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[Soldier4Christ]

Iranian missiles
can carry nukes
U.S. official says 'breakthrough'
a 'very disturbing development'

Iran now has ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, according to military experts.

While Tehran denies it is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal, ballistic missile experts advising the United States say it has succeeded in reconfiguring the Shahab-3 ballistic missile to carry nuclear weapons, the London Telegraph reports.

"This is a major breakthrough for the Iranians," said a senior U.S. official, according to the London paper. "They have been trying to do this for years and now they have succeeded. It is a very disturbing development."

Recent test firings of the Shahab-3 by military experts show Iran has been able to modify the nose cone to carry a basic nuclear bomb, the experts conclude.

WorldNetDaily first reported one year ago that Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, were being designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure. Scientists, including President Reagan's top science adviser, William R. Graham, said there is no other explanation for such tests than preparation for the deployment of electromagnetic pulse weapons – even one of which could knock out America's critical electrical and technological infrastructure, effectively sending the continental U.S. back to the 19th century with a recovery time of months or years.

In December, WND reported that while the U.S. always has refused to take the military option off the table in dealing with Iran, new developments indicated Washington had gone from acknowledging the possibility of action to preparing its allies for a strike.

The Shahab-3 is an adaptation of North Korea's Nodong missile, which Tehran secretly obtained from Pyongyang in the mid-1990s. The Nodong is based on the old Soviet-made Scud missile. Iran concluded another secret deal with North Korea in 2003 to buy the Taepo Dong 2 missile, with a range of 2,000 miles.

The United Nations Security Council last week gave Iran 30 days to freeze its uranium enrichment program, which many experts believe is tied to a clandestine attempt by Tehran to produce nuclear weapons.

U.S. defense officials believe Iran is several years from acquiring nuclear weapons, but they point out a version of Pakistan's nuclear bomb could fit on the Shahab warhead.

Tehran is known to have acquired detailed plans of Pakistan's weapons.

The Shahab 3, with a range of 800 miles, is capable of hitting Israel. But Iranian technicians are working on technical adjustments to further increase the range.

Teams of Russian and Chinese nuclear-weapons experts are assisting Iran, Western intelligence officials believe.

Similar to the Hiroshima bomb, the Iranian warhead is designed to carry a spherical nuclear weapon that would be detonated 2,000 feet above the ground, the Telegraph said.

Author Jerome Corsi, who warned one year ago of Iran's intention to acquire nuclear weapons and threaten Israel and the West in his book "Atomic Iran, says Tehran is "proceeding much faster than what the world expected."

"We knew they had designs for simple gun-type spherical bomb," he said. "But now they've managed to adapt the warhead, and all they need is the bomb itself."

In January, Tehran opened a nuclear facility in Isfahan, and analysts believe within another four to six months it may have the capability to produce its own enriched uranium.

In November, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to "wipe Israel off the map."

"Iran has declared war on Israel whether we recognize it or not," Corsi said.

In December, Israeli officials said then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had instructed the Israeli Defense Forces to prepare for a possible military strike against Iran.

As WorldNetDaily reported in January, Ahmadinejad told a crowd of theological students in Iran's holy city of Qom that Islam must prepare to rule the world.

"We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups and nations. It's a universal ideology that leads the world to justice," Ahmadinejad said Jan. 5, according to Mehran Riazaty, a former Iran analyst for the Central Command of the Coalition Forces in Baghdad.

Ahmadinejad, who drew global attention for his contention the Holocaust was a "myth," said: "We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world."

Riazaty, in a post on the website Regime Change Iran, said the Iranian president emphasized his current theme that the return of the Shiite messiah, the Mahdi, is not far away, and Muslims must prepare for it.

According to Shiites, the 12th imam disappeared as a child in the year 941. When he returns, they believe, he will reign on earth for seven years, before bringing about a final judgment and the end of the world.

Ahmadinejad is urging Iranians to prepare for the coming of the Mahdi by turning the country into a mighty and advanced Islamic society and by avoiding the corruption and excesses of the West.

"We must prepare ourselves to rule the world and the only way to do that is to put forth views on the basis of the Expectation of the Return," Ahmadinejad said. "If we work on the basis of the Expectation of the Return [of the Mahdi], all the affairs of our nation will be streamlined and the administration of the country will become easier."

[Shammu]

US, EU halt payments to Palestinian Authority
Fri Apr 7, 2006 7:20 PM ET168

 By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and the European Commission suspended aid to the new Hamas-led Palestinian government on Friday, pushing the Palestinian Authority closer to financial collapse.

The State Department, making its announcement, said it would boost humanitarian aid to the Palestinians through U.N. agencies to avoid widespread distress in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but the United States would not fund an organization committed to the destruction of Israel.

Quoting a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, spokesman Sean McCormack said the Palestinian Cabinet must meet terms laid out by the quartet -- the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia.

"The path back to the road map is clear: acceptance of the three principles. If it accepts the Quartet principles or a new government comes to power that accepts them, funding can be restored," the statement said.

The three principles are that Hamas must renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and express clear support for the Middle East peace process.

In Brussels, the European Commission said it had halted aid payments to the Palestinian government.

"The problem is that they punish the Palestinian people, the Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian families. No one can accept such a kind of punishment," said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Fatah movement that recognizes Israel.

"We urge the international community to be understanding and continue to provide aid."

Hamas, a fundamentalist Islamic organization that has carried out many suicide bombings in Israel, won a sweeping victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January but did not formally take over the government until last week.

Facing an immediate financial crisis, Hamas is scrambling to find ways of paying 140,000 workers employed by the Palestinian Authority who support about a third of the population in the territories.

HAMAS ASSAILS FREEZE

Palestinian Prime Minister and senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assailed the aid cuts as unjust.

"They are hasty decisions and they are unjust to the Palestinian people and they represent the punishment to the Palestinian people for their democratic choice," he said.

"Whoever thinks that by these decisions he will besiege the government is wrong."

But U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and North African Affairs David Welch, said, "We believe that Hamas, as a government, is going to have great difficulty meeting the aspiration of the Palestinian people."

Hamas has appealed to Arab states and Iran to fill the shortfall, but has not even been able to find a bank willing to handle its finances.

Even before the aid cutoff, many Palestinians struggled to subsist in an economy suffering from widespread poverty, high unemployment and rife with corruption.

Israel has stopped turning over about $50 million a month in taxes and customs revenue it collected on behalf of the Palestinians under previous agreements and its banks have begun cutting ties with the Palestinians.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar warned the EU that cutting aid would destroy its credibility and could lead to boycotts of European interests in the Islamic world.

"I am afraid it may wreck the credibility of the European Union in the Arab and Islamic world," Zahar told Reuters.

The EU has been the main donor to the Palestinian Authority since its creation under the 1993 Oslo peace accords.

About 30 million euros ($35 million) in direct government aid was currently in the pipeline, an EU official said.

Diplomats said the European freeze covered all direct aid to the Palestinian government and payment of public employees' salaries with EU funds through the World Bank, but not humanitarian aid through international and non-governmental organizations.

But the charity Oxfam warned that NGOs did not have the capacity to run health and education services and cutting aid would deprive the Palestinian population of these services.

"The Palestinian Authority is responsible for (these services) and therefore donors must keep funding it," Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam, said in a letter to the EU.

US, EU halt payments to Palestinian Authority

[Shammu]

Iran cleric calls UN nuclear demand unacceptable
Fri Apr 7, 2006 8:48 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A U.N. Security Council demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment is unacceptable, a senior cleric said on Friday, vowing Tehran would defy Western powers who suspect it of preparing to build a nuclear bomb.

The council has demanded Iran suspend work on enriched uranium and on March 29 asked the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear agency to report on Tehran's compliance in 30 days.

Ahmad Khatami, a key Friday prayer preacher at Tehran University and a member of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that supervises Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there was no question of complying.

"Whether it is one month or one year, whatever timeframes you want to give us, the Iranian nation has explicitly said ... that it would not give up its rights on the nuclear issue," he said in remarks broadcast live on state radio.

"We will stand up for our rights until the last drop of our blood."

He accused the Security Council of implementing "the rule of jungle" in its dealings with Iran and vowed a harsh response if the Islamic Republic were attacked.

"If they (the West) are in the least bit aggressive toward the Islamic system, they will get a very hard slap in the face," Khatami said to a chorus of "nuclear energy is our absolute right" from worshippers.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said on Thursday the Security Council could give Iran only two chances to curb its nuclear programs before imposing sanctions.

U.S. officials have said military action is an option, though Britain and France have disavowed it.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), urged Iran on Thursday to clarify "hazy" areas of its atomic program, which the IAEA has been unable to verify is exclusively peaceful in three years of checks.

Five inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog arrived in Iran on Friday to visit nuclear sites, Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told the semi-official Mehr news agency.

In February, Iran scrapped snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities after its nuclear file was referred to the Security Council. But it says it is continuing to cooperate with the IAEA and its inspectors.

Iran cleric calls UN nuclear demand unacceptable

[Shammu]

 Top insurgent 'caught in Baghdad'
The US military says it has captured a leading figure in the Iraqi insurgency in the capital Baghdad.

Muhammad al-Ubaydi is said to have been a close associate of the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Zarqawi is Iraq's most notorious insurgent, associated with bombings and the beheading of foreign hostages.

The US military said Mr Ubaydi was captured on 7 March, but the announcement of his capture was delayed until DNA tests confirmed his identity.

It said he was a senior intelligence official during Saddam Hussein's regime and a prime suspect in the kidnapping of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena last year.

'Strong ties'

Mr Ubaydi was also responsible for a series of assassination attempts on Iraqi government and Iraqi security force officials, the statement said.

He was the leader of the Secret Islamic Army, a militant group operating in the province of Babil, and "had strong ties to terror leader Zarqawi", the military added.

Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is said to have been forced to step down as leader of a coalition of Iraqi militants in March, when he was replaced by an Iraqi.

The claim could not be independently verified, but leading Islamist Huthaifa Azzam said some militants were unhappy about Zarqawi's tactics and tendency to speak for the insurgency as a whole.

However, experts said choosing an Iraqi as political leader was a tactic aimed at giving the insurgency an Iraqi face.

Top insurgent 'caught in Baghdad'

[Shammu]

Motorist Injures Ten Paris Protesters

By JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press Writer Fri Apr 7, 6:36 PM ET

PARIS - A picnic by student protesters held in the middle of a busy Paris boulevard turned violent Friday when a frustrated motorist burst through the crowd, injuring 10. Outraged students set upon the driver, overturning his car before police stepped in.

The scene in the Latin Quarter highlighted the increasing unruliness of college and high school students leading protests against a new jobs law for youths.

But spring break, which starts this weekend, may succeed where politicians have failed in ending the protests. With Alpine ski slopes and Mediterranean beaches calling, high school students in particular say they will have to stop their protests to vacation with mom and dad.

"I'm sorry to say so, but I think the movement is going to lose steam," said Elies Alexandre, one of about 200 high school students taking part in Friday's violence-marred sit-in near the Sorbonne University, which has been closed for a month.

"Most people are going on vacation with their parents," said the 15-year-old, who leaves this weekend for a family holiday in Italy.

Students more keen to protest than study have been at the forefront of the standoff with the government over a law that was designed to spur the hirings of youths under 26 by making it easier for companies to fire them. The law was meant, above all, to help those less qualified get a first job, but city students led the protests.

The ranks of protesters could dwindle with spring break, though many older university students say their determination is unbending.

"I could see us still being in this same place in May or June or even beyond," said 22-year-old Romain Calbrix.

"When you work, you can lose your salary or even your job for striking, but what can happen to us?" asked Calbrix, a physics student at a branch of the University of Paris, which has been closed for more than five weeks. "The worst that can happen to us is that we have to repeat a semester."

A week ago, President Jacques Chirac, trying to end the growing crisis, ordered the contested law modified. On Friday, lawmakers ended three days of talks with unions and students, saying a bill based on a "synthesis" of the talks would be presented. No details were given.

Protesters have demanded the law be repealed by April 15, when parliament recesses for spring. But student demonstrators turned to radical tactics this week, blocking railroad tracks, highways and bridges and adding an element of danger to the mix.

The picnic Friday turned into chaos when a frustrated motorist burst through the crowd, slightly injuring 10 people. Several dozen outraged students tried to attack the man, overturning his car. Police and firefighters dispersed the students, rescued the driver from his vehicle and held him for questioning.

A day earlier, more than 2,000 students swarmed the tracks of a Paris train station, stopping international and local rail traffic and stranding thousands of travelers for nearly two hours. A sit-in on a highway ringing Paris brought rush-hour traffic to a standstill. In the southwest, protesters blocked a convoy carrying parts for the new Airbus A380 superjumbo jets.

Students said they want to make themselves heard in this new phase of protests.

"Taking actions that affect all of society are our way of making people pay attention," said Adrien Taieb, a 21-year-old computer science student who gave up a seaside family holiday for the movement.

Some student leaders vowed to redouble their efforts during the two-week spring break, and called another day of action for Tuesday.

"We are going to show all of France that the movement is stronger than ever," said Chahla Youssef, spokeswoman for a group that coordinates university demonstrations across the country. "There's no stopping us now."

Motorist Injures Ten Paris Protesters

[Shammu]

Child Porn Isn't Illegal in Most Countries

By Thomas Claburn
Security Pipeline Thu Apr 6, 6:00 PM ET

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and other participants including Microsoft presented a study on Thursday that reveals the woeful inadequacy of child pornography laws around the world.
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The ICMEC's global policy review of child pornography laws in 184 Interpol-member countries shows that more than half have no laws that specifically address child pornography and in many others the existing laws are insufficient.

"It's hard to arrest and prosecute if you don't have the legal foundation on which to build," said Ernie Allen, ICMEC president and CEO.

The ICMEC study found that possession of child pornography is not a crime in 138 countries. In 122 countries, there's no law dealing with the use of computers and the Internet as a means of child porn distribution.

"One of the greatest challenges we are confronted with is child safety, child protection, and child rights," said Baron Daniel Cardon de Lecture, chairman of ICMEC. Most of the countries in the world, he said, "have no meaningful system to adequately and effectively combat sexual exploitation of children."

Only five countries—Australia, Belgium, France, South Africa and the United States—have laws deemed adequate by ICMEC to address the issue.

ICMEC acknowledges that the scope of the problem is difficult to determine, but statistics suggest that the production and consumption of child pornography is on the rise throughout the world. In 2005, the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children fielded 340,000 calls to its CyberTipline, up from more than 24,400 in 2001. This may reflect increased awareness of the tip line as well as an increase in the amount of child pornography.

The national center says that 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys in the U.S. are sexually exploited before they reach adulthood. Less than 35% of those child sexual assaults are reported to authorities.

