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How to Foil a Terrorist Plot in Seven Simple Steps

Monday, October 1st, 2007

1. In order to foil a terrorist plot, you must first find a terrorist plot. This is not easy.

2. Not just anyone can find and then foil a terrorist plot. You must have an incentive. The best incentive is to be an accused felon, looking at a long prison term. Under such circumstances, your lawyer will explain to you, you may be able to reduce your sentence by acting as an informant in a criminal case, preferably one involving terrorists.

3. The fact that you do not know any actual terrorists should not in any way deter you. Necessity is the mother of invention: if you can find the right raw material — a sad, sick, lonely, drunk, deranged, disgruntled or just plain anti-American Muslim somewhere in the United States — you can make your very own terrorist.

4. Now the good part begins. Money! The FBI will give you lots of money to take your very own terrorist out to lots of dinners where you, wearing a wire, can record yourself making recommendations to him about possible targets and weapons that might be used in the impending terrorist attack that your very own terrorist is going to mastermind, with your help. It will even buy you a computer so you can go to Google Earth in order to show your very own terrorist a “top secret” aerial image of the target you have suggested.

5. More money!! The FBI will give you even more money to travel to foreign countries with your very own terrorist, and it will make suggestions about terrorist groups you can meet while in said foreign countries.

6. Months and even years will pass in this fashion, while you essentially get the FBI to pay for everything you do. (Incidentally, be sure your lawyer negotiates your expense account well in advance, or you may be forced — as the informant was in the Buffalo terrorist case — to protest your inadequate remuneration by setting yourself on fire in front of the White House.)

7. At a certain point, something will go wrong. You may have trouble recruiting other people to collaborate with your very own terrorist, who is, as you yourself know, just an ordinary guy in a really bad mood. Or, alternatively, the terrorist cell you have carefully cobbled together may malfunction and fail to move forward — probably as a result of sheer incompetence or of simply not having been genuinely serious about the acts of terrorism you were urging it to commit. At this point, you may worry that the FBI is going to realize that there isn’t much of a terrorist plot going on here at all, just a case of entrapment. Do not despair: the FBI is way ahead of you. The FBI knows perfectly well what’s going on. The FBI has as much at stake as you do. So before it can be obvious to the world that there’s no case, the FBI will arrest your very own terrorist, hold a press conference and announce that a huge terrorist plot has been foiled. It will of course be forced to admit that this plot did not proceed beyond the pre-planning stage, that no actual weapons or money were involved, and that the plot itself was “not technically feasible,” but that will not stop the story from becoming a front-page episode all over America and, within hours, boilerplate for all the Republican politicians who believe that you need to arrest a “homegrown” terrorist now and then to justify the continuing war in Iraq. Everyone will be happy, except for the schmuck you shmikeled into becoming a terrorist, and no one really cares about him anyway.

So congratulations. You have foiled a terrorist plot. Way to go.

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Police ‘failure’ in Menezes murder

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Police firearms officers killed Jean Charles de Menezes and risked the lives of Londoners in a catalogue of errors, the Old Bailey has been told. It heard the Brazilian was shot seven times because of “fundamental failures” in Metropolitan Police planning.

One armed officer put a gun into a colleague’s chest and a Tube driver was chased down a tunnel.

The force denies breaking health and safety laws when it mistook Mr de Menezes for a suicide bomber in 2005.

Opening the unprecedented trial of the force at the Old Bailey, Clare Montgomery QC, prosecuting, said that the Metropolitan Police was subject to the same health and safety obligations as any other employer or public body in the UK.

These laws were there to ensure public safety, she said, but a “shocking and catastrophic” failure to stick to a clear strategy to apprehend one of the 21 July 2005 bombers had left the public at risk of being blown up and ultimately led to Mr de Menezes’ avoidable death.

“It was the police operation itself that invited the disaster that occurred,” she said.

“We say that the police planned and carried out the operation so badly that the public was put at risk and Jean Charles was killed.”

Ms Montgomery said that in fast moving events, detectives had identified one of the suspected 21 July suicide bombers, Hussain Osman, within hours of the botched attacks.

They linked him to a small block of flats in Tulse Hill, south London which was also the home of Jean Charles de Menezes.

But when Mr de Menezes left his home and was followed, neither the officers on the ground, nor those in operational control at Scotland Yard, were certain of his identity.

