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Malaysian police were investigating a company controlled by a son of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi over allegations that it was involved in supplying parts for Libya's nuclear weapons programme. National police chief Bakri Omar said in a statement issued to "clarify several questions and confusion" that the probe was sparked by information provided last November by US and British intelligence services. The CIA and MI6 told Malaysia's special branch that the company, Scomi Precision Engineering (Scope), was supplying centrifuge components made in Malaysia for Libya's uranium-enrichment program. Scope is a unit of listed oil and gas firm Scomi Group,...

Briton key suspect in nuclear ring Man accused of smuggling parts tells Guardian: 'I was framed' Owen Bowcott, Ian Traynor in Zagreb, John Aglionby in Jakarta and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Thursday February 12, 2004 The Guardian (UK) A Middle East-based British businessman has emerged as a key suspect in a secret network supplying Libya, Iran and North Korea with equipment to build nuclear bombs. Speaking for the first time yesterday, Paul Griffin denied that his company played any part in shipping prohibited material from the Far East. He told the Guardian: "We have been framed." His comments came as...

Dear FreeRepublic Compatriots: There is a SPECIAL EVENT on Iran that is going to be held on February 11th in California. The program is called "From a Great Civilization ... IRAN .. To the Axis of Evil?" and the speakers will be LARRY ELDER, KENNETH TIMMERMAN, and BIJAN KIAN. Because most of us won't be able to attend we are urging everyone interested to email C-SPAN at events@c-span.org and see if we can't get them to give coverage to this program! Let C-SPAN know that this is a very important and timely event and will get MANY viewers! Lets see...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 2/22/04 - Mashhad, Qom, Tehran, Archangelsk, Meridiani Planum, Plesetsk cosmodrome, Fallujah BREAKING: Mashhad, Iran - deserted polling for the fixed election BREAKING: Tehran, Iran - A visit to terrorists BREAKING: 'Archangelsk' - Putin at the failed demonstration BREAKING: Meridiani Planum, Mars - US technology rocks QFN ==== QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU MAY NEVER SEE IN THE GENERAL MEDIA ========= Mashhad ========= BREAKING: FIXED ELECTIONS In Mashhad, Iran, a deserted public polling station in a boycott after the conservative [Iranian Conservative = American leftist] Islamic theocracy banned ~2,400 candidates.Only the...

Staffer in spying case says political threats hurt prospects at firm WASHINGTON--A former top Republican Senate staff member who resigned under pressure last year for spying on his Democratic staff colleagues is now accusing them of threatening partners at a law firm that was considering hiring him--including the firm's chairman, a prominent Boston attorney--in order to scuttle his job offer. In an affidavit he submitted to federal prosecutors this week, Manuel Miranda, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, said that Democratic staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee telephoned partners at the firm of McDermott Will & Emory...

Gary Webb's Final Days Tue Jan 25, 6:34 PM ET NEW YORK As with nearly every suicide, there is far more to the death of Gary Webb than meets the eye. Although his downward spiral following his departure from the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News provides a pat story line, the devil is really in the details -- and extends to a wide range of family and health issues, as well as a stolen motorcycle. In fact, after spending several years away from full-time journalism, Webb was beginning to stage a comeback in late 2004. But then a series of...

The State Department announced Wednesday that it has added two people to the federal list of designated terrorists, one of whom was once detained at Guantanamo Bay military prison. Ayrat Nasimovich Vakhitov, one of the newly added jihadists, was a former detainee at Guantanamo for less than two years from June 2002 until February 2004 before being turned over to Russian officials in his home country. Turkish authorities recently arrested Vahkitov in connection with the June 29 suicide bombings at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport that killed 42 people. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, U.S. and Turkish authorities...

The Washington Post E-mail system went dark Thursday after the company let its domain name expire, a shocking mistake for the company that considers its Internet operation the best in the biz. In a memo to staffers, Managing Editor Steven Coll revealed that Network Solutions, which manages Internet addresses, "apparently notified the Post of the pending expiration via a drop-box that was not being monitored." Spokesman Eric Grant said once the company figured out the glitch, a call was made to Network Solutions to renew the domain and the system was slowly put back on line. It’s expected to be...

      Aktuell   China's participation in atomic smuggling Fissionable material for the coalition by  Matthias Gebauer The new dislosures about China's role in the sale of nuclear know-how has the discussions over the export of the Hanau fuel element plant boiling up again. Some Greens are threatening openly with the end of the coalition if Chancellor Schröder allows the deal to go through. MARCO-URBAN.DE Governing-Team Schröder/Fischer: Looking for a solution without losing face. Berlin - Green party leader Angelika Beer didn't want to say much about the Hanau topic during her press conference on Monday. "There isn't any new position",...