David Townsend, CEO of eFor, a computer forensics company, has served as an expert witness in several high profile court cases. He believes the prevalence of child pornography is on the rise. It's the result, he says, of the anonymity that people believe they have online. "Twenty years ago, child predators used to go circuses and playgrounds," he says. "Today, they go online to places like Yahoo Groups and MySpace."

The production of child pornography is also becoming more professional. According to de Lecture, child pornography is thriving because it's profitable and relatively risk free compared to other criminal enterprises like smuggling weapons or drugs. "There is a huge consumer market for child pornography," he lamented. "Child pornography is enormously profitable and there is for the moment no risk. There is risk for dealing with arms. There is risk in dealing with drugs. There is no risk in trading your children today in three-quarters of the world."

Microsoft is among those working to change that: It has sponsored seminars around the world that have helped train some 1,322 law enforcement officials from 89 countries to better investigate and prosecute child pornography.

In a phone interview following the press conference, Tim Cranton, director of Internet safety, legal and corporate affairs for Microsoft, explained that despite interest from foreign law enforcement agencies in dealing with child pornography, police abroad often lack the technical knowledge necessarily to deal with child porn on computers.

Though child pornography remains a growing problem, Allen says there's reason to be optimistic because other nations are responding. He says he hopes child pornography can be driven from the Internet by 2008.

Child Porn Isn't Illegal in Most Countries

 

[Shammu]

Liberal Denomination Fires Salvos at Right
By NEELA BANERJEE

After years of turning the other cheek, the United Church of Christ, among the most liberal of the mainline Protestant denominations, has recently staked out a more pugnacious stance toward the Christian right.

The Rev. John H. Thomas, the denomination's president, has sharply criticized the Institute for Religion and Democracy, a conservative religious watchdog and advocacy group, for supporting groups within mainline denominations that would further a conservative theological and political perspective. And the church has undertaken new advertising and e-mail campaigns to combat more conservative forces.

"I.R.D. is using church members, and even outside groups, to disrupt and ultimately control the mainline to promote its own political agenda," Mr. Thomas said last month in a speech at Gettysburg College.

In the e-mail campaign, the denomination is accusing the ABC News political program "This Week" of booking far more conservative Christian leaders than moderates for the Sunday morning broadcast. The network has called that assertion "unfounded and not based on fact."

And after stirring up publicity in late 2004 with an advertisement about tolerance, the church is distributing an even more pointed commercial that shows people who might not be considered mainstream, like a single mother and a gay couple, being shot through the roof of a church from an "ejector pew."

"God doesn't reject people," the commercial says. "Neither do we."

Critics of the United Church of Christ, including the Institute for Religion and Democracy, assert that the church tries to silence those who do not agree with its liberal interpretation of Scripture.

"In Thomas's case, I'm seeing an advancing case of paranoia," said Steve Rempe, the content editor for the institute's Web site. "He sees this vast conspiracy centered around conservative political motivations and doesn't seem to see the possibility that these people might have a legitimate pastoral concern for their churches."

The United Church of Christ appears to be battling two trends: the influence of the Institute of Religion and Democracy within mainline denominations and the influence of the religious right, particularly its influence with the news media.

Detractors and allies agree that the recent actions by the United Church of Christ signal a growing impatience among the mainline denominations with their far-right brethren and an increasing willingness to take some of them on.

"Leaders have responded strongly before, but the U.C.C. has taken it to a new level of battle or conflict," said the Rev. Christian Sharen of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

The United Church of Christ, which is made up in part of churches descended from the Puritan congregations, takes pride in its liberalism, and it has led other Protestant denominations in the ordination of women and on civil rights issues, said Randall Balmer, professor of American religious history at Columbia University. As with other mainline churches, it has been subject to disputes over homosexuality, in its case, a decision at its General Synod meeting last year to support same-sex marriage.

In an interview, Mr. Thomas said he welcomed spirited debate about issues like sexuality. But he said that in his March speech he was speaking out against those within the church and outside it who sought to wreck the denomination. He said in his speech, for example, that some dissenting groups in the church had encouraged members who agreed with them to withhold donations.

"We need to be more active in protecting our churches from this kind of behavior," Mr. Thomas said. "We need to differentiate between loving critics and critics who are looking to divide and destroy."

Mr. Rempe, who recorded Mr. Thomas's speech at Gettysburg, denied that his organization sought to destroy the mainline churches, pointing out that many of the institute's staff members belonged to those denominations. He also denied that the group had advised conservative dissenters to withhold money.

Financed in part by wealthy religious conservatives, the Institute for Religion and Democracy provides information to so-called renewal groups made up of conservative dissenters within the mainline churches. Mr. Rempe played down its efforts, saying it included an annual meeting "and some press releases and a couple of traded e-mails."

But experts on American Protestantism argue that the institute plays a far greater role in nurturing dissent and organizing a broader movement across denominational lines to battle leaders of the mainline churches.