One spotter told commanders it was “ridiculous” to ask him for a “percentage certainty” that the target was Osman.

“By comparing the photo of Jean Charles with a photo of Hussain Osman, you may understand why some of the officers at least thought Jean Charles might be Osman,” said Ms Montgomery. “None of them said he was definitely Osman.”

This uncertainty continued until the very last moments of his life when commanders at Scotland Yard and firearms officers on the ground make a series of rapid decisions which dictated who was going to try to arrest the electrician, the court heard.

Scotland Yard’s operation room was noisy and staffed by tired and drained staff, the court heard. More and more officers were crowding in as news of the operation spread.

As surveillance officers sat near Mr de Menezes on the tube, firearms officers “burst” onto the platform, said Ms Montgomery. One surveillance officer, codenamed ‘Ivor’, alerted them to Mr de Menezes’ position.

Terrified driver

“As the armed officers entered the train, Jean Charles stood up,” said the lawyer. “He was grabbed by ‘Ivor’ and pushed back into his seat.

“Two firearms officers leant over Ivor who was holding Jean Charles and [one] put his pistol against Jean Charles’ head and fired. He was shot seven times and died immediately.”

At the same time, one of the armed officers physically dragged ‘Ivor’ onto the platform while holding a gun against his chest. Ivor shouted he was a policeman and heard more shots in the carriage.

Terrified, the tube driver fled his cab - but was chased by another armed officer into the tunnel.

Ms Montgomery said: “You may think, members of the jury, that the fact the police ended up pointing a gun at another police man and mistaking a terrorised train driver for a bomber gives you a clue as to just how far wrong the operation had gone.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7021401.stm

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Ten Most Amazing Pictures Taken by Hubble

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Astronomers Select Top Ten Most Amazing Pictures Taken by Hubble Space Telescope in Last 16 Years

…they illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.”
Michael Hanlon/AH (Nov 25th, 2006)

After correcting an initial problem with the lens, when the Hubble Space Telescope was first launched in 1990, the floating astro-observatory began to relay back to Earth, incredible snapshots of the “final frontier” it was perusing.

Recently, astronauts voted on the top photographs taken by Hubble, in its 16-year journey so far. Remarking in the article from the Daily Mail, reporter Michael Hanlon says the photos “illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.”

Hubble telescope’s top ten greatest space photographs.

The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken

by the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as
spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.

The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles

an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our
galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.

In third place is Nebula NGC 2392, called Eskimo because it looks like a face

surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects
flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.

At four is the Cat’s Eye Nebula

The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a pinched-in-the-middle

look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the centre.

In sixth place is the Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in
length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon).

The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away,

described as ‘a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur
and other elements’.

Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting.
It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.

The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two
merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation.

The Trifid Nebula. A ’stellar nursery’, 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born.

Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

http://cph-theory.persiangig.com/2031-ehubblepics.htm

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Leave my dad alone, says Jenna Bush

Monday, October 1st, 2007

By Sarah Baxter

ONE of the twin daughters of President George W Bush has spoken of the heartbreak she feels about the Iraq war and the criticism of her father. “He is a totally different person to me than what they portray him as,” said Jenna Bush. “I mean, he’s my dad.”

The party girl who stuck her tongue out at reporters and was charged with underage drinking publishes a book this week called Ana’s Story, about an HIV-positive teenage mother whom she encountered on her travels in Central America with Unicef.

She said she had met Ana and her baby in Panama, where the young woman had declared: “We are survivors.”

Jenna, 25, who is known as the “blonde one” of the Bush twins, has found her sober side. Asked about Unicef’s report that 4m Iraqis had fled their homes since the invasion of Iraq, she said: “Nobody wants war. I definitely, and my father doesn’t want war. But it’s a horribly complicated situation.” She added: “I can say it’s devastating . . . I think everybody can agree on that . . . Obviously, all of this breaks my heart.”

Among the experiences that affected her deeply was visiting wounded veterans of the war with her father. “I’ve gone with him to Walter Reed hospital and I’ve seen his face after he’s left the hospital. He would have to be inhuman not to feel it. I mean, of course things weigh on him. Of course they do.”

Matt Damon, the actor, once suggested the Bush daughters should serve in Iraq, but according to Jenna, it would put too many people in danger. “I hope that I serve by being a teacher,” she said. She worked at a Washington primary school after college.

