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.
~~~~~~~~ snip~~~~~~~
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 ...
Do we dare call it treason? 1998
Free Republic
Clinton/China
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj/msg/acfeaa1b1d644f55?
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj/msg/f47983c6f5071862?
HAS CLINTON ABUSED THE POWER OF HIS OFFICE?
By various Free Republic posters
Thursday, October 22, 1998
The attacks have come less than a month after a senior member of Al Qaeda called on Hamas to show a little more energy in its war against Israel. In a video that appeared on Al Qaeda’s website, Abu Yaha al Libi asked Hamas, “Where is the revenge? Where are the bombs? Where is the fire?”
The senior Al Qaeda terrorist urged Hamas to step up its attacks. “Your loyalty will be measured only through your commitment to the path of Jihad,” chided al Libi.<<<
This years threats from zawaihiri have also wanted more attacks on Israel.
They think Israel is weak, it could be there will be a big surprise coming to the alqaeda boys.
re:2854, 56,57 posts.
Google groups was on it in 2002:
Sorted by date it was hot in 2006 and as early as 1998:
Remember, Dr. Bill says they will set it off any day, he will be on the air at kgo.com at 10 pm pacific time:
couple here to check out:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=nuclear+black+market&start=0&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&;
added date 1996 to search in groups:
couple to check out here - 2002:
I can’t get it to go all the way back to 1996: Note the Moon/nuclear posts:
1990 to check:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Can+Terrorists+Get+the+Bomb&start=0&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&;
[there is something hidden in this story, that I missed, the photo is of a mid-eastern man, yet, they insist he is a german.....]
‘CIA victim’ held after shop fire
A Lebanese-born German, who accuses the CIA of having kidnapped and tortured him, has been arrested on suspicion of setting fire to a shop in Bavaria.
German police arrested Khaled al-Masri near the shop in Neu-Ulm on Thursday. He was sent to a psychiatric clinic and the fire was quickly extinguished.
His lawyer said his client had lacked proper psychological counselling.
Mr Masri says he was kidnapped in Macedonia in 2003, flown to a secret jail in Afghanistan and tortured there.
He says he was detained for five months before being released in Albania after the Americans realised they had got the wrong man.
Munich prosecutors have ordered the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents in connection with the alleged “extraordinary rendition” case.
Mr Masri says his case is an example of the US practice of flying foreign terror suspects to third countries without judicial process for interrogation or detention.
He told the BBC in February: “I’m suffering from stress - this experience has left me traumatised.”
His German lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, said Mr Masri had acted out of desperation after arguing with staff at the shop in Neu-Ulm.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6669341.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 11:57:11 GMT
© BBC MMVII
University shut in Holocaust row
An Italian university has closed down one of its campuses to prevent a planned lecture by a controversial French professor and Holocaust denier.
Robert Faurisson has been convicted five times in France for denying crimes against humanity.
He was due to speak at the University of Teramo in central Italy as part of a Masters course in Middle East studies.
But the university decided to close part of the campus to prevent him addressing students.
It said the “climate of tension” might endanger the safety of its students.
‘Embarrassment’
Faurisson says that Nazi gas chambers are a fiction and that most of the Jews who were killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp died of natural causes.
Last year, he was one of several prominent Holocaust deniers who gathered to take part in a conference in Iran.
The University of Teramo’s Professor Moffa, who organised the lecture, was formally warned to cancel the invitation but insisted he had a right to academic independence.
“Are you so convinced of your truths?” Mr Moffa was quoted as telling the Italian daily newspaper La Stampa. “Then why don’t you come and pull him to pieces?”
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre issued a statement saying that the invitation to Faurisson was “an embarrassment to Italian academia”.
“To welcome Faurisson [...] encourages a perverse propaganda to incite a new generation to anti-Semitism,” it read, according to AP.
European interior ministers agreed last month to make it an offence to condone or grossly trivialise crimes of genocide - but only if the effect is incitement to violence or hatred.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6670745.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 17:33:14 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Record wreck ‘found off Cornwall’
The haul was salvaged using a tethered underwater robot
The haul of coins
A record haul of half a million silver and gold coins from a 17th Century shipwreck may have been found just 40 miles from Land’s End, an expert said.
US treasure hunters said the coins, worth an estimated $500m (£253m), were recovered in the Atlantic Ocean.