Professor Balmer attended last year's annual meeting of the renewal groups organized by the institute's Association for Church Renewal

"A lot of the rhetoric was triumphalist," he said. "They thought they could use issues of homosexuality, gay clergy and same-sex unions to take over their denominations."

Others have joined the United Church of Christ in speaking out. Recently, the Rev. Michael Livingston, the new president of the National Council of Churches of Christ U.S.A., told a meeting of representatives of the group's member churches, "Mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches have been pounded into irrelevancy by the media machine of a false religion; a political philosophy masquerading as gospel; an economic principle wrapped in religious rhetoric and painted red, white and blue."

Although some mainline Christians feel energized by the new toughness, others worry that such an approach could threaten the very pluralism that the mainline churches have come to stand for and the gospel of love that so many preach.

"I think this is a dangerous place to be," said Mr. Sharen of Yale. "You stand to lose the integrity of 'turn the other cheek.' "

Liberal Denomination Fires Salvos at Right

[Shammu]

Rwandan president decries Western inaction on genocide anniversary
Posted 4/7/2006 1:28 PM
NYAMSHEKE, Rwanda (AFP) — Somber Rwandans on Friday marked the 12th anniversary of the start of the country's brutal 1994 genocide as President Paul Kagame criticized the West for staying quiet during the slaughter and then offering unwanted peacetime advice on ethnic harmony.

At a memorial ceremony here about 215 miles southwest of Kigali where the bones of genocide victims exhumed from mass graves were given a dignified reburial, Kagame lashed out at the West for exploiting ethnic divisions that led to the mass killings.

"There were foreigners who killed," he said, in an apparent reference to French troops who have been criticized for their role after the start of the genocide in which some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.

"There were soldiers who asked for identity cards of Rwandans to differentiate between Hutus and Tutsis," Kagame said, alleging that such behavior had aided and abetted those who carried out the massacres.

"They are killers," he alleged, taking aim at other unnamed countries he said were purporting to offer helpful advice about the need for ethnic harmony after having ignored the genocide.

"These others come and talk about divisionism," Kagame told the audience at the ceremony that included the entire Kigali diplomatic corps as well as the Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer and famed music mogul Quincy Jones.

"You kept quiet in the face of those who killed one million people and you have no right to talk nonsense to those who are doing their best to rebuild this country," he said.

"We need your help, your unfounded criticism is not wanted," Kagame said. "We don't need lessons about politics from anyone."

Kagame's Tutsi-led government has been criticized in recent years for keeping ethnic animosity alive even after the genocide by labeling its political foes "divisionists."

As he did last week, Kagame also took aim at filmmakers who he said were distorting the facts of the genocide and thus Rwanda's history by portraying inaccurate accounts of the brutal 100-day killing spree.

He said a movie should be made about the life of Gaetan Kabanda, a Tutsi genocide survivor who spoke eloquently about his experiences at the ceremony, instead of Hutu hotelier Paul Rusesabgaina, the inspiration for the Hollywood hit Hotel Rwanda.

"This is the hero you should be talking about, not the hero I have been reading about," Kagame said, implicitly referring to Rusesabgaina who he suggested last week had taken money to save some of the Tutsis in his hotel.

Rwandan president decries Western inaction on genocide anniversary

[Shammu]

Nepal imposes curfew before fierce rally
Updated 4/8/2006 1:02 AM
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal's king imposed a curfew and snapped mobile phone links on Saturday, hours before thousands were to assemble in an anti-monarchy rally billed as the culmination of a four-day general strike.

A government order broadcast on state-run Radio Nepal said violators would be shot. A government notice said the curfew would be imposed from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. in Katmandu and two suburbs.

The four-day strike that ends Sunday is aimed at pressuring King Gyanendra to give up the direct rule that he assumed last year after firing the prime minister. It is the first time that a political protest has the backing of the armed Maoist rebels, who are separately fighting an insurgency against the king's rule and formed a loose alliance with the political parties in December.

The government it had information that the rebels would try to infiltrate the political rallies and wage terror attacks against government targets.

In southwestern Nepal, government troops fought communist rebels on Saturday. In the first attack, rebels shooting flares in the air attacked two army bases and a police post at Butwal, 175 miles from the capital, Katmandu.

There were reports of rebels bombing government buildings and attacking the local jail in the nearby town of Taulihawa, said Gangadutta Awasti, the chief government administrator in the area.

On Friday, police in Katmandu battled protesters in narrow alleys using batons and tear gas to beat back stone-throwing students. Some 750 pro-democracy advocates have been arrested so far.

"The government is using minimum force to control the situation," Home Minister Kamal Thapa said.

A post office in Katmandu was set on fire Friday, and students at the capital's Tribhuwan University ransacked the dean's office and briefly held several officers hostage.

The hundreds of students were joined in protests by workers, professionals and business owners, in what the opposition said was a sign of building momentum against the king.

Mobile phone links have been shut down in previous protests as well as a way to deter strike organizers, and protest organizers said the curfew order and other restrictions show the government is nervous.

"It proves that we have been able to startle the government. We have not decided how we are going to respond to the curfew order but we will not be deterred by the government using these means to try quash our movement for democracy," Subash Nemwang of the Communist Party of Nepal said.