Jenna is now engaged to Henry Hager, a former White House aide. He proposed to her after a 90-minute hike up a mountain in Maine.

“I did not want to go hiking at 4am in the morning,” she said. “But we got up, and we hiked in the dark . . . and then when we got to the top, with the sunrise, he asked me.”

She remains close to her sister Barbara � “We’ve gone through every single thing together, you know, from the womb on” � and mother Laura Bush, who helped to correct her drafts.

“Former librarian and schoolteacher,” said the first lady of her involvement in the book. “I couldn’t help it.”

Robert Barnett, the lawyer and agent who acts for Tony Blair and Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, helped Jenna to find a publisher. Profits from the book will go to Unicef.

Ana’s Story offers advice to teenagers about avoiding HIV, which mentions abstinence but says the best way is to “be faithful to your partner and use a condom every time”.

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Get active or become radioactive‏

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Here is a printable flyer for a DU conference to be held Tuesday and Wednesday of this week in New York.

Link to full size image is here

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons
Telephone: +44 (0)161 273 8293 / 8283
E-mail: info@bandepleteduranium.org
Web: www.bandepleteduranium.org
Tara Thornton: tarathrnt@fairpoint.net; (207) 268-2108;

CONFERENCE TO TARGET DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS

NEW YORK, New York — A coalition of environmental, anti-nuclear and environmental organizations will conduct a conference in New York City, at the UN Church Center, 777 UN Plaza, 8th Floor; October 2nd and 3rd, to confront the proliferation of so-called “depleted” uranium (DU) weapons, and to consider steps towards their abolition.

Registration for the conference: “Uranium Weapons: Contributing to a Dangerous World,” costs $25 via Paypal (office@bandepleteduranium.org). Same day registration at the door is encouraged. Pre-register at: info@bandepleteduranium.org.

To register in the U.S. contact: Tara Thornton: tarathrnt@fairpoint.net (207) 268-2108.

The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, based in Manchester, England, will bring together scientists, combat veterans, legal scholars and community activists to discus the toxic and radioactive hazards of uranium munitions — hazards posed to troops, to civilians in target areas and to environmental health – and a campaign to see the poisoned weapons banned internationally.

Sessions set for Tues., Oct. 2 include: An introductory “Overview” of the global anti-DU campaign; “DU and the Law;” and “The Contaminated and the Contaminators.”

Wednesday, Oct. 3: “Science and DU” (DNA Damage, Health Effects, Civilian and Military Victims); and “Steps Toward Eliminating DU Weapons.”

Some key presenters – who are available for interviews — include: * Toronto epidemiologist, Rosalie Bertell, PhD, (rosaliebertell@greynun.org ; 215-968-4236) * Dr. David Carpenter, MD, Institute for Health & the Environment, Univ. at Albany, SUNY (Carpent@uamail.albany.edu; 518-525-2660) * Professor Manfred Mohr, of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (+49+173+576 84 10; mohrm@gmx.net) * Staff Sergeant Herbert Reed (Ret.), U.S. Iraq war veteran (Reed herbert_reed@msn.com) * Els de Groen, a Member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, and will unveil a new book, “The Human Cost of Uranium Weapons.”(Contact: +32 (0) 2 284 5480; edegroen@europarl.europa.eu)

Uranium weapons are armor-piercing munitions made of waste uranium-238, an extremely hard metal left in great quantities from the production of reactor fuel and nuclear weapons.

The United States and Britain used uranium weapons extensively in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the NATO bombing of Bosnia in 1995, its 1999 intervention in Kosovo, the ongoing bombardment of Afghanistan and during the 2003 attack on Iraq.

When the uranium shells smash and burn through hard targets, they turn to fine powder which can be spread long distances by the wind. If ingested or inhaled the toxic, radioactive character of the uranium-238 can cause cancer, kidney disease and a host of nervous system and immune system disorders. – end –

—
NUKEWATCH
PO BOX 649
LUCK WI 54853
715-472-4185
www.nukewatch.com

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BBC cooks up more TVdeceit‏

Monday, October 1st, 2007

By Roya Nikkhah

Nigella Lawson, the celebrity television chef, has been criticised for misrepresenting elements of her new cookery show.

Producers on the show have admitted that a London bus which Miss Lawson rode on during a trip to the shops was, in fact, hired by the BBC and filled with extras pretending to be normal passengers.

