Blog-heap o' links from 2004-May

MON 2004-MAY-31

Digital Consequences

Tips on Creating and Securing Passwords

Supernatural Consequences

COLUMBIA, Calif. (AP) - After a small plane crashed Monday in central California, killing two people, a sheriff's deputy on his way to the scene died when he lost control of his vehicle and slammed into a tree

Paris - John F. "Frenchy" Kerry, Democrat presidential candidate, has selected former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as his running partner for the November election, according to sources close to the campaign. (BrokenNewz.com)

HILLSBORO -- A Portland lawyer says suffering by African Americans at the hands of slave owners is to blame in the death of a 2-year-old Beaverton boy. Randall Vogt is offering the untested theory, called post traumatic slave syndrome, in his defense of Isaac Cortez Bynum, who is charged with murder by abuse in the June 30 death of his son, Ryshawn Lamar Bynum. Vogt says he will argue -- "in a general way" -- that masters beat slaves, so Bynum was justified in beating his son. The slave theory is the work of Joy DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor in the Portland State University Graduate School of Social Work. It is not listed by psychiatrists or the courts as an accepted disorder, and some experts said they had never heard of it.

Cinema ushers across Britain go into action today with a new piece of equipment which makes their ice-cream trays and hand torches look tame. Military-style night-sights have been sent to every outlet in the country showing the new Harry Potter film, The Prisoner of Azkaban. Staff have been instructed to spend all two hours and 22 minutes of the film scanning the dark - for pirates making illegal copies.

Natural Consequences

North Pole Ice Pack Dwindles

BEIJING (AP) - A landslide triggered by torrential rains buried a village in China's southwest, killing eight people, the government said Monday.

Evidence has been found for a global winter following the asteroid impact that is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago... This impact-induced darkness would have lasted between one and ten years on land, but there is evidence for a cooling of up to 2,000 years

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Ramona Trinidad Iglesias Jordan, who at age 114 was recognized as the world's oldest person, has died after a bout with pneumonia... She enjoyed a beer with meals... "Even when she was over 100 years, every time we took her out to a restaurant, she always like to have a beer, a small beer, a 7-ounce beer with the food... That was the first thing she asked for when she got to a restaurant."

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - U.N. troops are coming back to Haiti, but after a decade of failed missions many in the traumatized nation wonder whether the peacekeepers - cobbled together from countries ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe - are up to the daunting task.

MOEDLING, Austria (AP) - A catamaran filled with tourists overturned on Europe's largest underground lake Monday, drowning five people after the boat's railings formed a cage 5 feet down on the lake floor, officials said... The victims included a German couple in their 70s who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary

Self-caesarean Mexican woman's story again -- By sitting forward in the traditional Indian birthing position instead of lying down, Ramirez unknowingly ensured that her uterus was directly under the skin and that she would not cut her intestines. Her incision was considerably higher than the one a doctor would make, and Galvan believes she was very lucky she didn't do serious damage. (AP)

A vicious skin infection resistant to all but the most powerful antibiotics has jumped out of New York City hospitals and onto the streets.

Extraterrestrial

On June 8... the silhouette of Venus [will] crawl across the face of the sun... a transit of Venus ...will return for the first time in 122 years, visible from much of Earth... watch a black dot inch across the lower part of the sun. It takes six hours.... (AP/Yahoo)

US Military dead

Army Capt. Daniel W. Eggers, 28, of Cape Coral, Fla.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Mogensen, 26, of Leesville, La.

Army Pfc. Joseph A. Jeffries, 21, of Beaverton, Ore.
died May 29 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when their vehicle hit a land mine.

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Brian J. Ouellette, 37, of Needham, Mass., a SEAL, died supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Army Spc. Michael J. Wiesemann, 20, of North Judson, Ind., died May 29, at Forward Operating Base Q-West (Quyarrah Air Base, Iraq) of non-combat related injuries.

WW2 - still with us

LONDON (AP) - Archaeologists said Monday that they have unearthed parts of a World War II fighter plane that crashed after downing a German bomber near Buckingham Palace. Archaeologist Christopher Bennett said the plane's engine and control panel were located late Sunday during excavations in Buckingham Palace Road in the center of the capital.

US Civil War - still with us

The last Civil War widow, Alberta Martin, died Monday at a nursing home in Enterprise. She was 97... a widowed mother at age 21, Alberta Stewart met William Jasper Martin in Opp. William Martin was 81... married on December Tenth, 1927, and had a son ten months later. They lived as husband and wife until William Martin's death on July Eighth, 1931. ...Two months later, Alberta Martin married her late husband's grandson

Korean War - still with us

Charles Robert Jenkins has been in isolated North Korea since 1965. ... He desperately wants to be reunited with his Japanese wife, who returned to her homeland in 2002 after Pyongyang admitted kidnapping her and several others in the 1970s. But if he joined her, he would risk arrest by the US military, which accuses him of desertion.

Freedom

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - The president of the World Association of Newspapers said Monday that Turkey has made considerable progress in expanding freedom of the press and could serve as an example to other Islamic nations.

US ELECTION 2004

Boisterous Libertarians pick nominee -- computer programmer Michael Badnarik-- Where else could you hope to see George Bush, in cardboard cut-out form, patrolling the convention floor wearing a suspiciously-lifelike marijuana garland? Where else would you run into a presidential candidate stealing a quick cigarette break at the taxi stand outside the hotel? ...where else could you see a closely fought, three-way race go down to the wire? -- Libertarians claim nearly 600 officeholders nationwide, and argue that their stress on the rights of the individual over the power of government has universal appeal. But as a smaller party, Libertarians constantly have to counter the idea that a vote for them is a wasted vote. (al.com)

RADICAL INCLINE SAYS: WASTE YOUR VOTE

Memorial Day

On a holiday honoring the nation's war dead, Lambert and other childhood friends will remember Jason Dunham as the 6-foot-1 jock who stood by them to a fault as they grew up together in Scio, population 1,900, in New York's rural Allegany County. A world away, the Marines in his unit are remembering a 23-year-old hero who took the brunt of a grenade explosion to protect them. For that, they have nominated Dunham for the military's highest award, the Medal of Honor.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush has acknowledged the "great costs" of American military deaths from his administration's war on terror at a Memorial Day service as the combined U.S. death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan climbed toward the 1,000 mark.... Bush lauded the character of U.S. military personnel who he said have made America safer by ending "two terror regimes" and freeing more than "50 million souls".

"He would probably strike me from heaven if we didn't honor the day,"

WW3 - Repercussions

Just as a handful of American soldiers committing torturous war crimes do not represent the sense and sensibilities of the vast majority of Americans, it is important to judge Muslims by the same standards. Just as America cannot be judged through the lens of its often misguided foreign policy or torturous acts of American soldiers, the world of Islam should not be held accountable for the un-Islamic and barbaric deeds of a minuscule minority of over a billion Muslims.

Using sophisticated high-tech equipment the US forces could not distinguish between a wedding party and an attack by ‘insurgents’. So did those young children and women as ‘insurgents’ posed a serious threat at the time? Or does the US no longer bothers with that sort of assessment reflecting its ‘professionalism’ and keeping in line with the policies laid down at Abu-Gharib? In fact the shooting was deliberate.

There are claims that General William Boykin another ‘devout’ (fundamentalist) Christian is thought to have a hand in encouraging the use of torture to extract information. Why not? After all, according to his earlier statement, the US army is the army of God and the Muslims are the army of Satan. So sodomise, rape, torture and execute the army of Satan; behave like a Satan to beat the Satan. This is the evangelical face of America.

While most of the focus since the scandal broke three weeks ago has been on the abuse of men, and on their sexual humiliation in front of US women soldiers, there is now incontrovertible proof that women detainees have also been abused.

American soldiers are raised in this sea of hate and intolerance created by its powerful mass media. From CNN, FOX TV to Hollywood blockbusters depicts American soldiers as righteous and Arabs and Muslims as terrorists. Arab and Muslims are the modern day wild Native Americans on horses waving an axe attacking the wagons of the early European ‘settlers’, the ‘peaceful’ Christian folks. PAK news editiorial

JEDDAH, 1 June 2004 -- Turkey and Saudi Arabia are to sign an agreement to fight terrorism and crimes jointly, according to Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

RAFAH - The Israeli military offensive on the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah and its refugee camp has claimed the lives of up to 62 Palestinians, flattened 155 homes and drove some 2000 residents homeless, according to Palestinian medics and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

WASHINGTON -- Seven Iraqi men whose hands were ordered cut off by Saddam Hussein met with President Bush at the White House on Tuesday, along with a Houston doctor who helped fit them with prosthetics.

Senior Advisor Dan Senor said, "The history of these abuses is complex and involves many thousands of people." The Coalition has set aside $25 million for initial payments to victims

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Despite war and occupation, Iraq has seen a surge in human rights organizations, political parties and independent newspapers - entities almost unheard of under Saddam Hussein, said a report by an Arab think tank.

Iraqi leaders rounded on the United States and United Nations on Monday for blocking their choice of a president (Reuters)

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A legal snag effectively put on hold the start of a Turkish court hearing Monday into the case of 69 people charged with involvement in al Qaeda-linked suicide bombings in Istanbul ...four truck bombs killed 61 people and wounded more than 600 in the November attacks directed at two synagogues, the British consulate and the local headquarters of London-based bank HSBC.

After analyzing military records of 798 Americans killed in Iraq as of Wednesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said 46 percent of them were from communities of less than 40,000 residents at least 25 miles from a populated place of 100,000 or more. The figures include accidental and non-combat related deaths.

WW3 - Threats

Iraq has appealed to neighbouring Syria and Turkey to increase the water flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

WESTWATER, Utah (AP) - A Greyhound bus was hijacked Monday afternoon by a man with a knife who was captured just west of the Colorado state line

MILITANTS in Saudi Arabia could be in the final stages of preparing another terrorist attack, Britain’s ambassador to the kingdom warned yesterday

Private pilots who stray into Normandy air space during the 60th anniversary of D-Day next weekend will be shot down, French officials said yesterday. With at least 16 heads of state, including the Queen and President George W Bush, attending the ceremonies, organisers are guarding particularly against an al-Qa'eda attack from the air.

WW3 Battles - Congo

Democratic Republic of Congo troops have clashed with mutinous soldiers at the United Nations-controlled airport north of the eastern border city of Bukavu. The regular army withdrew from positions around the runway at Kavumu airport Sunday night after a two-hour clash with nearly one thousand rebellious troops. But the United Nations Mission at the airport reported Monday that it still controls the facility, which is located about 35 kilometers from Bukavu. Two regular army soldiers were killed in Sunday night's battle. (VoA)

WW3 Battles - Pakistan

A bomb blast has killed at least 10 people and injured about 50 at a Shia mosque in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, correspondents say. The blast happened during evening prayers, causing extensive damage to the building. (BBC)

KARACHI (Reuters) - A bomb blast inside a Shi'ite mosque during evening prayers killed at least 13 people on Monday in the southern city of Karachi, where a senior cleric from Pakistan's majority Sunni sect was gunned down a day earlier. Doctors at three city hospitals told Reuters reporters they had counted 13 dead so far, while an angry crowd milling around in the darkness outside the cordoned-off mosque talked of more bodies inside the shattered building. Doctors said about 30 had been wounded.

WW3 Battles - Iraq

FOUR Britons survived an ambush in northern Baghdad yesterday which left one Iraqi dead, the Foreign Office said last night.

Lance Cpl. Benjamin R. Gonzalez, 23, of Los Angeles, Calif., died May 29 due to hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

KUFA, Iraq U.S. troops clashed on Monday with Shiite militiamen in fighting that killed at least two U.S. soldiers. Meanwhile, a strong explosion rocked Baghdad near the green zone headquarters of the U.S. coalition, causing a number of casualties.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A car bomb outside Baghdad's "Green Zone," headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition, killed four Iraqis and wounded 25 others Monday, said U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

WW3 Battles - Saudi

Al Qaeda thugs savagely slit the throats of nine hostages - forcing other terrified captives to watch - after shooting their way into a Saudi Arabian housing complex, officials revealed yesterday. The unspeakable butchery occurred after a group of restaurant workers - including Italian and Swedish chefs - were caught trying to escape by the terrorists, who invaded the Oasis compound in the port city of Khobar early Saturday. The thugs - who also killed a British oil executive and dragged his body through the streets - tied up the workers and cut their throats, ordering other captives to watch.

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (AP) - The gunmen went from house to house, rifling through papers, studying home decorations for clues, asking probing questions as they hunted down foreigners to kill. As they recounted Saturday's attack on offices, homes and a resort in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, survivors told of a careful, cold-blooded search for victims followed by unthinkable violence. In all, 22 people died.

WW3 Battles - Human Right

A Saudi man who severely beat his TV presenter wife has been sentenced to six months in prison and 300 lashes, a Saudi newspaper reports.

An ugly tug of war is raging over the fate of a 6-year-old boy being raised by a gay couple who won custody of the child in a landmark decision in 2000. Gays hailed the ruling as a major victory for same-sex couples, but the boy has since become a troubled kid who punches his teachers and repeatedly says he wants to kill himself, according to an expert's report requested by his school... report...blames his unruliness in part on the "hostility" between his parents. (nypost)

CHICAGO (AP) - Roman Catholic gay-rights supporters wearing rainbow-colored sashes to Mass were denied communion Sunday, while dozens in Minnesota had to walk around protesters to receive the holy sacrament.

Should smoking be banned? (BBC poll)
The Radical Incline reply

SUN 2004-MAY-30

Current

While his 800-mile drive confirmed that the number of wireless networks is growing explosively, he also found that only a third used basic encryption a key security measure. In fact, in nearly 40 percent of the networks not a single change had been made to the gear's wide-open default settings. ''They took it out of the box, powered it up, and it worked. And they left it alone,''

Mr. Kerry is in the process of setting out what looks like a sober and substantial alternative to Mr. Bush's foreign policy, one that correctly identifies the incumbent's greatest failings while accepting the basic imperatives of the war that was forced on the country on Sept. 11, 2001.

PORTLAND, Maine -- A baker who lost nearly half of his customers to the low-carb craze has tapped Dan Brown's best-selling novel for an Atkins alternative called the "Da Vinci Diet" that he hopes will bring people back to bread.

Natural Consequences

One With Nineveh Politics, Consumption and the Human Future By Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich -- Ever since his popular book "The Population Bomb" appeared in 1968, Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich has been the most widely known prophet of population problems -- if not doom. ..."One With Nineveh," co-written with his wife, Anne, is another such warning. "The thousandfold increase in the size of the human population in the past ten millennia is the most stunning and rapid biological change on the planet since the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago," ...But it's only in more recent decades that limits in food, water, energy and other resources, including space in some regions, have been approached.

A harrowing 27-hour search for two 11-year-old Nevada City children who went missing during a field trip to a cave turned into a heroic rescue for a Yreka pediatrician with a hunch he knew where to find them.

MARZANABAD, Iran (AP) -- Giant boulders and crushed cars littered a mountain road Saturday, a day after landslides were unleashed by a strong earthquake in northern and central Iran that killed at least 35 people and injured 250 others.

The Mississippi Valley Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812

Information

A television sewn into your shirt sleeve. A dashboard screen to monitor the kids in the back seat. A 3-D computer monitor sharp enough to make a hardcore gamer's heart stop - or help a surgeon start one. The gizmo-packed exhibition hall at the Society for Information Display's international symposium offers a tantalizing vision of what's to come.

A "smart bullet" that can be fired at a target and then wirelessly transmit back useful information has been developed by US researchers. The projectile, created at the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, is 1.7 centimetres in diameter can be fired at from an ordinary paint-ball gun. The front is coated in an adhesive polymer that sticks it to the target.

A year ago, the Jamestown prison became the first in the country to implement a Christian self-help program that has been popular with churches in the past few years. Now, officials with the state Department of Corrections credit the program for a significant decrease in violence at the prison, particularly in the area that houses the most serious offenders. The 40-day program is based on "The Purpose-Driven Life," a best-selling book by Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Orange County.