But Odyssey Marine Exploration, who described it as the largest find of its kind, refused to pinpoint the location.
US coin expert Dr Lane Brunner said there was evidence the shipwreck was lying off the Cornish coast.
Dr Brunner, from the American Numismatic Association, told Five Live there were clues about the location in a statement given to a US federal court in the autumn.
“They told a judge at that point that they had found the wreck of a seventeenth-century merchant ship in the Atlantic Ocean, just outside the English Channel - about 40 miles off Lands’ End.
So all we can do is add two and two together
Dr Lane Brunner
“So all we can do is add two and two together. It would seem logical given the timing and everything that could be the site.”
In 1641, an English ship called the Merchant Royal sank off the Scilly Islands, laden with bullion from Mexico. There is speculation that this is the wreck salvaged by Odyssey.
‘Dazzling specimens’
Odyssey said it had kept the location secret because of security and legal reasons.
“The gold coins are almost all dazzling mint state specimens,” Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm said.
The artefacts, including more than 17 tonnes of silver coins plus a few hundred gold coins, have been shipped to the US and are being examined by experts at an undisclosed location.
The mammoth haul was salvaged using a tethered underwater robot.
Odyssey, which used the code name Black Swan, said it expected the wreck to become one of the “most publicised in history”.
It said the site was of huge historical importance because of the insight it would offer into seafaring and the social life of the period when the ship sank.
“Our research suggests that there were a number of colonial period shipwrecks that were lost in the area where this site is located, so we are being very cautious about speculating as to the possible identity of the shipwreck,” said John Morris, Odyssey’s co-founder.
“We have treated this site with kid gloves and the archaeological work done by our team out there is unsurpassed.
“We are thoroughly documenting and recording the site, which we believe will have immense historical significance,” he said.
Odyssey said the coins were recovered in international waters, “beyond the legal jurisdiction of any country”, and had been legally imported into the US.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/6671975.stm
Published: 2007/05/19 14:02:55 GMT
© BBC MMVII
[where is the bad, that has to come with any mass of people???]
Ireland’s new multicultural mix
In the run-up to the Irish general election, the BBC News website is looking at some key issues affecting modern Ireland. Here, the BBC’s Stephen Fottrell considers the mass immigration that has transformed the country in recent years.
It is almost difficult to remember pre-immigration, pre-multicultural Ireland, such is extent of the change it has brought to the country.
Before the Irish economic boom the only form of migration the country knew was outward - with thousands of graduates and young unemployed people leaving every year to seek work elsewhere.
However, prosperity has reversed the trend. Many emigrants have returned and foreign nationals now make up 10% of Ireland’s workforce and wider population.
Immigrant communities have been established across the country, not just in urban areas but in smaller towns that were previously known only for being stop-offs between cities.
Gort, in the western county of Galway, is one such town. Home to the biggest Brazilian community in the country, a third of its population of 3,500 now come from Brazil.
Language and permits
Nilton Souza De Viera, chairman of the town’s Brazilian association, came to Ireland in 2002, following two friends who had already moved over.
He worked as a kitchen porter before opening two businesses of his own in the town centre - an internet cafe and a car wash.
His internet cafe is full of Brazilians using the web and special rate long-distance phones to keep in contact with those back home.
I find it difficult to get work permits for staff. Many have been deported - including my brother-in-law, who was deported twice
Lidiane Castor
Many here are originally from Anapolis, a town in southern Brazil, which in turn has benefited from money sent home by those working mainly in Gort’s factories, construction sites, restaurants and hotels.
“They are a breath of fresh air,” says Frank Murray, who runs a community project with the Brazilians. “They have really added to the local area.”
However, concerns have been raised about exploitation, stemming mainly from the fact that many of Gort’s Brazilians do not speak English. One community support worker estimated that as few as 10% can speak it comfortably.
“All problems centre around language,” Mr Murray says. “It opens the door to exploitation.”
Lidiane Castor, from Anapolis, has been living in Gort for four years and runs a hair salon.
“I have never had problems myself, but that’s because I speak English,” she says. “I see with some of my friends that if you don’t speak English, you can have problems.
“It’s very important for us to mix with the local community. The big problem is that a lot of the Brazilians here are illegal. I find it difficult to get work permits for staff.
“I am lucky as my husband, who is also originally from Anapolis, has Italian citizenship, so we can both stay. But many have been deported - including my brother-in-law, who was deported twice.”