PREWAR INTELLIGENCE WASHINGTON, July 30 - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials. Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others...

Coalition forces acting on a tip by Iraqis captured a known associate of Izzat Ibrahim al-Dhouri, Coalition Provisional Authority officials announced today. During a briefing today from Baghdad, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for Combined Joint Task Force 7, said that Ayed Hameed Nouri was arrested Feb. 23 at the Niwan Hotel in central Mosul. He was apprehended without incident. Kimmitt reported that in a separate raid Iraqi Civil Defense Corps forces captured Shahab Al-Hawas, a suspected financier of coalition attacks and a cousin of al-Dhouri. Over the past 48 hours, coalition forces conducted seven offensive operations...

Steve Neal, Chicago's premiere political columnist for decades, famous for his encyclopedic knowledge of history and political lore, for endlessly swapping stories with political junkies and for his books that ranged from a biography of Wendell Wilkie to the correspondence between Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman, died Wednesday at his Hinsdale home. He was 54 and had been hospitalized overnight this week at Northwestern Hospital for a heart problem, his family said. Hinsdale police said they responded to a “carbon monoxide alarm’’ Wednesday afternoon at the home. Mr. Neal was among the city's most savvy political analysts, but unlike many...

Coiffed, groomed and impeccably suited, Mithal al-Alusi cuts an imposing figure at this trendy hotel. In the empty bar lounge, he makes himself at home to a breakfast of fresh fruit, strong coffee and a constant flow of cigarettes. The leader of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation is in town to promote his vision for a new Iraq and accept an accolade from an unlikely sponsor – the American Jewish Committee – who honored him with a Moral Courage award at their annual dinner last week. His act of courage was an attempt to break Iraq's long-standing taboo...

Scores of masked gunmen went on an audacious daylight rampage through the flashpoint Iraqi town of Fallujah yesterday morning, launching twin attacks on a police station and civil defence compound that left at least 23 people dead and 35 wounded. At least 14 of the dead were lightly-armed police officers, recently recruited to the force, who could offer little resistance to the heavily-armed gunmen, suspected of being foreign fighters. About 70 raiders shouting "God is great" fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machineguns at policemen, throwing grenades as they cleared the police station room by room and released at least 20...

FBI hazardous material experts searched a home where police found pipe bombs and a jar containing the potentially deadly poison ricin, federal agents said Friday. The ricin was found in a baby food jar in a shed of the home owned by a man who went to jail last week for violating protection orders taken out by his estranged wife, according to local and federal officials. The jar was sealed, and officials don't believe the middle-class neighborhood in east Nashville was threatened, although the one-story brick house and part of the street remained cordoned off. Investigators found three blasting caps...

THREE STAFF TAKEN ILL Police are checking one of BP's offices in Moscow after three female workers fell ill when they opened a bag of letters. Officers in the Russian capital said the employees "got sore throats, their eyes watered and one of them got red spots on her skin". A police spokesman added: "They packed the letters back in the bag and called emergency workers and chemical experts, who are now studying the letters." Russia's Emergencies Ministry said it had sent experts to BP's oil trading office. It was not clear what caused the employees to feel ill. But...

Scientists stirred to ridicule ice age claims   19:00 15 April 04   NewScientist.com news service   Climate scientists have been stirred to ridicule claims in an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster that global warming could trigger a new ice age, a scenario also put forward in a controversial report to the US military.The $125-million epic, The Day After Tomorrow, opens worldwide in May. It will show Manhattan frozen solid after the warm ocean current known as the Gulf Stream shuts down.The movie's release will come soon after a report to the US Department of Defense (DoD) in February predicting that such a shutdown...

BOSTON - A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday. But their plans — in which the men used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the...

Grounded By Val MacQueenFrontPageMagazine.com | February 4, 2004 At the beginning of January, BA 223 from London to Washington was canceled two days in a row due to “security concerns”.  On the third day, it was allowed to fly, but was held on the ground in DC for three hours after arrival before passengers were allowed to disembark.  Air France also had flights canceled at the 11th hour – specifically to Los Angeles -  probably at the demand of the American government, which had information that would have precluded allowing the flights to fly over American airspace. The truth dawned...

Nuradin Abdi was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall. Iyman Faris was convicted in 2003 of planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Christopher Paul was convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the U.S. and Europe. All three terrorists worshiped and socialized at a small mosque in Columbus, Ohio, and, according to David B. Smith, an attorney for Faris, were part of a larger group of jihadists and extremists who frequented the mosque. The FBI now is investigating reports of links to that same mosque by Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammad...