News, Prophecy and other

[Shammu]

France to give Libya nuclear help

Monday 06 March 2006, 0:07 Makka Time, 21:07 GMT

France is to help Libya develop its civilian nuclear energy programme.

A pact between the two countries is due to be signed in the next two to three weeks and was announced by Patrick Ollier, the president of the French National Assembly's economic affairs committee, on his return from Tripoli on Sunday.

"The governments have already given their approval," Ollier said.

France first expressed an interest in developing peaceful atomic energy in Libya last May after the North African country promised to give up nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in 2003.

Libya also signed protocols with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and ended more than a decade of international isolation by accepting responsibility and paying compensation for the bombing of airliners over Scotland and Niger in 1988 and 1989.

Nuclear prowess

Libyan leader, Muammar al-Qadhafi said at the time that he still hoped to develop a nuclear programme for peaceful means.

France will be able to supply considerable nuclear expertise. It is home to the world's largest nuclear reactor manufacturer, Areva, and the world's top nuclear power producer, EDF.

Fears over oil and gas supplies and climate change have also pushed nuclear power into the limelight as a means to produce energy without emitting excessive carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming.

The latest international co-operation comes days after George Bush, the US president, signed a groundbreaking deal with Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, to allow India access to US atomic technology and fuel to develop its own civilian nuclear programme.

France to give Libya nuclear help

My note; Why is thisa no suprise to me. In WW1, and WW2, french soldiers shot their allies in the back, literally.

[Shammu]

2/28/06

Threat of avian flu prompts call for preparedness
By Molly Albertson
Cape Gazette staff

A statewide summit about a possible pandemic has left locals squawking about bird flu.

Federal officials on a nationwide awareness tour urged communities to prepare in advance for worst-case scenarios, including a possible six-week quarantine, if avian flu becomes a virus transmitted from person to person.

“You need to do this now. You need a plan and a strategy for preparedness,” said Alfonso Martinez-Fonts Jr., special assistant to the secretary for the private sector of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Small communities and even neighborhoods need to organize, officials said, because if a pandemic strikes, many people will be confined to their homes. Under quarantine, people will have no way to get to hospitals, grocery stores or town centers, officials said at the Feb. 21 meeting in Dover.

Pandemic planning requires addressing the role of schools, businesses, public agencies, faith-based organizations and others, said U.S. Department of Health and Human Service Deputy Secretary Alex Azar.

“This is an ever-present threat,” U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona said.

Few local plans
But Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach don’t have emergency plans for any event, and certainly not a pandemic.

While Lewes has an Emergency Operations Plan it does not include any possible outbreaks of illness, said Nelson Wiles, who is responsible for the plan.

“Its not something we’re considering right now. Its not a major threat as far as we’re aware,” said Wiles.

Other town officials are responding to the pleas. “We don’t have a coherent plan, but we’re going to write one,” said Rehoboth Beach Mayor Sam Cooper, who attended the summit.

Cooper said $25,000 will be budgeted to hire a consultant to write a plan that will include a pandemic flu outbreak as well as natural disasters.

Dewey Beach acknowledged the need for an emergency plan at the Jan 11 town meeting. “We have a plan, but it is insufficient,” town attorney Rob Witsil said. Dewey is also organizing an emergency preparedness plan committee.

“We know what we need to do,” said Town Manager Gordon Elliott, who has been going to emergency planning meetings for months.

Beebe Medical Center does have a plan in case of emergency, said Dr. Paul Cowan, staff physician and coordinator of disaster planning. “We have identified areas that are not used for primary patient care that we could use,” he said. For instance, the pre-operation area and the visitors’ café could be converted for patient care if other areas were beyond capacity.

No direction for action
The summit seemed to provide questions rather than clarity to locals who attended. “The state says they’ve done all this planning, but I don’t know how we can bring it to our community,” Cooper said.

In a public discussion with Martinez-Fonts and FEMA Program Coordinator Branch Chief Karin Crawford, many fears were brought to light and described as real possibilities, but no solutions were offered.

“There is a real possibility of lawlessness and you need to prevent that,” Crawford said. In a pandemic one-third of the population could be sick, while another one-third would be staying home, leaving a skeleton crew to run daily operations, she said.

“Do we need to worry about this or is the state going to handle this?” asked Cooper about the many details such as trash pick-up, power outages, and even burial of dead.

“If every house is supposed to have food in case of a quarantine that lasts a few weeks, what about the rental homes in Dewey where people are in and out every week?” asked Commissioner Dell Tush about one of the suggestions for individual preparation.

“If the county can’t bring anything to the table, what are we supposed to do?” Cooper asked.

Wiles said the state does not require municipalities to enact plans for the possible pandemic.

Delaware leads in many areas of avian flu preparedness, according to Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, but local communities need to step up their plans, she said during the summit. The poultry industry has its own plan that includes steps taken when or if birds get the flu.

As part of the federal preparedness plan, $698,960 was awarded to Delaware for planning focused on practical, community-based procedures that could prevent or delay the spread of the flu, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. But municipalities are still left wondering just what to do in case of an outbreak.

Threat of avian flu prompts call for preparedness

[Shammu]

Indian cult kills children for goddess

'Holy men' blamed for inciting dozens of deaths

Dan McDougall in Khurja, India
Sunday March 5, 2006
The Observer

A painted image of the Hindu goddess Kali is propped up against a stone in the dirt, her long red tongue goading terrified worshippers into submission. From one of her eight flailing arms a severed head dangles, her neck is adorned by a necklace of bleached human skulls.

There are bloodstains on the cracked wall behind the terrible postcard-size image and, around the dark room, splattered gore on the heavy wooden furniture. These dark marks bear witness to a child sacrificed in the name of the abominable goddess.

Through the doorway, in the distance, colourfully dressed women are bent double, toiling in the fields, their faces worn and wrinkled from the sun, their hands cracked from digging at the dry earth from dawn until dusk.

It's an intolerable life in the remote village of Barha, a squalid collection of mud-bricked farmers' dwellings in the heart of the impoverished province of Khurja, Uttar Pradesh. This corner of rural India is a lawless place of superstitions and deep prejudice. The region, known for its sugarcane, is a tortuous eight-hour drive from Delhi and a lifetime away from the 21st century.

In Bulandshahr, the nearest town of any description, locals whispered darkly of happenings in Barha. Their advice was unanimous: 'Don't go. It is an evil place. The people there are cursed.'

Sumitra Bushan, 43, who lived in Barha for most of her life, certainly thought she was cursed. Her husband had long abandoned her, leaving her with debts and a life of servitude in the sugarcane fields. Her sons, Satbir, 27, and Sanjay, 23, were regarded as layabouts. Life was bad but then the nightmares and terrifying visions of Kali allegedly began, not just for Sumitra but her entire family.

She consulted a tantrik, a travelling 'holy man' who came to the village occasionally, dispensing advice and putrid medicines from the rusty amulets around his neck.

His guidance to Sumitra was to slaughter a chicken at the entrance to her home and offer the blood and remains to the goddess. She did so but the nightmares continued and she began waking up screaming in the heat of the night and returned to the priest. 'For the sake of your family,' he told her, 'you must sacrifice another, a boy from your village.'

Ten days ago Sumitra and her two sons crept to their neighbour's home and abducted three-year-old Aakash Singh as he slept. They dragged him into their home and the eldest son performed a puja ceremony, reciting a mantra and waving incense. Sumitra smeared sandalwood paste and globules of ghee over the terrified child's body. The two men then used a knife to slice off the child's nose, ears and hands before laying him, bleeding, in front of Kali's image.

In the morning Sumitra told villagers she had found Aakash's body outside her house. But they attacked and beat her sons who allegedly confessed. 'I killed the boy so my mother could be safe,' Sanjay screamed. All three are now in prison, having escaped lynch mob justice. The tantrik has yet to be found.

Police in Khurja say dozens of sacrifices have been made over the past six months. Last month, in a village near Barha, a woman hacked her neighbour's three-year-old to death after a tantrik promised unlimited riches. In another case, a couple desperate for a son had a six-year-old kidnapped and then, as the tantrik chanted mantras, mutilated the child. The woman completed the ritual by washing in the child's blood.

'It's because of blind superstitions and rampant illiteracy that this woman sacrificed this boy,' said Khurja police officer AK Singh. 'It's happened before and will happen again but there is little we can do to stop it. In most situations it's an open and shut case. It isn't difficult to elicit confessions - normally the villagers or the families of the victims do that for us. This has been going on for centuries; these people are living in the dark ages.'

According to an unofficial tally by the local newspaper, there have been 28 human sacrifices in western Uttar Pradesh in the last four months. Four tantrik priests have been jailed and scores of others forced to flee.

The killings have focused attention on Tantrism, an amalgam of mystical practices that grew out of Hinduism. Tantrism also has adherents among Buddhists and Muslims and, increasingly, in the West, where it is associated with yoga or sexual techniques. It has millions of followers across India, where it originated between the fifth and ninth centuries. Tantrik priests are consulted on everything from marital to bowel problems.

Many blame the turn to the occult on the increasing economic gap between rural and urban India, in particular the spiralling debts of cotton and tobacco farmers, linked with high costs of hybrid seed and pesticides, that has led to record numbers of farmers committing suicide.

According to Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, human sacrifice affects most of northern India. 'Modern India is home to hundreds of millions who can't read or write, but who often seek refuge from life's realities through astrology or the magical arts of shamans. Unfortunately these people focus their horrific attention on society's weaker members, mainly women and children who are easier to handle and kidnap.'

Tantriks caught up in the crackdown in Uttar Pradesh say their reputation is being destroyed by an insane minority. 'Human sacrifices have been made in this region since time immemorial,' says Prashant, a tantrik who runs a small 'practice' from his concrete shell of a home on the outskirts of Bulandshahr. 'People come to me with all sorts of ailments. I recommend simply pujas and very rarely animal sacrifices.'

In her squalid home Ritu Singh rocks back and forth, beating her chest in grief. She has been mourning since the day her son Aakash's body was discovered in a sewer outside Sumitra Bushan's home. Her husband, Rajbir, said: 'We expect them to be jailed or fined but they won't spend longer than a few years in prison for what they have done. They were my neighbours, they ate in our house. The Tantrik who made them do this has disappeared, they will never find him.'

Indian cult kills children for goddess

My note; As the world inches closer to the Lords retun, I'm looking up.

[Soldier4Christ]

2 arrested in Alabama church fires
Third person is sought

(CNN) -- Two people have been arrested in connection with 10 church fires in Alabama last month, federal law enforcement sources told CNN Wednesday.

They identified the two men as Ben Moseley and Russell Debusk. Both are college students in the Birmingham area, according to the office of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley.

A third person, identified as Matthew Lee Cloyd, is being sought, the sources added.

Moseley and Debusk will appear in federal court in Birmingham at 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET), the sources said. Authorities plan a 2 p.m. (3 p.m. ET) news conference.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) made the arrests, one of them in Birmingham, according to the sources. It is not known where the other arrest took place.

Arsonists struck the churches between February 3 and February 11.

Of the 10, five were in Bibb County and four in west Alabama. Another church fire in Lamar County on February 11 has been ruled an arson, but investigators haven't determined if it was connected to the others. (See map)

Five of the churches had predominantly white congregations, and five were predominantly black. All were Baptist, the dominant faith in the region, and most were in isolated rural settings.

Police said during the investigation that they were looking for two men in their 20s and 30s, as well as a dark-colored SUV, possibly a Nissan Pathfinder, that had been seen at some of the crime scenes.

[Soldier4Christ]

South America's Terror Connection

(CBS) Each year thousands of tourists are drawn to the beauty of Iguacu Falls in an undeveloped area of South America where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet: the Tri-border region.

But CBS News correspondent Trish Regan reports that a large, influential Arab population flourishes in the area. Many of them are reaping huge profits in a variety of illegal activities. Members of the American military have charged that the region harbors radical Islamic terrorists, and that the area is a growing threat to U.S. security interests.

Millions of dollars flow through these streets every year — and basically nothing is done to stop illegal trade. Paraguay's money-laundering laws are seldom enforced, and there's little interest in knowing where the money ends up.

"There is so much illegal activity from the counterfeiting of all kinds of goods to drugs to weapons to terrorist fund-raising to money laundering," says Walt Purdy of Washington's Terrorism Research Center, who has been tracking activity in the area for years.

So who's down there?

"Everybody from Hezbollah to people who are connected to al Qaeda," he says. "They've used it to raise money; they've used it for a safe haven."

According to U.S. and Israeli intelligence, Ciudad del Este served as the launch pad for the Hezbollah car-bombing attacks on the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992 and the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994. They say that over the last decade, the area increasingly has grown into a terrorist hiding place.

"The idea here is accessibility with no records. Anonymity at all costs," says Tom Cash, who oversaw Latin America for the Drug Enforcement Administration in the 1990s. Cash, now with Kroll Inc., adds that the area is a terrorist's paradise.

"It's not 'Catch Me If You Can'-type territory," he says, "because no one's even looking."

For example: Local authorities did arrest one Tri-border resident, Assad Amad Barakat, a suspected Lebanese terrorist financier. But they didn't nab him on charges that he contributed to terror organizations — because in Paraguay, that's legal. Instead, he faced much lesser charges of tax evasion.

An examination of Barakat's bank records have led authorities to believe he wired as much as $50 million to terror groups. He even got a thank-you note: CBS News secured a copy of a handwritten letter from the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrullah, that personally thanked Barakat for his contributions.

Purdy feels it's time that something is done to cut off the money supply — or else.

"If we don't take enough aggressive measures to cut off that funding," he says, "maybe the funding and the manufacturing of counterfeit goods in South America will one day finance an attack on us."

Counter-terrorism sources say Hamas, which is set to take over the Palestinian government, is sending delegations to the Tri-border area in an effort to raise money. The concern is that groups like this will work with other terror groups in the region. They've got the money ... and it's an area in which they can move freely.

[Soldier4Christ]

Men told to shoot border agents

A man suspected of alien smuggling on the Texas-Mexico border has ordered his men to shoot at U.S. Border Patrol agents who attempt to apprehend smugglers who are escorting illegal aliens into the United States, according to an FBI bulletin.
    Issued Feb. 28 by the FBI's San Antonio field office, the unclassified law-enforcement bulletin said smuggling suspect Martin Delgado told gang members that when one of them is in danger of being caught by a Border Patrol agent in the United States, another on the Mexican side should "shoot in the direction of the agent" to force him to retreat.
    Delgado, identified by law-enforcement authorities as the head of the "Los Roqueros" smuggling organization operating south of Rio Bravo, Texas, ordered his men to "shoot to scare" the agents, according to the bulletin.
    It noted that Delgado warned against trying to kill the agents, but said his men should shoot close enough to scare off agents and give his smugglers an opportunity to escape.
    Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told a Senate subcommittee last week that efforts to identify and dismantle smuggling organizations on the border have resulted in an increase in violence aimed at his agents.
    He said 192 agents have been assaulted since Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year, and the number of agents assaulted during fiscal 2005 more than doubled over that of fiscal 2004.
    "This line of defense does come at a price, and our dedicated agents face significant risks," Chief Aguilar told the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security. "As we continue to bring larger areas of the border under operational control, we can expect spikes in border violence as border criminals discover they can no longer operate with impunity and are prevented from using the border for their criminal activities."
    Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 1.15 million illegal aliens trying to cross into the United States in fiscal 2005.
    Los Roqueros reportedly pays smuggling rights or "a quota" to the Zetas, former Mexican military officers trained in the United States as elite anti-drug specialists who have since deserted and signed on as mercenaries for drug smugglers. About 200 Zetas are thought to be headquartered in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, but have expanded their operations all along the Texas border.
    For a $1,500 weekly payment, the FBI bulletin said, Delgado has exclusive rights to operate on the Mexican side of the border from Rio Bravo and El Cenizo. Los Roqueros is thought to have smuggled hundreds of illegal aliens into the United States.
    The bulletin also cited the recent surge of violence on the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it had heightened officer safety concerns. In the past weeks, it said, gunmen have fired on Border Patrol agents, Mexican drug traffickers have attacked Texas lawmen, and Mexican gunmen have stormed the offices of a newspaper in Nuevo Laredo.
    It said that on Feb. 27, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) criminal intelligence service reported a threat by the Zetas against law-enforcement officials, specifically DPS troopers in Rio Grande City, Texas.
    The threat, it said, was in response to the shooting of suspected Zetas member Ismael Segura Mendez, 23, by a trooper Jan. 14.
    The bulletin called the Zetas "an emerging criminal enterprise which originated from a highly disciplined and trained special forces group of the Mexican military."

[Soldier4Christ]

Nuevo Laredo cops are killed; media muzzled

Web Posted: 03/08/2006 12:00 AM CST

Mariano Castillo
Express-News Border Bureau

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Suspected drug traffickers killed a state police commander and another officer Tuesday in a daylight ambush on a highway here, the latest in a wave of violence that refuses to loosen its grip on this city.

The gunfire roared for more than 20 minutes, witnesses said, but hardly a word of the 10 a.m. shootout was heard on radio stations here Tuesday.

Threats phoned to news organizations produced an effective blackout on coverage, several journalists said.

State preventative police Cmdr. Victor Berrones Lara, 46, and officer Norberto Vasquez Eguia, 24, died from gunshot wounds suffered in the shooting.

Two other officers in the same vehicle, José Plata and José Sanchez, were hospitalized with minor injuries, said a spokesman for the agency, Hector Walle.

About a mile south of the ambush site, investigators found an armored Ford pickup abandoned in a ditch, two state officials said in separate interviews. Both spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Inside the truck, officers found two assault rifles — an AK-47 and an AR-15 — with about 1,700 rounds of ammunition. A 9-mm Beretta handgun, black police-style uniforms and military fatigues without insignia also were found.

State officials would release few details of the shooting. The officers were “intercepted by several vehicles occupied by many individuals who opened fire,” Walle said.

He couldn't confirm reports that two of the assailants also died. Police were out in force looking for suspects Tuesday night, and had detained a 32-year-old man with a bleeding arm. He was identified as Rogelio Lopez Hernandez or Marcos Hinojosa.

Also Tuesday, two men were found shot to death along a dirt road outside Nuevo Laredo.

The men, who hadn't been identified, were handcuffed and bore signs of torture, police said. In another attack, gunmen shot and killed a man in an SUV.

Tuesday's shootings brought the number of killings to more than 40 this year — the majority drug related.

Most Nuevo Laredo police reporters got a call by phone or radio after the police shooting which contained the warning, “Ní se acercen” — “Don't even come close” — said several journalists who asked not to be identified.

The journalists, who work for four different news organizations, declined to say whether the caller identified himself as working for a drug cartel. The threat was chilling enough to force editors at one of the organizations to debate late into the night whether to run a report.

News of the shooting spread through word of mouth rather than the airwaves.

“It sounded like the gunfight traveled up and down the highway,” said Carlos Estrada, an employee at a convenience store at the scene.

Estrada and other employees ran into the store's bathroom for cover.

Although there were two dead and hundreds of shell casings in the area, the crime scene was abandoned less than four hours later. Some shell casings still could be found partly buried in the dust. Estrada pulled a casing out from underneath the cash register.

“To remember,” he said.

A reporter at Tuesday's scene, a parent of three children, said there's fear among the journalists who frequently work in a pack, thriving on breaking news rather than in-depth reports.

This isn't the first time reporters have been threatened to stand down.

“We are not going to publish because the armed group threatened all media not to publish anything,” the reporter said. “Logically, we feel a sense of powerlessness.”

The reporter added: “It's my work and I like my work, but clearly I don't like this type of situation. I am scared.”

Another journalist said Tuesday's threat was about the fifth of its kind in the past two years.

“I don't know why they are threatening us not to report this (today) when the whole world is watching,” the journalist said.

There were news reports Tuesday about this killing from media outlets based in Mexico City.

[Shammu]

Bombs, guns, knives, kites...

2 hours, 17 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Flying a kite in Pakistan is a dangerous pastime.

Already it's banned for all but 15 days of the year but a provincial minister warned kite-flyers this week that any who cause injury or death with string made from metal or coated with glass could be tried under anti-terrorism laws.

The Punjabi chief minister's unprecedented threat came just ahead of the start of an annual kite-flying festival in the provincial capital, Lahore, Sunday.

Kite-flying in Pakistan and neighboring India often involves aerial duels in which participants try to bring down each other's kites using string coated in a sticky paste of ground-up glass or metal.

Every year, Pakistani media report dozens of deaths and injuries caused by kite flying, mainly of children and motorcyclists whose throats are sometimes cut by metal or glass-coated string.

"It is a matter of concern that a healthy sport is being turned into a game of death," the official APP news agency quoted Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi as saying Tuesday.

Elahi said a crackdown had been launched against the sale of sharp kite string and threatened a permanent ban on kite-flying if deaths continued.

"Action under the Anti-Terrorism Act would be taken in case of deaths due to ... dangerous kite-flying string," he was quoted as saying.

Pakistan's Supreme Court banned kite-flying nationwide last year in response to an outcry over injuries and deaths. The ban was lifted for a 15-day period to allow the holding of this month's traditional kite-flying festival of Basant.

Some Islamist groups have staged protests in the past week after newspapers reported several deaths caused by kite-flying, denouncing the activity as un-Islamic.

Bombs, guns, knives, kites...

[Shammu]

Iran Threatens U.S. Over Nuclear Program

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago

VIENNA, Austria - Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday if the U.S. tries to use the U.N. Security Council as a new and potent lever to punish Tehran for its suspect nuclear program.

Washington warned that Tehran has enough nuclear material for up to 10 atomic bombs.

The rhetoric reflected the intensity of the debate at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy's 35-nation board over a critical report on Iran's nuclear program. The meeting ended late Wednesday, formally opening the path to Security Council action that could range from a mild statement urging compliance to sanctions or even military measures.

The meeting also set the stage for a potential struggle between Washington, which seeks harsh measures against Tehran, and Moscow, which advocates a softer line.

But the head of the IAEA — the U.N. nuclear watchdog — cast approaching Security Council involvement as a continuation of diplomacy with Iran.

Mohamed ElBaradei also suggested that Washington might need to talk to Tehran directly if negotiations reach the stage of focusing on security guarantees to Tehran in exchange for concessions on its nuclear program.

"Once we start to discuss security issues my personal view (is) that at one point the U.S. should also be engaged into a dialogue," ElBaradei told reporters.

Tehran and Washington broke diplomatic relations shortly after Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy and took diplomats there hostage in 1979. While the United States has swung support behind negotiations with Iran conducted in recent months by Russia and by France, Britain and Germany, it has refused direct contacts.

Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful and only aimed at generating electricity, but an increasing number of countries have come to share the U.S. view that Tehran is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

The next step after the meeting in Vienna is for ElBaradei's report to be sent to the United Nations in New York for council review and action. ElBaradei said that would happen by Thursday.

The IAEA put the Security Council on alert over the issue last month but delayed any action to give more time for diplomacy under an agreement by the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain — the five permanent Security Council members that wield veto power.

Iran has been under growing international pressure over the past three years as the IAEA compiled worrying details about its nuclear activities.

But formal Security Council involvement opens a new dimension because the U.N. body could impose economic and political sanctions against Iran. Such action is unlikely because of opposition from Russia and China, which have strategic and commercial ties with Tehran.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested Wednesday that Moscow would not support sanctions and he ruled out military action.

"I don't think sanctions as a means to solve a crisis have ever achieved a goal in the recent history," Lavrov said after meeting Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the United Nations.

He added that Russia was "convinced that there is no military solution to this crisis" — an apparent rebuttal to Vice President Dick Cheney's warning this week that Iran would face "meaningful consequences" if it does not back away from an international confrontation over its nuclear program. Cheney did not specify what the U.S. would do, but said it "is keeping all options on the table."

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns suggested America would push for sanctions if appeals and demands failed.

"We believe that next Monday or Tuesday the United Nations Security Council will begin a very active debate about Iran's nuclear ambitions," Burns said Wednesday. "That debate will be designed to shine a very large, intensive spotlight on what we believe to be a clear Iranian (weapons) program."

Burns told the House International Relations Committee that U.S. officials expect the Security Council to consider a statement of condemnation against Iran. He said, however, that the Bush administration would like to go "beyond that to entertain the possibility of a resolution to isolate and hopefully influence (Iran's) behavior."

If Iran does not respond to words and resolutions, "then we believe that the world community should entertain the possibility of sanctions against Iran," Burns said.

ElBaradei's report accused Iran of withholding information, possessing plans linked to nuclear weapons and refusing to freeze uranium enrichment — a possible pathway to nuclear arms.

In comments to the IAEA board meeting, Gregory Schulte, the U.S. delegate to the agency, said the 85 tons of feedstock uranium gas already produced by Iran "if enriched, could produce enough material for about 10 nuclear weapons."

Separately, France, Germany and Britain warned that what is known about Iran's enrichment program could represent "the tip of the iceberg."

Iran reacted angrily to Washington's role in the standoff over its nuclear ambitions.

"The United States has the power to cause harm and pain," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian delegate to the IAEA, said, reading from a statement. "But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll."

