheless, they had a psychological influence.
Next
to the policemen there were trucks with water cannons.... The
organizers
aren’t giving any cause for the police to use force. And I think the
intensity of passions is diminishing,” Kusov said.
Kusov estimated that there were no more than 200 marchers present. He
said some local journalists said they recognized members of the
security
services in the crowd.
Protesters marched with slogans such as “We want a different Russia,”
and “Russia without Putin and his disciples.”
Sanctioned Rally
The rally was officially sanctioned, but it follows a week of
crackdowns
against activists in Samara and elsewhere.
Law-enforcement officials seized computers at the Samara office of the
liberal weekly “Novaya gazeta” last week. Police reportedly said they
were searching for pirated software.
Police also raided the Samara branch of Voice, a rights group that has
actively denounced arrests of opposition activists.
Some of the activists, traveling from other parts of Russia, didn’t
make
it to Samara. Former chess champion Garry Kasparov, now a leading
figure
in the Other Russia opposition movement, was detained this morning at
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport as he was attempting to board a plane to
Samara.
Officials have claimed Kasparov’s ticket was improperly issued. Several
Western journalists and other opposition figures were also barred from
boarding the plane.
Moscow Detentions
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Kasparov said he was not allowed
to fly out of Moscow.
“Most [of the group members] had their passports and tickets taken
away.
This continued for almost five hours and there was no explanation given
for the first two hours. After that they said they were gathering
information about the tickets because supposedly 13 passengers [from
the
group] — including correspondents from ‘The Wall Street Journal’ and
‘The Daily Telegraph,’ by the way — had forged tickets,” Kasparov
said.
Eduard Limonov, whose barred National Bolshevik Party is also a member
of Other Russia, was among those detained.
He told RFE/RL’s Russian Service he believes the confrontation with
authorities indicates the opposition is stronger than the Kremlin would
like.
“The polarization between the Kremlin and the Other Russia [movement]
continues, and as far as I understand it is becoming public knowledge
among Russian citizens despite the silence of federal television
stations and the federal media. As far as I’m concerned, I’m glad it’s
happening. I think this is the kind of conflict that opposition
activities have been missing for many years,” Limonov said.
Merkel Concerns
Requests to hold such marches in other Russian cities are often
rejected, and attempts to defy the bans have met with a brutal police
crackdown.
In Samara, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told journalists she was
“concerned” by the fact that activists had had difficulty traveling to
the city.
“I say this openly that I wish that this afternoon, those who want to
demonstrate in Samara and express their opinion will be able to do so.
I
am a little concerned that a number of [people] had difficulty in
traveling here, but perhaps they will be able to accomplish this,
nevertheless,” Merkel said.
Putin appeared unfazed by any critical voices. He said the March of
Dissent opposition rallies — which have been staged in Moscow, St.
Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod — “pose no problems” to him.
“We shouldn’t be afraid of marginal groups, especially such small
groups. Practically in all countries law enforcement agencies take
preventive measures. Is it good or bad? I think sometimes it’s not
always justified. And such examples have been cited today. There are
such examples in Germany too, where they arrest and detain people as a
preventive measure,” Putin said.
http://rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/05/162A84AA-6712-48C3-A486-87C801B9F790.html
International Herald Tribune
Journalists in Russia resist state crackdown
By C. J. Chivers
Friday, May 18, 2007
MOSCOW: The largest society of independent journalists in Russia, long
critical of the Kremlin’s curtailment of the independent news media and
its substitution with propaganda, on Friday defied a government
eviction
notice and said it would try to remain in its offices in spite of state
pressure.
The refusal by the society, the Russian Union of Journalists, to follow
the government’s order marked a moment of resistance to a fresh round
of
crackdowns on the independent news media here.
It occurred as all of the radio correspondents for the Russian News
Service, a network that provides broadcasts heard at the top of every
hour on radio stations across the country, announced that they had
resigned in protest of new network policies that censor news and
require
the airing of pro-Kremlin material.