Solving a problem
Despite any problems language and documentation may pose to integration, local people seem to have reacted positively overall to their town’s transformation.
“Well, it’s little Brazil now, isn’t it?” says Gort resident Martin Donohue.
“It was a culture shock at first, but they’ve blended in well and filled a lot of the jobs that needed filling.”
“Gaps in the job market” is as ubiquitous a term as the Celtic Tiger in Ireland now and the country is as reliant on foreign workers filling the openings as immigrants are on the jobs themselves.
“Immigrants solved a problem we didn’t even see coming,” says Cork farmer Frank O’ Mahony.
“We were in trouble labour-wise up until EU accession. The Irish just didn’t want to do certain jobs any more and there were huge gaps opening up in the labour market.
“But the immigrant workers filled them. Now, for instance, there are a lot of Polish and Lithuanians working in agriculture.”
Eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, represent some of the largest groups of immigrant workers in Ireland.
Ola Waliszewska, from western Poland, came to Cork to work and learn English two years ago.
“I’m very happy here,” she says. “The Polish are very similar to the Irish. They share our experience, as many Irish had to emigrate for economic reasons.
“There are a lot of immigrants here now, from Poland and many other countries, but we are welcomed by the Irish.”
Misconceptions
But is that welcome universal?
The one thing that breeds prejudice is not knowing anything about each other
Taiwo Matthew
Ping, a Chinese restaurant manager in Limerick, says she heard Ireland was racist before she came over from Hong Kong five years ago.
But she found the opposite to be true when she arrived.
“I was a bit of a novelty when I arrived first as I was living in a small rural area,” she says. “But after a while I just became part of the community.”
Taiwo Matthew, originally from Lagos, Nigeria, became the first immigrant to be elected to local office when he was voted in as an independent member of the Ennis town council in County Clare, in 2004.
He ran for office, he says, “because the immigrant community was being misconceived”.
“There was a gap in understanding, but no bridge across it,” he says. “The one thing that breeds prejudice is not knowing anything about each other.”
Mr Matthew, a trained doctor, has lectured secondary school students about the dangers of prejudice.
“It is important to inform the younger generation about the benefits immigrants can bring to their country.
“After all, no country can be great without a diversity of people.”
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6646223.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 09:43:52 GMT
© BBC MMVII
I believe this is the chap they initially - similarity of names - believed to have taken over as top dog of Al Qaeda in Iraq after the death of Zarghawi. Strange man always in the shadow of troubles and in my opinion not as innocently as he claims.
Three Swedes freed from Ethiopia
Three Swedish men have been released by Ethiopia after being detained for five months on suspicion of helping Islamist militants in Somalia.
A spokeswoman for Sweden’s foreign ministry said the three men, who were originally arrested in Somalia, were now back in Sweden.
Spokeswoman Nina Ersman said the three had not been charged with any offence.
Ethiopia has said it detained a number of people after its army helped drive Islamists out of Somalia’s capital.
Two of the men are Swedish nationals and one has permanent residency status in Sweden. Their names have not been released.
Sweden’s foreign ministry had been demanding the release of the detainees for several weeks.
“I would like to express my gratitude to all foreign ministry officials who made this possible,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in a statement.
A lawyer for the three men said there had been no notification from Ethiopia that they would be released.
Ethiopia’s government said in April that it had detained 41 people from 17 countries after its army helped Somalia’s transitional government drive militias allied to the Union of Islamic Courts out of Mogadishu at the end of last year.
Some detainees were deported from Kenya, where many Somalis fled the fighting in Mogadishu.
Ethiopia has defended the detentions as part of its efforts to combat international terrorism in the Horn of Africa.
Human rights groups say US agents have been allowed to interrogate the detainees as part of the hunt for al-Qaeda suspects in the region.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6673117.stm
Published: 2007/05/19 17:22:14 GMT
© BBC MMVII
EU-Russian talks end in acrimony
The leaders of the European Union and Russia have traded sharp criticism over human rights, at a summit that exposed the divisions between the two sides.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed alarm at the detention of activists intending to protest against the Russian government.
Vladimir Putin retorted that Estonia’s ethnic Russians were being persecuted.
Correspondents said the exchanges just illustrated the souring mood between the EU and its eastern neighbour.
There are a number of prickly issues between the two, including trade, energy supplies and Kosovo.
In a break with previous practice, no joint declaration was prepared before the summit at Volzhsky Utyos government resort, near the Russian city of Samara.
The Polish problem is a European problem. The Lithuanian and Estonian problems are also EU problems
Jose Manuel Barroso
European Commission chief
If the atmosphere at the post-summit news conference was anything to go by, the relationship has reached a new low, says the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Moscow.
President Putin turned the tables on the EU, accusing members Estonia and Latvia of violating the human rights of their Russian minority.
“We believe this is unacceptable and unworthy of Europe,” he said.
It follows Estonia’s removal last month of a World War II monument to Red Army soldiers, which led to riots and the death of one ethnic Russian.
‘Colonial instincts’
In a BBC interview after the summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the future status of Kosovo should be decided by the Serbian people.
He said those who thought it could be determined by Russia, the EU and the US were burdened by colonial instincts.
EU leaders have recently expressed alarm about Russian threats to veto a UN Security Council resolution proposing Kosovo’s de facto independence from Serbia.
Mr Lavrov said: “It’s a case which, according to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1224, adopted by consensus, supported by Russia, by the European Union, and by the United States, must be resolved in negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina.”
Opposition detained
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned Russia that any action taken against an individual EU state would be considered action against the whole bloc.
“It is very important if you want to have close co-operation to understand that the EU is based on principles of solidarity,” he said.
They (Estonian police) didn’t just disperse demonstrators. They killed one demonstrator. We demand that the criminals be brought to account
Vladimir Putin
Russian President
Mrs Merkel, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, then stepped in, complaining that opposition activists had been prevented from travelling to the summit venue to take part in a protest.
“I’m concerned about some people having problems in travelling here,” Mrs Merkel said.
“I hope they will be given an opportunity to express their opinion.”
A number of leading anti-Putin activists, including the former chess champion Garry Kasparov, had passports confiscated and were detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.
The authorities said they had false travel documents.
Several foreign journalists were also reportedly prevented from travelling.
‘Sacred principles’
Nevertheless, some protesters - estimated variously between 100 and 500 - gathered at a square in Samara and marched, chanting slogans like “Russia without Putin!”
“I don’t agree with what’s happening in Russia today. I want another Russia, a free one,” said Natalya Sorochan, 27.
A perceived increase in Russian authoritarianism is one of the thorns in the side of EU-Russian relations, correspondents say.
Mr Barroso said the EU’s “sacred principles” included “democracy, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of demonstration”.
Another testing issue is Russia’s ban on meat imports from Poland over apparent food safety issues.
Poland rejects the ban, and says it will veto any new strategic partnership between the EU and Russia, until it is lifted.
Also souring relations are the cutting of Russian oil supplies to Lithuania in a separate row.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6668111.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 22:08:33 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Nationalisation sweeps Venezuela
By James Ingham
BBC News, Venezuela
Private investors and the political opposition hate it, President Hugo Chavez’s supporters love it. A whirlwind of nationalisations and threats to private companies is changing Venezuela’s economic climate and threatens to widen a tense social divide.
Mr Chavez is stepping up his campaign to turn Venezuela into a socialist state.
He is taking more control of the country’s assets and warning companies that do not agree with his vision that he will take them over.
Taking over companies that are efficiently run can bring no benefit to the nation
Robert Bottome, Editor, VenEconomia
He has promised that a far-reaching nationalisation programme will close the massive wealth gap, but critics say his plan is all about power and question the state’s ability to run big companies effectively.
Nationalisation wave
“Everything that was privatised will be nationalised,’’ Mr Chavez promised after he won an election late last year.
So far he’s keeping to his word.
On 1 May, Labour Day, he took control of the last remaining private oil companies in the country.
The Orinoco Belt, one of the world’s largest reserves, was being run successfully by a group of joint state and private ventures.
Difficult oil fields
Now the state company, PDVSA, is in charge of this huge resource, giving the government access to more of the profits.
While the Mr Chavez proclaimed at the handover ceremony that he had brought oil back to the people, and freed Venezuela of North American imperialism, sceptics were watching with concern.
Analysts predict PDVSA will struggle to manage these difficult oil fields.
They say that without the experience and expertise of the private firms, production will fall.