A BBC spokesman, said: “We chose to hire a bus for the day of filming rather than disrupt customers on a normal bus route. This series is a factual entertainment cooking show, not an observational documentary and it is perfectly normal procedure.”

The BBC also admitted that several of the people who appeared on the show as Miss Lawson’s “friends” to sample her cooking, were actually “invited guests”.

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Report claims proof of secret CIA jails in Europe

Monday, October 1st, 2007

A Council of Europe report made public June 9 said that investigators have found proof that the CIA ran clandestine prisons for terrorist suspects in Europe with the full cooperation of government leaders, especially in Poland and Romania.
A European commission spokesman told journalists that the commission was in the process of studying the report and will make assessment in due course of time as it did not want to make any hasty comments. He, however lamented that in the absence of any investigative powers, the commission could not go into the matter on its own.
The report, prepared by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who is heading the investigation, said, “There is now enough evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania.
“We have also had clear and detailed confirmation from our own sources, in both the American intelligence services and the countries concerned, that the two countries did host secret detention centres under a special CIA programme established by the American administration in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, to ‘kill, capture and detain’ terrorist suspects deemed to be of ‘high value’,” the report claimed.
For example, Marty’s report stated that investigators had received confirmation, “from more than one source,” of eight names of “high-value detainees” that were held in Poland between 2003 and 2005. CIA sources told Marty’s investigators that Poland was the “black site” where both Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were held and questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which is usually a euphemism for torture.
Abu Zubaydah was a leading member of Osama bin Laden’s brain trust and the operations chief of al-Qaeda. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted planning the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The report states that these secret prisons “were run directly and exclusively by the CIA” and that local staff performed only “purely logistical duties.”
However, investigators had “sufficient grounds to declare that the highest state authorities were aware of the CIA’s illegal activities on their territories.” The report said that former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski as well as the former and current presidents of Romania, Ion Iliescu and Traian Basescu, “could be held accountable for these activities” because they “knew about and authorized” them.
The report noted that the “rendition, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects” have always taken place outside US borders because they would have been “ruled unlawful and unconstitutional” by American courts.
“Obviously, these actions are also unacceptable under the laws of European countries, who nonetheless tolerated them or colluded actively in carrying them out,” the report said.
“This export of illegal activities overseas is all the more shocking in that it shows fundamental contempt for the countries on whose territories it was decided to commit the relevant acts,” it said.
In addition, the fact that these measures applied only to non-US citizens reflected “a kind of legal apartheid,” the report said. The blame does not lie only with Americans, but also, “above all, with European political leaders who have knowingly acquiesced in this state of affairs.”
Marty’s report also criticised Germany and Italy for having “obstructed the search for the truth and continuing to do so by invoking the concept of ‘state secrets’.”
In an interview published in the French daily Le Figaro, Marty said, “The United States wanted to impose a war without rules against terrorism. This policy ended in disaster.”
The European Parliament which has been in the forefront of unmasking these facts about renditions flights by CIA and allied subjects was quick to respond.
MEP Sarah Ludford of the United Kingdom, vice-President of the former committee of enquiry on CIA activities in the EP said: “The new Marty report confirms what had been found by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. Any new evidence confirming that CIA prisons existed, as we alleged, in Europe, would be damning and shameful. As MEPs demanded, we must expose the secret agreements between US intelligence services and some European governments. These illegal, undemocratic and unacceptable actions must be accounted for and punished.”
MEP Ignasi Guardans of Spain, former Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) coordinator in the CIA committee declared: “The release of this new report by the Council of Europe rapporteur will help to maintain the spotlight on what happened in the name of the ‘war on terror.’ The EP too must maintain its scrutiny of this rendition practice in the coming months and continue to push the Member States to reveal the true facts of the matter.” As an immediate reaction, EU and NATO member Poland denied the findings of the report alleging it had hosted secret US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons for terror suspects.
According to the report, Poland’s former president Aleksander Kwasniewski had known about the covert CIA activities on Polish soil.
“Poland maintains its position on the issue of the alleged CIA prisons on the territory of our country - There were no secret bases in Poland,” Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Robert Szaniawski was quoted by the Polish PAP news agency last Friday.
Szaniawski added Polish officials were waiting for the Council of Europe to produce more details and evidence to support its claims. “Up to now the evidence presented on this issue has been worth very little,” he said.

http://www.neurope.eu/articles/74870.php

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