Independent news reporting, which flourished after the collapse of the
Soviet Union and included courageous reporting on themes like
corruption, poverty, public health and the wars in Chechnya, has
sharply
declined under President Vladimir Putin. Critics of the Kremlin say
that
opposition views are now at risk of disappearing from the public
discourse.
In place of diverse opinions and perspectives, the three national
television networks have been brought under the state’s influence or
outright control, and Russia Today, a state-run global television
channel, was created in 2005 to promote pro-Kremlin views in formats
that resemble modern news broadcasts.
A few news Web sites, a shrinking pool of independent newspapers, all
with limited circulations, and a sole radio station, Ekho Moskvi,
provide almost all of the remaining alternative insights and public
dissent.
Foreign radio material has been restricted or blocked from most Russian
frequencies across the country. Parliament, at the request of the
country’s top prosecutor and law enforcement arm, is considering
restrictions on the Internet, which could further limit choices for
audiences seeking uncensored content.
The latest crackdowns have take a range of forms, including direct
police action, the policy at Russian News Service requiring journalists
to air content deemed “positive” by managers friendly to the Kremlin,
and the eviction notice to the journalists’ union, which occupies space
in a state-owned building.
The eviction order, which the union said Russia’s Federal Property
Management Agency had presented to it on May 15, ordered the union to
vacate the offices by Friday - 10 days before the 26th World Congress
of
Journalists is scheduled in Moscow.
Restrictions on press freedoms in Russia are expected to be high on the
congress’s agenda; the union has been helping to coordinate the
gathering and trying to find donors for it.
Igor Yakovenko, the union’s general secretary, said that Russian
officials had told the union’s lawyer that its office space was needed
for Russia Today, the state-owned channel.
“This action and its timing are clearly political and send a
distressing
message,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to
Protect Journalists, a New York-based organization. “The government is
ousting an independent press group in favor of an outlet dedicated to
propaganda.”
The dispute centers on the validity of a presidential decree, issued in
the 1990s by then-President Boris Yeltsin, that ordered the transfer of
former Soviet office space to the union for “infinite and
free-of-charge
use.” The federal property agency contended in its eviction notice that
the language was no longer binding because of amendments to Russian
law.
Yakovenko, the union’s general secretary, said he hoped to prevail, but
left open the possibility that the union could be forcibly evicted
before a resolution in court. “If we stick to the legal way of
development, the only possible way to kick us out of here is to go to
court,” he said. “But we understand that the law is not the main
regulator of relationships between people and organizations in Russia.”
The eviction notice followed several other actions that restricted
alternative views from circulation. On May 11, the police confiscated
three journalists’ computers at the offices of the Samara regional
edition in Novaya Gazeta, an opposition newspaper, ostensibly in a
search for illegal software. Samara is the location of a summit that
began Friday between Putin and the European Union.
And this month the four correspondents at the Russian News Service have
submitted letters of resignation in protest of policies issued by the
service’s new pro-Kremlin management
Although it was not possible to evaluate listener reaction in full,
comments posted on the service’s Web site suggested that some listeners
were angry, bored or disgusted.
“Down with Kremlin censorship!” one person wrote. “Yesterday elevators
were discussed. Today, buckwheat. Are not there any other topics?”
One listener, who identified himself as Stanislav, recalled the dull
formats of the Communist past. “I suggest we change the name to ‘Putin
News Service’ or ‘Soviet News Service,’ “ he wrote. “Such templates I
heard only in the ‘70s and ‘80s - extreme nonprofessionalism and
surprisingly visible censorship. It’s a disgrace.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/18/europe/press.php
Pro-US Coup At Al Jazeera?
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/05/18/pro-us-coup-at-al-jazeera/
Pro-US Coup At Al Jazeera?
By Danny Schechter.
BREAKING… HAS THERE BEEN A PRO-US COUP AT ALJAZEERA?
“Google News is carrying a report by Italy’s Ukunet that there has been a shakeup at the Al Jazeera network in Doha, Qatar with the removal of Managing Director Wadah Khanfer and the current Executive Board and control shifted to Qatar’s former Ambassador to Washington who is described as a close friend of leading US politicians. I am relaying this Friday morning report and hope to find more information to confirm the story. If true, this may mean the end of AlJazeera’s journalistic independence and current orientation. Was The Bush Administration behind it?”
The Qatar newspaper The Pininsula reported this:
“Doha • The Deputy Emir and Heir Apparent H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani yesterday issued the Emiri Decision No 28 of the year 2007 forming Al Jazeera Satellite Network board of directors.
The Emiri decision provided that Al Jazeera board of directors be formed as follows: H E Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, Chairman; Ahmad Abdullah Al Kholeifi, Deputy Chairman and Managing Director; Hamad Abdul Aziz Al Kuwari, member; Abdullah Mubarak Al Kholeifi, member; Mahmoud Shamam, member; Abdul Aziz Ibrahim Al Mahmoud, member; and Mariam Rashed Yousuf Al-Khater member. The Emiri decision also provided that the board term would be three years.”
SOME CONTEXT: ALJAZEERA WAS FROZEN OUT OF THE US CABLE MARKET
AP reported in April:
“…no major cable or satellite provider in the US is carrying the channel, a decision the network blames on political pressure. US carriers, however, say there is simply no market.
Nearly100m households worldwide receive Al Jazeera’s English service, almost half as many as CNN, station executives say. Since January, it has been broadcasting news to 550,000 Israeli homes on Yes TV, the country’s largest cable provider.
‘It’s extraordinary that while the rest of the world is happy to watch us… the U.S. stands in splendid isolation,’ said Al Jazeera English managing director Nigel Parsons at the station’s headquarters in Qatar.
Station executives said they expected a dogged battle for American airwaves because Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel has been excoriated by the Bush administration as a mouthpiece for terrorists, including Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden.
Still, No. 1 US cable provider Comcast Corporation, was ready to carry Al Jazeera English’s November debut in the Detroit area, Al Jazeera executives said.
But Comcast suddenly pulled out just before launch, Parsons said. He and Wadah Khanfar, managing director of Al Jazeera Arabic, believed the decision was spurred by US political opposition. ‘We suspect there was outside pressure, including of a political nature,’ Parsons said. But he noted he had no evidence of such pressure, and did not know whether pressure came from the US government, elected officials or lobby groups….”
Could there be a deal in the works?
A speculative suspicion: Al Jazeera offered limited carriage which would involve access to advertising in the US in exchange for a purge of its independent posture which often reports critically on US policy in the region? In other words, censor your journalists and we will reward you with an opportunity for commerce.
COINCIDENTALLY, US BACKED TV NETWORK NOW UNDER INVESTIGATION
Meanwhile, in addition to the threat against the most credible network in the Arab world is a report about the least credible. Arab News in Saudia Arabia has another, perhaps related, development:
US-Backed Arab TV Network to Be Investigated by Congress:
“WASHINGTON, 18 May 2007 — Al-Hurra, the Arabic language satellite television network set up by the US government to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East, is to be investigated for possible irregularities, the State Department confirmed yesterday.
When the Bush administration launched Al Hurra TV in 2004, its aim was to promote America in the Muslim world. But now some lawmakers who funded it are calling for the resignation of the station’s news director.”
Army under attack for stopping Harry’s Iraq tour of duty
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/army-under-attack-for-stopping-harrys-iraq-
tour-of-duty/2007/05/18/1178995408860.html
Army under attack for stopping Harry’s Iraq tour of duty
MILITARY chiefs are considering Prince Harry’s future in the British
Army,
after the Ministry of Defence was attacked over the fiasco of his
aborted
deployment to Iraq.
The handling of the affair has been heavily criticised in army circles.
Asked about concerns that Harry’s life seemed to be valued above those
of
other soldiers, the Defence Secretary, Des Browne, said: “I personally
understand that point. Taking on risky environments is part of military
deployment, we all accept and understand that, but part of the
judgement was
the deployment of Prince Harry would increase the risk to others
disproportionately.”
Mr Browne insisted the tradition of royals joining the military should
continue: “I don’t accept for a moment that the long tradition of the
royal
family serving in the military is in any sense an anachronism.”
It seems clear there were credible intelligence reports that
insurgents,
possibly encouraged by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, were stockpiling
weapons to target the Prince and his squadron of Scimitar armoured
reconnaissance vehicles.
A Scimitar was hit in a fatal attack in southern Iraq last month and
last
week insurgents kidnapped US soldiers south of Baghdad.
David Crausby, vice-chairman of Parliament’s defence select committee,
said:
“I think it would have been a real security nightmare and if it had
gone
wrong it would have been an absolute disaster for the royal family and
the
country.”
Surgeon Commander Rick Jolly, who led the medical team treating British
and
Argentinian wounded during the Falklands War in 1982, said there had
been
speculation then that Prince Andrew would be withdrawn “when the
shooting
started”.
Although Andrew saw action that included seeing an Exocet missile pass
close
to his helicopter, Commander Jolly said the specific terrorist threats
against Prince Harry made the position impossible.
“There was a technical and political determination to hurt the Prince
as a
political strike within the struggle in Iraq,” he said.
“The whole affair is a pity because Prince Harry has trained hard,
clearly
loves his blokes and I’m sure they would want to be led by him.
“But I don’t think his withdrawal will undermine his authority because
most
people will understand the special rules governing royals.”
One army officer said that many in the military thought the Prince
would go
to Iraq secretly.
Some soldiers’ families were upset by what they saw as special
treatment.
“It is not safe for any of them out there. Who do I need to speak to in
order to stop my husband being sent there later in the year?” said
Gella
Tomlin.
“If he is not prepared to or allowed to do what other soldiers must, he
should resign his commission.”
Lucille Duggs, whose son is serving in Iraq and is due home next month,
said
she understood the army’s decision. “If someone was out to kill someone
like
Harry you would not want innocent bystanders, like other soldiers, to
be
targeted,” she said. “Too many have lost their lives already.”
Friday Sermon in Iran: If Iran Is Attacked, Tens of Thousands of
Missiles
Will Be Fired at Israel
1938 Alert: “Friday Sermon in Kerman, Iran: If Iran Is Attacked, Tens
of
Thousands of Missiles Will Be Fired at Israel; President Bush Should Be
Sentenced to 100 Deaths,” from
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD157807
MEMRI:
The following are excerpts from a Friday sermon in Kerman, Iran,
delivered
by Sayyid Yahyah Ja’fari. The sermon was aired on Kerman TV on May 6,
2007.
To view this clip: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1444
http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1444
Sayyid Yahyah Ja’fari: “As you can see, the killing in Iraq is
outrageous.
That international criminal, George Bush... If there is any justice in
the
world, undoubtedly, this man and his ilk, without a doubt, should be
sentenced to 100 deaths. There is no doubt about it. Meanwhile, they
hold
all the power in their hands, and the world has not yet begun to
confront
them the way it should, even though these peoples have great power.
“The power of the world of Islam is great. The governments are
dependent
[upon America], and so they prevent the Muslim peoples from doing
anything,
and even if they were to do anything, it would be ineffective.
[...]
“The American threats are psychological warfare. You must know this.
The
Supreme Leader [Khamenei] recently said so. But let’s assume that it
isn’t
psychological warfare; with God’s grace, our people, our strong army,
our
powerful Revolutionary Guards, our brave Basij volunteers - in sum, all
our
armed forces, of which we are proud - are in full readiness, and they
will
rub the invaders’ noses in the mud.”
Crowd: “Allah Akbar
“Allah Akbar”
[...]
Sayyid Yahyah Ja’fari: “According to our officials and political
analysts,
this will not happen - I only said it for the sake of argument -
because
some of the American officials have a little sense, and they realize
that
their interests throughout the world would be in danger, and that the
plundering Israel would also be attacked severely by us. America is
doing
all these things in order to ensure Israel’s security. If it acts
stupidly
and invades an Islamic country - especially a country like Iran - it
should
bear in mind that Israel will come under a very severe attack. Several
days
ago, the stupid Israeli prime minister said: ‘We can attack the Iranian
nuclear industry with 10,000 cruise missiles, and delay it for another
10
years.’ Our response is that if he is planning to fire 10,000 missiles,
we
will fire tens of thousands of missiles on Tel Aviv and Israel.”
Crowd: “Allah Akbar
“Allah Akbar.”
Pentagon Defends Move to Block Web Sites
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/05/18/pentagon-defends-move-to-block-web-sites/
Pentagon Defends Move to Block Web Sites
By Reuters.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday defended a decision to
block popular Web sites including YouTube and MySpace on U.S. military
computers, saying it needed to keep its network clear for operations.
Military officials said they had restricted access to more than a dozen
recreational sites because they had registered high levels of use on
U.S. Department of Defense computers.
Rear Adm. Elizabeth Hight, deputy head of the Defense Information
Systems Agency, said the Pentagon needed to ensure bandwidth on its network
of more than 5 million computers was not clogged by the use of those
sites.
“This network is critical for our effective and efficient and safe
combat operations,” Hight told reporters.
“We use it for everything from ordering supplies to sending orders to
providing logistics information, scheduling people to get on an
airplane, scheduling goods to move from point to point,” she told reporters at
the Pentagon.
Rep. Ed Markey, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives
subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, has called on the
Pentagon to reverse the decision, which took effect on Monday.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this week, Markey
said troops overseas had used many of the blocked sites to communicate
with family and friends and that those contacts were critical for
morale.
But the Pentagon said many of the sites had already been blocked on
military computers in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than two years and
troops had many other ways of keeping in touch with loved ones.
The Pentagon agency responsible for morale provided commercial Internet
services free of charge at bases across Iraq and Afghanistan and those
would be unaffected by the decision, Hight said.
She said the Pentagon had not banned troops from using the sites but
had simply decided they could not be accessed from U.S. military
computers to preserve bandwidth.
New technologies such as streaming video were real “bandwidth hogs,”
Hight said.
“We just simply cannot accommodate the growth in the bandwidth demands
of this newer technology for both official reasons and recreational
sites,” she said.
The Pentagon said the blocked sites included YouTube, 1.fm, Pandora,
MySpace, PhotoBucket, Live365, hi5, Metacafe, MTV, ifilm.com,
Blackplanet, stupidvideos and filecabi.
May 18, 2007 9:45 AM
Right Revolt
Conservatives won’t stand for the Bush-Kennedy immigration deal.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDEyMDU5NDVhNzAzOTRmODQ0OGVkZjEzOTk4ZDc5ZTA=
It’s never a good day for the White House when, at the start of
his evening radio show, Mark Levin is provoked by a presidential press
conference - one lauding a supposed legislative achievement - to
complain on behalf of conservatives: “How about not treating us with
animosity?”
That conservatives would be upset with the immigration deal was
predictable. But the degree of the indignation has been remarkable. Even
before there was any deal announced, Slate’s Mickey Kaus was calling
the immigration debacle “Bush’s domestic version of Iraq.” Kaus is no
conservative-movement guy, of course, just a smart, clear thinker. Mark
Levin, on the other hand, will defend you to the death if you’re good
news for conservatism. Yet he sees this deal not only as an egregious
betrayal of conservatism, but also as gross incompetence on a political
level. (”Is this any way to run a country?” he asked Wednesday night.)
Michelle Malkin frames the pending deal as dangerous. And she was
only one among many conservatives doing so. Rush Limbaugh had Tony Snow
on his show Tuesday, but even the best face of the administration
couldn’t do it for Rush on immigration. Convinced that it’s not only
dangerous, but bad politics for the GOP, he cautioned: “The Democrats
obviously want these people to become voters. They’re looking at this in a
political sense.”
Wednesday on his show, while watching John McCain stand with Ted
Kennedy as a deal was announced, Rush predicted this would prove to be
a real “problem” for McCain with conservative primary voters. But the
problem’s not just McCain’s; Rush predicted possible 2008 doom for the
GOP if this deal is as bad as it sounds.