The poor could benefit as profits will be spent on social projects, but there is concern that this will be at the expense of long-term investment in the business.
The multinationals can of course stay as minority partners, but if they don’t get a good deal from compensation negotiations, they will leave.
Phone lines
Next on the nationalisation list is Venezuela’s main telecoms company, CANTV.
From June, the state will take control of the firm, turning it, according to Mr Chavez, from a “capitalist private company to a state run socialist enterprise”.
Since 1991 when CANTV was privatised, it has become a lean and profitable business, but its coverage has never spread to the very poorest in the country.
Many Venezuelans rely on the network of shops run by phone companies that are filled with calling booths, or they make calls from stalls run on the streets.
Here, mobile phones are tied to a table and users pay the enterprising stall holders to borrow their phones.
If Mr Chavez has his way, the long lines of people waiting to phone home will shrink in the future.
“By 2011, every area with more than 500 residents will have access to landlines,” he said.
He plans to install more than a million new lines and cut the cost of calls.
Sparking a change
Similar changes are afoot at the country’s main electricity provider, Electricidad de Caracas.
Other businesses are also in the president’s sights.
Cement and steel manufacturers that export the majority of their goods have been told they will be expropriated if they do not start selling more to Venezuelans.
Clearly the rules of the game are being changed and if companies do not agree to play, they could lose out.
For some, this is all too much. “Why touch something that’s not broken?” said Robert Bottome, editor of the respected newsletter VenEconomia.
“It can only be to show he has power,” he said, referring of course to Mr Chavez.
“Taking over companies that are efficiently run can bring no benefit to the nation. It will cost $2.5bn (£1.25bn) to buy the phone and electricity companies. That money could be spent in better ways,” he adds.
Banking in sight
Banks might have thought themselves immune until now, but they are also in the government’s sights.
“Private banking must give priority to financing the industrial sectors of Venezuela at low cost,” Mr Chavez said recently.
“If banks don’t agree with this, it’s better that they go, that they turn over the banks to me, that we nationalise them and get all the banks to work for the development of the country, and not to speculate and produce huge profits.”
It is hard to tell whether this is just a radical idea or whether Mr Chavez will go through with his threat, but it has the middle classes worried.
Other countries
The changes in Venezuela are being reflected elsewhere in Latin America.
Mr Chavez’s allies in Bolivia and Ecuador are making similar moves.
“The neo-liberal governments gave away hills, rivers and mining concessions. We have to start recovering those concessions,” Bolivia’s President Evo Morales said before starting the process of nationalising the gas industry.
But critics question whether Mr Chavez’s “21st-Century socialism” can be exported to countries that do not have the oil wealth of Venezuela.
It’s a nervous time for investors and private companies.
But for the millions of people who rely on the president and his financial help, they will be content that money appears to be moving from the rich to the poor.
ORINOCO OIL BELT
Oil projects and companies in affected fields
1. Sincor (PDVSA*, Total, Statoil); Petrozuata (PDVSA, Conoco Phillips)
2. Ameriven (PDVSA, Conoco Phillips, Chevron Texaco)
3. Cerro Negro (PDVSA, Exxon Mobil, BP)
*PDVSA is Venezuela’s state-owned oil company
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6646335.stm
Published: 2007/05/15 01:04:05 GMT
© BBC MMVII
More police for Mexico drugs town
Mexico’s government has sent federal police re-enforcements to a northern area where 22 people died in a battle between drug gangs and security forces.
Heavily armed Gulf Cartel gangsters travelling in a convoy ambushed police in the town of Cananea in Sonora state, bordering the US, on Wednesday.
They killed five policemen, sparking a battle that left 15 gang gunmen and two civilian bystanders dead.
President Felipe Calderon has ordered troops to root out drug traffickers.
This week’s violence in Sonora is the bloodiest seen during a five-month offensive.
Gun supply
Up to 50 well-armed gunmen arrived in the town of Cananea on Wednesday, travelling in a fleet of rugged vehicles.
They captured and executed four lightly armed policemen in a public square.
Police teams followed the attackers to their hideout in the hills, killing 15 gunmen.
On Thursday, police helicopters and hundreds of ground forces searched for fleeing gunmen in the Sierra Madre, near Cananea.
Separately, the US and Mexico have agreed to share intelligence in an effort to try to cut off the supply of guns being used by the drug gangs.
According to the Mexican government, the vast majority of weapons used by the cartels are imported from gun shops across the US border.
Calderon priority
The continuing violence in Mexico is part of a struggle between drug traffickers and the government.
President Felipe Calderon sent more than 3,000 soldiers to Tijuana in January to fight trafficking and gang violence.
More than 300 people were killed there in 2006.
A month earlier he dispatched 7,000 troops to Michoacan state on the Pacific coast, where more than 500 people died last year.
Earlier this week two senior anti-drugs officers were shot and killed, one in the capital, Mexico City, and one in the northern border town of Tijuana.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6668103.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 04:05:01 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Iran denies access to US scholar
By Pam O’Toole
BBC News
Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has said Iran’s judiciary is preventing her from representing a US-Iranian academic detained in Tehran last week.
Haleh Esfandiari is being held at Evin prison while she is investigated for crimes against national security.
Mrs Esfandiari had been trapped in Iran since December, when her passports were stolen by masked men wielding knives.
Ms Ebadi, a lawyer, said she had requested representation in a phone call, but Iran’s judiciary denied it.
As a result, she has not been allowed to see her client and has not been given details of the case.
Earlier this week the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, called for Mrs Esfandiari’s immediate release.
But Iran’s foreign minister described the academic, who works at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, as an Iranian national and said Washington should avoid meddling in the affairs of other countries.
‘Innocent’
Ms Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, told the BBC she did not believe Iran had a right to take this position.
“In my view, human rights are an international issue and all countries and all people have the right to comment on human rights issues anywhere in the world,” she said.
I will use all legal methods to defend my client and to prove her innocence and I hope that this can be carried out in Iran’s courts
Shirin Ebadi
“In the same way that we have the right to talk about the situation in Palestine, the world has the right to comment on Iran’s situation.”
The Iranian media have alleged that the 67-year-old was spying for Israel, or had converted to Christianity - a charge punishable by death.
Such allegations have been strongly denied by her family, who say she was in Iran to visit her ailing 93-year-old mother and is not guilty of any crime.
Ms Ebadi said she would pursue all available channels to help her client.
“I will use all legal methods to defend my client and to prove her innocence and I hope that this can be carried out in Iran’s courts,” she said.
“However, if it is not possible to do this in Iran¿ I will use all other methods that are available, including seeking help from international organisations.”
Earlier this week, Mrs Esfandiari’s husband told the BBC his wife’s detention could be due to what he described as excessive zeal on the part of Iranian intelligence agents, who seemed to feel exchanges between Iranians and Americans were somehow sinister and destabilising.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6671309.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 19:16:20 GMT
© BBC MMVII
‘Daniel Pearl detainee’ is dead
A Pakistani man detained over the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl has died weeks after being released.
Saud Memon owned the property in the city of Karachi where Pearl’s body was found after his kidnap in 2002.
Mr Memon’s family say he disappeared in 2003 and was held in Guantanamo Bay before being dumped by unidentified men outside his Karachi home last month.
They deny he had anything to do with the murder. Doctors say Mr Memon died of tuberculosis and meningitis.
Court order
Mr Memon’s family say he was in extremely bad health when he was returned to them, weighing just 18kg (44 pounds). He was also suffering psychiatric problems, they say.
The 44-year-old textiles businessman owned the shed and land where Pearl’s body was found in a shallow grave after his kidnapping and beheading in January 2002.
Mr Memon’s family say he went missing for four years. They believe he was picked up by American FBI agents while on a trip to South Africa, taken to Guantanamo Bay and later handed to Pakistan.
Pakistani authorities said at the time of Pearl’s murder they wanted to question Mr Memon but that they could not find him. They never acknowledged his detention.
But earlier this month Mr Memon was produced before Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which is investigating “disappearances” of terror suspects allegedly being held by Pakistani intelligence agencies.
The court was alarmed at his condition and ordered he receive medical treatment and not be taken back into custody.
However, Mr Memon, a father of five, died at the Liaquat National Hospital in Karachi on Friday, his family said.
“We don’t know who had been holding him for the past more than four years, but my brother had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or Daniel Pearl’s murder,” his brother told The Associated Press news agency.
Convictions
Daniel Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002.
Pictures of his murder appeared on internet sites later, but the identity of the killer was not clear.
British-born Islamist Ahmed Omar Sheikh was sentenced to death for the murder six months later, while three other men were given life imprisonment.