He did not elaborate, but diplomats said the comment as possibly a veiled threat to use oil as a weapon. Iran is the second-largest producer within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and has leverage with extremist groups in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East that could harm U.S. interests.

Iran's minister of petroleum, Sayed Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh, however, sought to ease concerns about Iran's oil plans, telling reporters at an OPEC meeting in Vienna: "Iran has no intention whatsoever of reducing its oil exports."

The White House dismissed Iran's threats.

"I think that provocative statements and actions only further isolate Iran from the rest of the world," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with President Bush.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said the comments reflected the menace posed by Iran.

"Their threats show why leaving a country like that with a nuclear weapon is so dangerous," John Bolton told The Associated Press by phone from Washington.

Iran Threatens U.S. Over Nuclear Program

[Shammu]

Ariz. Governor Orders Troops to Border

By JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 58 minutes ago

PHOENIX - Gov. Janet Napolitano on Wednesday ordered more National Guardsmen posted at the Mexican border to help stop illegal immigrants and curb related crimes.

National Guard troops have worked at the border since 1988, but Napolitano signed an order authorizing commanders to station an unspecified number of additional soldiers there to help federal agents.

Once the funding is approved, the troops will monitor crossing points, assist with cargo inspection and operate surveillance cameras, according to the order.

"They are not there to militarize the border," the governor said. "We are not at war with Mexico."

About 170 National Guardsmen are already posted at the nation's busiest illegal entry point, where they assist with communications, fence construction and anti-drug efforts.

Napolitano did not say how many additional troops would be stationed at the border and referred questions to the National Guard, which did not immediately return a call.

Napolitano has asked the military to pay for her plan, but said she would commit state dollars if necessary.

The governor declared an immigration emergency last summer in Arizona's four border counties, citing security shortcomings by the federal government.

Ariz. Governor Orders Troops to Border

My note; Theres more involved with this, then what is  reported. Unfortunately I don't remember all the details.

[Shammu]

Howard Stern praises Reagan, Nixon 
Shock jock calls himself 'religious paranoid,' afraid to say God doesn't exist
Posted: March 8, 2006
11:23 p.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com


Shock jock Howard Stern

Though he's hardly a fan of President Bush, shock jock Howard Stern has some words of praise for recent Republican presidents including Richard Nixon who resigned from office under the specter of looming impeachment by Congress in 1974.

"I like Gerald Ford, I like Ronald Reagan," Stern told Sean Hannity of Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" program tonight in a prerecorded interview. "I think Richard Nixon was one of the best presidents that we ever had. I think he got caught up with a bunch of thugs who worked around him who really did him in."

Stern, who made the move this year to satellite radio from broadcast airwaves, drew similarities between the current commander in chief and the way the Nixon administration handled matters.

"I think in a way, Bush, too, sort of gets led around by [Vice President] Cheney and that whole gang of his ... and I think he really got sort of led into even the war in Iraq. I think if Bush had to do it all over again, I don't think he'd do the war in Iraq. I think he'd concentrate more still today on Afghanistan. We would have nailed Osama bin Laden by now because let's not forget, he is the guy who led the 9-11 attacks. We still haven't captured him. I think that Afghanistan would be more secured."

Stern, who is known to revel in having lesbians and strippers on his show, was asked if he'd like his own daughters to be a stripper.

"A stripper would be a big problem," he responded. "Because I'd want something better for them than be a stripper. I think stripping is a really tough life. I know enough strippers to know that most of them are unhappy. It's really sort of a sad life. ... I am fascinated by strippers, not because they're naked. ... What's fascinating to me is how do you get into that life? How do you accept that life and live it normally. That's what's important to me. I love to talk to people who live on the fringe. I'm amazed by it."

[Shammu]

Kohl: I didn't deny Holocaust
Staff chief tells WND Iranian paper's quotes 'fictitious'
Posted: March 8, 2006
1:30 p.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com


Helmut Kohl's chief assistant told WorldNetDaily the former German chancellor denies an Iranian newspaper's claim that he agreed with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's assertion the Holocaust was a myth.

Kohl "rejects firmly the insinuated quotes," said Lutz Stroppe in an e-mail.

"The quotations are completely fictitious and the story [is] without any basis."

Stroppe did not respond to questions asking whether his office has contacted the newspaper and learned anything about the origin of the quotes.

The government-owned Farsi-language paper Jomhouri Islami said that at a dinner gala last week with Iranian hoteliers and entrepreneurs, Kohl said he "heartily agreed" with Ahmadinejad's remarks about the Holocaust, according to a translation by Iran Focus.

"What Ahmadinejad said about the Holocaust was in our bosoms," the former German chancellor was quoted as saying. "For years we wanted to say this, but we did not have the courage to speak out."

Ahmadinejad prompted an international furor in November when he publicly declared the Holocaust a "myth" and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Then in December, he suggested European nations should give up some of their territory if they believed the World War II-era Holocaust took place, noting, "certain European countries would have the world go with their stand that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and have passed laws punishing anyone who says anything to the contrary."


Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"Granting without accepting that the Holocaust did occur, our question to the Europeans is: 'If innocent Jews were indeed butchered by Hitler, why should Palestinians be made to pay the cost in order to seek redress for the occupiers of Jerusalem?'"