It is a common view among conservatives. Powerline’s Paul
Mirengoff drew a line in the sand: “Any Republican candidate who is on board
with the projected deal should receive no consideration from
conservatives as a presidential nominee.” Hugh Hewitt blogged: “John McCain’s
antics throughout 2005-2006 cost the GOP the majority in the Senate. Now
he’s going to do for Smith, Sununu, Coleman and others what he did for
DeWine, Talent and Santorum.” Ouch.
Mark Levin, on Wednesday night, implored: “Do these Republicans
ever learn? . . . Do they understand that a majority of the American
people, whether they’re Democrats, Republicans, or nothing, have had it up
to here with illegal immigration and they don’t want to subsidize it?”
It would seem not. And so I’ll make mention of my e-mailers
flirting with consideration of the i-word (yes, as in “impeachment”).
The base, of course, will eventually calm down - a bit. The
question is, how much? Was this the last straw? If conservative media is any
indication, recovery will be slow. Laura Ingraham began her show Friday
announcing “I’m trying not to be demoralized.” But after playing tape
of Ted Kennedy “waxing triumphant” Thursday, the mood was reminiscent of
the morning after Election Day 2005 all over again. And now you can
kiss the Senate goodbye, too, if this bill goes through, she said.
It’s going to be a long, hot summer on the Right thanks to la
Casa Blanca.
A QUICK GUIDE TO EARLY Conservative COVERAGE of the immigration
deal
Michelle Malkin is not too happy:
I’m shocked, shocked....via WashTimes...
With friends like the Senate Republicans, who needs enemies?
At least she can say she was right all along:
See, I told you so.
She also gives some numbers:
I repeat:
There have been seven illegal alien amnesties passed into law
since 1986:
The 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act blanket amnesty
for an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens
1994: The “Section 245(i)” temporary rolling amnesty for
578,000 illegal aliens
1997: Extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty
1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief
Act for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America
1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act amnesty for
125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti
2000: Extension of amnesty for some 400,000 illegal aliens who
claimed eligibility under the 1986 act
2000: The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which included
a restoration of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty for 900,000 illegal
aliens]
Guess what? None - not one - of those amnesties was associated
with a decline in illegal immigration. On the contrary, the number of
illegal aliens in the U.S. has tripled since President Reagan signed the
first amnesty in 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even
larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number
was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty
recipients who then acquired automatic US citizenship.
And as I’ve noted before, there is no such thing as a
“temporary” amnesty.
Hugh Hewitt blames McCain and rallies opposition:
John McCain’s gift that keeps on giving - the McCain-Kennedy
coalition of those blind to border security - is getting close to its
unveiling. Calling Rudy, Mitt and especially Fred Thompson: Help stop this
bill.
Hewitt’s diagnosis?
Now the greatly reduced Senate GOP caucus is running for cover
not realizing that the only cover they have is to stand and fight for
enforcement first in the form a fully funded 700 miles of fence, the
completion of which -the completion of which- would trigger regularization
of illegal aliens in an era of new stiff employer sanctions and
counterfeit-proof identification card. The key here is specificity on the
triggers, and the vague assurances offered in the talking points are just
so many red flags because they are not specific in any way.
John Hinderaker at Powerline is somewhat less pessimistic:
Hugh thinks the projected deal is a disaster, and he may be
right. But on paper, at least, I don’t think it’s so clear. To me, the key
is workplace enforcement.. Many people who have studied the illegal
immigration problem more than I have believe that this is the key: as long
as illegals can make far more money here than in their own countries,
no fence will keep them out, whereas if the lure of a good job is gone,
so is their reason for coming here. So I put a premium on workplace
enforcement.
But not by much:
I’m afraid that no matter what the “compromise” ostensibly
consists of, the feature that will actually be implemented is amnesty for
the 12 million existing illegals, and everything else will fail when it
comes time for implementation. I’m not holding my breath, for example,
waiting for the already-mandated fence to be built.