They are appealing against the verdict.
In March, alleged al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to personally beheading Pearl, according to an incomplete Pentagon transcript of his testimony at a military tribunal.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6671067.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 17:31:52 GMT
© BBC MMVII
[I heard on the radio last night that this company makes the helmet materials for our military and other war items...granny]
GE ‘close to plastics unit sale’
General Electric is reported to be close to selling its plastics unit for about $11bn (£5.6bn) to Saudi Basic Industries (Sabic).
US newspapers claim Sabic has come out on top after a second round of bids was submitted in the past week.
Other bidders are understood to have included the private equity firm Apollo Management and the Dutch petro-chemical business Basell.
The $11bn price-tag would exceed some estimates of the value of the business.
Saudi Arabia-based Sabic is the world’s biggest chemicals company by market value.
GE’s plastics unit made a profit of $674m in 2006 and supplies products such as car parts, compact discs and construction materials.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6668311.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 07:12:36 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Man in court over terror charges
A man has appeared in court charged with possessing material banned under the Terrorism Act.
Pa Mudou Jobe, 27, faced charges relating to six offences at Westminster Magistrates Court, central London.
Mr Jobe has been charged with one offence under section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and five under Section 58.
The offences relate to possession of records or documents which could be used for terrorist activity.
He was remanded in custody until 15 June.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/6672929.stm
Published: 2007/05/19 15:00:10 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Two die in China school stabbing
A high-school pupil has killed two of his classmates and wounded four more after a stabbing spree in southern China, state media has reported.
Wu Jianguo launched the alleged assault after a study session at his school in Guangdong province on Tuesday night.
Villagers said the 17-year-old, who later handed himself in to police, attacked the boys after being asked for protection money.
The four injured boys are said to be in a stable condition in hospital.
‘Solitary figure’
According to the Beijing Times, Wu Jianguo attacked the students as they emerged from a lift.
The paper described him as a solitary, irritable figure, saying he had transferred to Maoming’s Number Three Middle School last year.
The state news agency, Xinhua, reported that the teenager fled the school before handing himself in to police “on his parents’ advice”.
The agency quoted a villager as saying the victims had asked Wu for protection money - but the police have not yet confirmed any motive.
In recent years there have been several fatal incidents at schools in China.
After a spate of stabbings in 2004, schools began employing professional guards to protect pupils.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6665285.stm
Published: 2007/05/17 11:00:11 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Chinese writing ‘8,000 years old’
Chinese archaeologists studying ancient rock carvings say they have evidence that modern Chinese script is thousands of years older than previously thought.
State media say researchers identified more than 2,000 pictorial symbols dating back 8,000 years, on cliff faces in the north-west of the country.
They say many of these symbols bear a strong resemblance to later forms of ancient Chinese characters.
Scholars had thought Chinese symbols came into use about 4,500 years ago.
The Damaidi carvings, first discovered in the 1980s, cover 15 sq km (5.8 square miles) and feature more than 8,000 individual figures including the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing.
“We have found some symbols shaped like both pictures and characters,” Li Xiangshi, a cliff carving expert at the North University of Nationalities in Ningxia Hui autonomous region, told Xinhua news agency.
“The pictographs are similar to the ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters and many can be identified as ancient characters.”
Until the discovery, the earliest characters included 4,500-year-old inscriptions on pottery from Henan province in central China.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6669569.stm
Published: 2007/05/18 13:19:31 GMT
© BBC MMVII
There is very little difference between a totalitarian Communist, atheist State and an Islamic one. In the first the State owns you, in the latter the State also owns you as commanded by Allah, without appeal.
To have a good assessment of what that means, from the eyes and mouth of Moslems, check out the five links to articles posted on AntiMullah (predominantly courtesy of Granny), which examine the subject in fairly simple terms.
Venezuela’s Communist leadership comfortably understands Islamic Iran’s Ahmadi-Nejad’s efforts.
MINDBOGGLING MUST READ assertions and demands and descriptions that should provide an insight you may not have had so far as to how Marxist Islam is. And the futility of trying to reason with it.
For instance: “all knowledge in the world is contained in the Koran and the Hadiths” - though these originated 1,300 years ago. Nothing since, is acceptable to a devout Moslem.
http://noiri.blogspot.com/2007/05/news-views-good-reads-links.html
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