Earlier, Gyanendra called for calm in a speech broadcast live on national radio and television, saying "it is the need of today to establish permanent peace."

In New Delhi, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, Richard Boucher, called Gyanendra's assumption of absolute power "a travesty."

"There is no reason to support the king," he said. "The only thing he needs to do is restore democracy."

Gyanendra says he was forced to seize power in February last year because of the growing communist insurgency, which has killed some 13,000 people since 1996.

Widespread protests in 1990 that forced the previous king to establish parliamentary democracy only gained momentum only when thousands of citizens poured into the streets.

Nepal imposes curfew before fierce rally

[Shammu]

British Rethinking Rules After Ill-Fated Drug Trial
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL,
International Herald Tribune

In February, when Rob O. saw the text message from Parexel International pop up on his cellphone in London — "healthy males needed for a drug trial" for £2,000, about $3,500 — it seemed like a harmless opportunity to make some much-needed cash. Parexel, based in Waltham, Mass., contracts with drug makers to test new medicines.

Just weeks later, the previously healthy 31-year-old was in intensive care at London's Northwick Park Hospital — wires running directly into his heart and arteries, on dialysis, his immune system, liver, kidneys and lungs all failing — the victim of a drug trial gone disastrously bad.

One of six healthy young men to receive TGN1412, a novel type of immune stimulant that had never before been tried in humans, Rob O. took part in a study that is sending shock waves through the research world and causing regulators to rethink procedures for testing certain powerful new drugs.

Although tests of TGN1412 in monkeys showed no significant trouble, all six human subjects nearly died. One is still hospitalized and the others, though discharged, still have impaired immune systems, their future health uncertain.

On Wednesday, after releasing its interim report on the trial as well as previously confidential scientific documents that were part of the application for a trial permit, the British government announced it was convening an international panel of experts to "consider what necessary changes to clinical trials may be required" for such novel compounds.

The outcome "could potentially affect clinical trials regulation worldwide," the announcement said.

In statements this week, both Parexel and the drug's manufacturer, TeGenero, emphasized that they had complied with all regulatory requirements and conducted the trial according to the approved protocol. But they declined to answer questions e-mailed to them about the specifics of the science involved.

"The companies have worked according to strict standards applicable for such type of studies," said Kristin Kaufmann, a spokeswoman for TeGenero.

Within an hour of receiving the milky white drug in a Parexel research ward in the hospital on March 13, the volunteers were racked with chills, pain and nausea, said Rob O., who asked that his last name not be used, for fear that he might be hurt professionally. A doctor informed him he was "seriously ill."

"But no one's going to die?" Rob O. recalled saying, believing he was participating in a fairly standard trial of a painkiller for arthritis.

The chilling response: "Two of you might. Who's your next of kin?"

In fact, TGN1412 is anything but standard. The first product of TeGenero, a tiny German company with just 15 employees, TGN1412 belongs to a completely novel class of manufactured antibodies that researchers thought could revolutionize the treatment of leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis.

Now, TGN1412 seems poised to go down in medical history as a pharmaceutical lemon, its disastrous trial raising serious questions about whether patient safety is adequately protected in the lucrative race to get products to market.

The British Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which approved the trial at Northwick Park, announced Wednesday that "the way the trial was run" had not contributed to patient injuries, according to its preliminary investigation. The men experienced cytokine release syndrome, which involves an outpouring of toxic molecules when the immune system's T cells are activated, the report said; it could not have been predicted from previous animal studies using the drug, the association, TeGenero and Parexel agree.

But British regulators took the highly unusual additional step of appointing an expert panel to explore whether more stringent safeguards should be required for testing new biological drugs like TGN1412 that manipulate the immune system.

Many experts say that because TGN1412's unique property is to turn on potent, immune system T cells, overriding normal regulatory mechanisms, the clinical trials were extraordinarily risky. "There was strong reason to be very cautious," said Dr. Michael Ehrenstein, of University College London, who studies the molecules that TGN1412 affects. "Many people would say this was a very high-risk strategy. I'd have to agree with that."

Michael Goodyear, a Canadian oncologist and medical ethicist, said that even if the trial was not illegal or unethical, the research protocol and conduct on the day of the trial raise "a number of big red flags."

The concerns Dr. Goodyear and lawyers for the subjects raised include these:

¶Rob O. began receiving the drug intravenously long after the first volunteer was already experiencing symptoms possibly serious enough to halt the trial. Standard practice for such trials is to use just one patient or to separate tests by many days.

¶The information submitted by TeGenero to British regulators mentioned that a cytokine burst "could occur" after TGN1412 infusion. But in their application, researchers deemed the reaction "not expected" on the basis of trials with a single animal species, and did not mention this risk to the recruits, Rob O. said.

¶On its Web site, Parexel says, "The only services that matter are the ones that speed your product through clinical development." The subjects point out that approvals for drug trials in Britain are quicker than in the United States and the liability for injuries is less.