Ahmadinejad continued: "If the killing of Jews in Europe is true and the Zionists are being supported because of this excuse, why should the Palestinian nation pay the price?"

"The Islamic world should give up its policy of passivity and deal with the Palestinian issue more actively," he said.

[Shammu]

Palestinians bilked U.S. taxpayers out of millions?
Congress hears study contending PA population numbers massively inflated
Posted: March 8, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Congress today will be presented with a new study that documents the Palestinians have inflated their population numbers by over 50 percent and that almost $3 billion in United States taxpayer funds may have been provided as aid to the Palestinians in part based on fraudulent data.

"American tax dollars and other international humanitarian aid have been based on inflated population numbers which have been accepted without question by governments and aid agencies. Our researchers pointed out that money has been spent to help Palestinians who were double-counted, never born or not present in the West Bank and Gaza," Bennet Zimmerman, head of the new study, titled "Arab Population in the West Bank and Gaza," told WND.

Zimmerman led a team of researchers who found Palestinians have inflated their population by close to 1.5 million, in some cases counting people in some cities twice. He was invited to testify today at a House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East chaired by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., probing U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

Since 1994, the United States has reportedly given nearly $1.8 billion in direct aid to the PA and nongovernmental organizations operating in the Palestinian territories, usually delineated through the U.S. Agency for International Development. America has also provided more than $1.1 billion to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which oversees Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, according to State Department records.

U.S. assistance to the Palestinians last year alone reportedly totaled $282 million.

American aid to the PA and Palestinian-related agencies, especially to refugee organizations, is devised largely based on Palestinian population figures, a State Department spokesperson said.

Both the U.S. and Israel have based their information regarding the Palestinian population on numbers provided by the PA's Central Bureau of Statistics, which claims a total population in the West Bank and Gaza of 3.8 million.

But the new study, led by Zimmerman and researchers Roberta Seid and Michael Wise, puts the current Palestinian-Arab population of the West Bank at 1.4 million and Gaza 1.1 million, for a total of 2.4 million.

The study compared the accepted PA data to Palestinian voting records, birth and death records published annually by the PA's Health Ministry, immigration and emigration data from Israel's Border Control, internal migration of Palestinians from the territories into Israel recorded by the Israeli Interior Ministry and others, Israeli Civil Administration population studies, U.N. population surveys, and surveys conducted by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and the World Bank.

Zimmerman's team found extreme faults in the methods used by the PA to determine its population, including counting the 230,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem twice and retroactively raising growth and birth rates, which the study contends have been declining.

The PA claims a natural growth rate of 4 to 5 percent per year, among the highest in the world, but Palestinian Ministry of Health records published annually since 1996 contradict the PA's own claims by stating growth rates averaging around 3 percent.

Zimmerman's study documents the PA tampered with its own data, retroactively raising its growth numbers in 2002. The new study shows a steady pattern of growth decline leading to a natural growth rate in 2003 of just 2.6 percent.

The PA has documented rises in Palestinian fertility rates – the number of children per woman – but Zimmerman's study found a dramatic decrease from 7.4 in 1997 to 3.89 in 2003. Palestinian women in the West Bank averaged 4.1 children in 1999 and 3.4 in 2003, and women in Gaza averaged 5 children each in 1999 and 4.7 in 2003.

The PA also projected a net population increase of 1.5 percent per year as a result of immigration from surrounding countries. But Zimmerman's researchers found that except for 1994, when the bulk of the Palestinian leadership and their families entered the territories from Tunis, Palestinian emigration from the area has outweighed immigration by a net negative of about 10,000 per year.

"The U.S. and Europeans have for years accepted entirely exaggerated data," Zimmerman said. "Now Congress has some very tough questions to ask, including how its own State Department and the CIA could have been duped and what do to regarding future aid."

Ros-Lehtinen recently drafted legislation along with Tom Lantos, D-Calif., calling for a halt to U.S. assistance to the PA following Hamas' victory in January's Palestinian elections.

The United States and Israel have been leading an international push to politically and financially isolate the new Hamas government.

The PA has for years depended on U.S. and European aid to pay salaries for its nearly 150,000 employees, totaling about $90 million per month.

[Shammu]

South America's Terror Connection

March 7, 2006

(CBS) Each year thousands of tourists are drawn to the beauty of Iguacu Falls in an undeveloped area of South America where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet: the Tri-border region.

But CBS News correspondent Trish Regan reports that a large, influential Arab population flourishes in the area. Many of them are reaping huge profits in a variety of illegal activities. Members of the American military have charged that the region harbors radical Islamic terrorists, and that the area is a growing threat to U.S. security interests.

Millions of dollars flow through these streets every year — and basically nothing is done to stop illegal trade. Paraguay's money-laundering laws are seldom enforced, and there's little interest in knowing where the money ends up.

"There is so much illegal activity from the counterfeiting of all kinds of goods to drugs to weapons to terrorist fund-raising to money laundering," says Walt Purdy of Washington's Terrorism Research Center, who has been tracking activity in the area for years.

So who's down there?

"Everybody from Hezbollah to people who are connected to al Qaeda," he says. "They've used it to raise money; they've used it for a safe haven."