I’d love to be proved wrong, and if enough people get active on
the issue, maybe I will be. But if the past is any guide, the fatal
flaw in any “comprehensive” solution to the illegal immigration problem is
that some of its features will come into being, and others won’t.
Paul Mirengoff at Powerline adds:
John’s last paragraph captures the problem. The only part of
the program a conservative rationally can expect to work is amnesty (or
path to citizenship, if you prefer) because it involves bestowing a
benefit, one of the few things the government is good at. The enforcement
components all require a level of competence that no conservative should
expect the government to deliver.
And then he offers this blunt assessment:
Any Republican candidate who is on board with the projected
deal should receive no consideration from conservatives as a presidential
nominee.
Mickey Kaus isn’t buying the Republican tough-talk:
Many of the alleged concessions-like ending “chain migration”
of family members-seem unenforceable in the long run. Are we really
going to give citizenship to illegals but prevent them from reuniting with
their families? I don’t think so.
And how’s this for negativity?
This is looking more and more like the Bush administration’s
domestic version of Iraq: a big risky gamble, based on wishful thinking
and nonexistent administrative competence, that will end in disaster.
And he also rallies opposition:
Here’s a form that lets you contact Sen. Kyl’s office to tell
him whatever you think. In my experience, Congresspersons and Senators
are extremely-make that absurdly, almost irrationally-sensitive to
calls, emails and letters.
Here’s Rush grilling Tony Snow:
I can hear Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy the next day saying, “How
can we be so unkind to charge these people who are working for two
bucks an hour, $5,000 they don’t have? That is cruel,” and try to blame
this on the Republicans politically, going into the election, because if
fits the mold of mean-spirited, cold-hearted and cruel. The Democrats
obviously want these people to become voters. They’re looking at this in
a political sense.
And afterwards Rush complained:
We’re not forcing them to come here! We are not burdening them
at all, and yet we respond to their illegal entry by acting like we’ve
done something wrong to them and we need to do something to make it
right for them, and it’s what’s always bugged me. Instead of doing what we
can to “make it right” for American citizens and protect the jobs and
the work, we seem to be going out of our way. Both parties seem to be
bending over backwards and forwards.
Over at Redstate:
The word on Capitol Hill today is that the Senate expects to
give members the text of the immigration bill late Friday, with a cloture
vote slated for Monday. The bill is expected to run 1,000 pages or
more. How fast does the average senator read, much less deliberate?
Remember, nearly three weeks ago, 15 Republican senators asked
for at least a week to review the bill. They wanted the bill to be made
publicly available online.
More from Redstate:
Senate Democrats and Republicans are working feverishly with
the White House to put the finishing touches on an immigration proposal
that could be announced later today or tomorrow. The deal would give
illegal aliens living in the United States amnesty, according to
confidential sources. It would also allow illegal aliens to bring their parents,
spouses and children into the United States.
Thanks to Milford421 for this report:
Man Charged With Making Homemade Explosives - Wisconsin
Man Charged With Making Homemade Explosives
POSTED: 9:48 pm CDT May 17, 2007
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WASHINGTON COUNTY, Wis. — Police said Thursday they know who
created homemade explosives found in a Town of Polk home earlier
this week, but they can’t find him.
Donald J. Vander Bloomen, 26, kept asking a friend to watch video of
what he called “little experiments,” police said.
Those little experiments turned out to be the bombs detonated by the
Milwaukee Bomb Squad Monday. A lawn service worker found one of the
bombs in the grass and called the Washington County Sheriff’s
Department, who then contacted the bomb squad.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Washington County
Circuit Court, a search warrant executed on the property turned
up “materials or components to assemble an improvised explosive
device.” An active laptop computer showed that an Internet search
for the keywords “homemade explosives” had been initiated.
An illegal lab was being investigated on the same property last week.
Anyone with information on Vander Bloomen’s location is asked to
call police.
http://www.themilwaukeechannel.com/news/13343173/detail.html
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