¶Rob O. said the novelty of TGN1412 never came up in upbeat pretrial briefings, adding, "I had no idea it altered the immune system."

The first human trials are risky and ethically complicated. They are designed to determine whether a compound is safe, not to provide a benefit to the subject. Such human trials must be approved by national regulators as well as medical ethics boards, though standards vary somewhat among countries and even among different panels.

"Research is a social good — we need better treatments for leukemia and arthritis — but there are risks," said Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, chief of bioethics at the United States National Institutes of Health. "Being a construction worker is very risky, and we pay people to do that. So why not this?"

Noting that the TGN1412 trial had been approved by two separate British regulatory bodies and that the medicine had been tested in animals, he said, "This is a terrible, tragic event but so far I don't see any clear ethical problems."

The trial subjects, who were to spend three days as hospital inpatients, were mostly immigrants, some of them students or unemployed.

"These were not people who were well off," said Martyn Day, of the London law firm Leigh Day & Company, which is representing four of the men. "They thought this was relatively risk free."

At the orientation meeting there was little time to read the 11-page consent form, Rob O. said, although they had a chance to take it home. Headaches and bruising were listed as potential side effects, as well as a severe allergy. But eating nuts or using new cosmetics could create similar reactions, the form said.

In fact, so-called monoclonal antibodies frequently produce severe generalized symptoms like aches and chills, though their use is justified by the enormous potential benefit. "At my hospital, we almost killed people the first few times we used Herceptin," said Dr. Goodyear, referring to the popular breast cancer drug, adding that he now pretreats patients with medicines to counter possible reactions.

Cont'd next post

[Shammu]

Parexel applied to test TGN1412 in both England and Germany in December, receiving permission in England first, on Jan. 27. Many countries are streamlining review processes to attract biomedical research, a strategy that may have backfired here, Dr. Goodyear said.

It is not clear if independent immunologists reviewed the trial design, and neither Parexel nor TeGenero answered this question.

The trial began Monday, March 13, at 8 a.m., when the men began receiving TGN1412, each 10 minutes after the last. Within half an hour, the first patient had a headache and chills, said Ann Alexander, a London lawyer who is representing him. Nevertheless, doctors continued injecting new patients. About the time Rob O.'s infusion started, at 9:10 a.m., the first patient had passed out in an adjacent room, according to Ms. Alexander.

Before long, Rob O. said, he began to ache and shiver, feeling as if he had been "submerged in arctic ice." For the rest of the day, six previously healthy men moaned in uncontrollable pain, vomited and struggled for breath, Rob O. and other participants said. Though a dose of steroids temporarily blunted the symptoms, their vital signs steadily deteriorated, and they were transferred to the intensive care unit.

Two of them were placed on ventilators. Uniformed men wheeled in blood filtering machines, Rob O. recalled, to cleanse the blood of acid. Doctors told him that his immune cells were attacking his organs.

The patients' families were summoned to the hospital at 3 a.m.

In statements, Parexel and TeGenero called the reactions "unforeseen and unexpected," noting that doses hundreds of times more powerful had proved safe in animals.

The experimental application filed with British authorities — released this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request — showed that the companies at least realized the possibility of a devastating immune-system reaction, and that animal studies showed some signs of immune overdrive.

Those worries were set aside when monkeys infused with TGN1412 had no problems. Although Parexel technicians continued to draw blood in the intensive care unit, the companies have not been willing to share the medical data or even meet with the participants and their lawyers, Mr. Day, the lawyer, said.

With his immune system now essentially disabled, Rob O. says he cannot work, or even take the subway, for fear of infection. His liver and kidney tests are still abnormal. Britain's National Health Service covers his doctor's bills, but he has to pay the $87 cab fare.

Under British law, Rob O. may be eligible only for $50,000 to $70,000 in compensation, said Mr. Day, unless he can demonstrate permanent harm. Anyway, tiny TeGenero took out only a $3.5 million insurance policy to cover the trial.

Lawyers for the subjects are hoping to arrange for financial compensation and full disclosure of medical information on the drug without having to go to court.

"I can't believe that nobody will pay and nobody will be punished," Rob O. said. "If I've lost 20 years of life because my liver packs in at 60 rather than 80, who will cover that?"

British Rethinking Rules After Ill-Fated Drug Trial

[Soldier4Christ]

MIT Builds Batteries with Viruses

Normally, one would associate the word virus with something negative, whether it is a malfunctioning desktop computer or a sickness. However, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have "trained" viruses in a lab to create a miniature battery.

By manipulating a few genes within the virus, researchers were able to get the organism to grow and then assemble itself into a functional electronic device. They hope to be able to build a battery that could be as small as a grain of rice.

Two opposite electrodes -- or conductors -- form the structure of a battery, called an anode and a cathode. These are separated by something called an electrolyte, a liquid of gel-like substance that contains ions and can conduct electricity.

In the process created by MIT researchers, the viruses were engineered to create the anode by collecting cobalt oxide and gold. Since these viruses have a negative charge, they are then layered between oppositely charged synthetic polymers to create thin sheets.