According to U.S. and Israeli intelligence, Ciudad del Este served as the launch pad for the Hezbollah car-bombing attacks on the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992 and the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994. They say that over the last decade, the area increasingly has grown into a terrorist hiding place.

"The idea here is accessibility with no records. Anonymity at all costs," says Tom Cash, who oversaw Latin America for the Drug Enforcement Administration in the 1990s. Cash, now with Kroll Inc., adds that the area is a terrorist's paradise.

"It's not 'Catch Me If You Can'-type territory," he says, "because no one's even looking."

For example: Local authorities did arrest one Tri-border resident, Assad Amad Barakat, a suspected Lebanese terrorist financier. But they didn't nab him on charges that he contributed to terror organizations — because in Paraguay, that's legal. Instead, he faced much lesser charges of tax evasion.

An examination of Barakat's bank records have led authorities to believe he wired as much as $50 million to terror groups. He even got a thank-you note: CBS News secured a copy of a handwritten letter from the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrullah, that personally thanked Barakat for his contributions.

Purdy feels it's time that something is done to cut off the money supply — or else.

"If we don't take enough aggressive measures to cut off that funding," he says, "maybe the funding and the manufacturing of counterfeit goods in South America will one day finance an attack on us."

Counter-terrorism sources say Hamas, which is set to take over the Palestinian government, is sending delegations to the Tri-border area in an effort to raise money. The concern is that groups like this will work with other terror groups in the region. They've got the money ... and it's an area in which they can move freely.

South America's Terror Connection

[Shammu]

Iran Threatens U.S. With 'Harm and Pain'
 Email this Story

Mar 8, 8:49 AM (ET)

By GEORGE JAHN

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program.

But the United States and its European allies said Iran's nuclear intransigence left the world no choice but to ask for Security Council action. The council could impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.

The statements were delivered to the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is meeting to focus on Tehran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.

The meeting is in effect the last step before the Security Council begins considering Iran's nuclear activities and international fears they could be misused to make weapons. It began with both Iran and nations which oppose its enrichment plans sticking to their positions, reflecting the deadlock that prompted the IAEA board to seek Security Council intervention.

"The United States has the power to cause harm and pain," said a statement delivered by the Iranian delegation. "But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll."

The statement did not elaborate on what Iran meant by "harm and pain," and Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment.

But diplomats accredited to the meeting and in contact with the Iranians said the statement could be a veiled threat to use oil as an economic weapon.

Iran is the second-largest producer within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and a boycott could target Europe, China or India.

The republic also could cause difficulties in southern Iraq. On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Tehran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.

Iran's statement was unusually harsh, reflecting Tehran's frustration at failing to deflect the threat of Security Council action against it in the coming weeks. Tehran maintains its nuclear program is for generating electricity.

"Our nation has made its decision to fully use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and all have to give in to this decision made by the Iranian nation," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in Iran. "We have made our choice."

Iran also attacked "warmongers in Washington" for what it said was an unjust accusation that Tehran's nuclear intentions were mainly for military use. It also suggested America was vulnerable, despite its strength.

"Surely we are not naive about the United States' ... intention to flex muscles," the statement said. "But we also see the bone fractures underneath."

It also threatened broader retaliation, without being specific, saying Iran "will adapt our policy and adjust our approach to conform with the new exigencies."

Earlier, U.S. delegate Gregory Schulte insisted in comments to the board that "the time has now come for the Security Council to act."

He ticked off Iran's decision to curtail agency inspections, its expanding uranium enrichment program and worrying conclusions by IAEA inspectors that suggest at least past interest in nuclear arms as contributing to "mounting international concerns" about Tehran's nuclear intentions.

"Iran has still not come clean," he said.

Schulte listed Tehran's possession of plans that could only be used to make nuclear warheads, links between its nuclear programs and the military, and its determination to develop a large-scale enrichment program that could be misused to make nuclear arms.

"IAEA inspectors have no doubt this information was expressly intended for the fabrication of nuclear weapons components," Schulte said of documents showing how to form fissile material into warheads.

Separately, France, Germany and Britain, which spearheaded the Feb. 4 IAEA resolution clearing the path for Security Council action, warned that what is known about Iran's enrichment program could represent only "the tip of the iceberg."

It also spoke of "indicators of a possible military dimension to Iran's (nuclear) program" as "a legitimate source of intense concern."

"We believe that the time has ... come for the U.N. Security Council to reinforce the authority" of the IAEA and its board, the European statement said.

Ahmadinejad's comments - and U.S. and Russian statements the day before rejecting any compromise allowing Tehran to enrich uranium domestically - set the stage for Security Council action once the IAEA board meeting hears about the latest investigations into Iran's nuclear program and debates the issue.

Russia and China, which have Security Council vetoes, may use them to foil any resolution in that chamber that would meaningfully increase pressure on Iran, their political and economic ally. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing appealed Tuesday for more negotiations and suggested Security Council involvement was not needed.

The Chinese and Russian statements to the board were relatively moderate, said delegates inside the closed meeting. China urged "more time for diplomacy" before any Security Council action, one delegate said on condition of anonymity, quoting from the Chinese statement.

Iran Threatens U.S. With 'Harm and Pain'