Batteries made with this process could store two to three times the energy of traditional batteries that size, meaning a longer-lasting charge. While the researchers did not specify any early applications of the technology, it would likely first appear in Defense Department work. The project was funded by the Army Research Office, MIT said.

The group's work is expected to appear in this week's issue of Science.

[Soldier4Christ]

Paleontologists have discovered fossils of a species that they have called Tiktaalik roseae. The newly found species, Tiktaalik roseae, has a skull, a neck, ribs and parts of the limbs that are similar to four-legged animals known as tetrapods. After doing some more research of my own I have found that Salamanders and newts also fall into this category.

Salamanders and newts are amphibians that in early stages has gills and later developes air breathing lungs. This newly found fossil is not a missing link as touted by evolutionist scientists but rather a large version of the newt/salamander. The head is the exact same shape as that of a newt or salamander only much larger. Those that have studied Creation Science know that there is evidence that all living things were much larger at one time than they are today. The reduction in size of living things proves devolution not evolution.

Again, evolutinist scientist are getting desperate to "prove" that evolution exists and are grabbing at straws and willing to falsify their finds in order to reach their objective.

[Shammu]

Again, evolutinist scientist are getting desperate to "prove" that evolution exists and are grabbing at straws and willing to falsify their finds in order to reach their objective.

Of course thats there job to lie to the people, to try and prove a threory that doesn't hold water. Excuse the pun..........

[Shammu]

U.S. plans air attack on Iran; IAEA inspectors in Tehran
By Haaretz Service and Agencies

The Bush administration is planning for a major air attack on Iran, according to an article published on the New Yorker magazine website Saturday.

According to the article by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour M. Hersh, U.S. undercover troops are in Iran collecting data and working to establish contacts with anti-government groups, and the Air Force is drawing up lists of targets, despite publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

According to the report, the U.S. military and the international community believe that President George W. Bush's ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. The article quotes a former senior intelligence official as saying that Bush and others in the White House view Iran's president as a potential Adolf Hitler, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be "wiped off the map."

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The article goes on to say that one of the option plans presented to the White House by the Pentagon calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon against underground nuclear sites such as the Natanz centrifuge plant.

Fire breaks out adjacent to nuclear facilities outside Tehran
A fire broke out in a forest north of Tehran on Saturday, not far from an area intelligence agencies suspected illegal nuclear activity. It took firefighters some seven hours to contain the blaze.

A previous fire in the same forest occurred after Tehran municipality workers chopped town trees in the area, after which arsons set a fire. Analysts believe that the two fires may be linked and that they were set by intelligence officers or members of the Iranian Atomic Energy Committee, so that remnants of various materials, mainly enriched uranium, would not be detected.

There had been a military base in the vicinity of Lavizan, near where the fire raged, where, according to the Central Intelligence Agency, uranium had been enriched. The information was transferred to the International Atomic Energy Agency six months ago, and the United Nations nuclear watchdog called for inspections at the site. The Iranian government rejected the request, only allowing IAEA inspectors to visit after significant changes had been implemented.

The changes are visible in satellite images, which indicate that the Iranians destroyed the military base and built a soccer stadium and other sports facilities in the area. Constructing the stadium provided an excuse for overturning and replacing the soil in the area, so that if samples were to be taken, remnants of illegal materials would not be detected.

IAEA inspectors arrive in Iran to visit nuclear facilities
Five inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency have arrived in Tehran to visit Iran's uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities, state-run television reported Saturday.

Iran's deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi said the inspectors would visit the Natanz uranium enrichment plant and the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, both in central Iran, later Saturday.

The scheduled inspection comes just head of a key visit to Iran by Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei is expected to visit Iran next week to try to wrest concessions from Tehran on its atomic program, diplomats and officials said Friday.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said the IAEA chief might arrive in Iran as early as Sunday or Monday.

The five inspectors, who arrived in Tehran on Friday, will stay in Iran for five days, state-run television reported.

Iran had permitted IAEA inspections of its facilities until January when it forbade snap inspections after its nuclear dossier was reported to the UN Security Council.

Natanz is the facility where Iran resumed research-scale uranium enrichment in February and the Isfahan site reprocesses raw uranium into hexaflouride gas, the feedstock for enrichment.

The U.S. accuses Iran of using its civilian nuclear facilities as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran has denied the charges saying its nuclear program is merely for generating electricity.

The Security Council demanded on March 29 that Iran suspend enrichment and asked the IAEA to report back in 30 days on whether it had complied. Iran has rejected the demand, saying the small-scale enrichment project was strictly for research and was within its rights under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

While ElBaradei's trip is meant to defuse tensions caused by fears Iran could be seeking nuclear weapons, a partial success could actually exacerbate differences among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

If Iran commits to some Security Council requests but does not meet demands to freeze uranium enrichment that might placate Russia and China, which oppose tough measures against Iran. It would, however, fall short of the full compliance sought by the U.S., France and Britain on enrichment and other issues.

U.S. plans air attack on Iran; IAEA inspectors in Tehran