WW2 - Still with us

The World War II Memorial
the first national memorial dedicated to all who served during WW2
www.wwiimemorial.com/

Holocaust miracle comes to light. Jewish families hid 344 days in the dark. During war in Ukraine, they had 'maybe two friends, and a million enemies' Ann Carroll The Gazette

Viet Nam - Still with us

HANOI -- Piloting the same plane that rescued him 31 years ago, a former American prisoner of war returned to Vietnam yesterday on his last military mission to bring home remains thought to be fallen comrades.

Watergate - a bit less with us

Two historic figures who were household names during Watergate have died on the same day. Archibald Cox, the prosecutor who refused to limit the Watergate probe, died at his Maine home. He was 92. Sam Dash, the Senate interrogator, died in Washington at the age of 79.

WW3 - Repercussions

LONDON (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama said on Monday he had been shocked by U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper. "America generally we consider a champion of liberty, justice -- these things -- so then for something such as this to happen, we regard as shocking," said the exiled leader of Tibet's Buddhists. The aging monk is on a week-long visit to Britain, drawing large crowds to his lectures, but he will not meet Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said Tibetans had much experience of abuse at the hands of their Chinese occupiers: "A lot of torture, a lot of abuse, sexual abuse."

WASHINGTON, May 30 -- Twenty death certificates for Afghan and Iraqi prisoners who died in American custody were completed in a 10-day rush only after the investigation into the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib became public last month, even though some of the deaths occurred months -- in some cases many months -- before.

In his first trip back to his hometown of Chicago, the man who led the unit that captured Saddam Hussein said the United States has "turned the corner'' in defeating the enemy in many parts of Iraq. Army Col. James Hickey, who returned to lead Saturday's Memorial Day parade, said U.S. forces in the area he oversaw, the northern half of the Sunni triangle, were successful in their efforts.

Khalil Bendib ...knows his humor is not for everyone. He thinks of himself as a social activist with a pen, and is the only prominent Arab and Muslim editorial cartoonist in the United States. Born in Paris and raised in Algeria and Morocco, Bendib, 46, has lived in California since 1977. He now lives in Berkeley... see www.bendib.com.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush keeps in his White House offices a trophy of one his high points in the Iraq war, the pistol that Saddam Hussein held when soldiers pulled him from his underground hideaway.

The people of Iraq will forgive US-led occupying forces for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, according to a senior coalition spokesman.

Iraq war casualties mourned at L.A. National Cemetery

BAGHDAD, May 29 -- U.S. officials and a U.N. envoy were unable to reach consensus with Iraqi leaders Saturday over the selection of an interim president, with many members of the country's Governing Council opposing the U.S. and U.N. choice, according to Iraqi politicians and international officials involved in the process.

AYACUCHO, Peru (AP) - Authorities have unearthed the bullet-ridden remains of 15 peasants murdered by soldiers after the lone survivor of the massacre came forward following two decades of silence, officials said Saturday

Yesterday the troubled issue of sovereignty in Iraq was in turmoil as it emerged that it was not only ordinary Iraqis who had been sidelined in Allawi's appointment, but the United Nations, Downing Street and even parts of the Bush administration. Despite efforts to put the best gloss on Allawi's nomination, it was clear that a UN process to select an Iraqi leader had largely collapsed, placing the decision in the hands of the former exile groups that dominate the governing council - an outcome the UN had said it was determined to avoid.

MEXICO CITY (AP) - The Colombian government is willing to talk peace with the smaller of the country's two rebel groups if it halts attacks, even if the insurgents don't lay down their arms, President Alvaro Uribe said Saturday.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A suspected Taliban militant has been sentenced to death for a bombing in January that killed 13 children and two adults, a justice official said Saturday, amid an outcry over Afghanistan's return to capital punishment.

WW3 Battles - Saudi

Saudi officials are hailing as a great success their rescue mission to free foreign workers held hostage by Islamic militants in the city of Khobar. Figures in the Saudi royal family say they are confident that they are winning the battle against al-Qaeda. (BBC)

Suspected al-Qaeda militants have killed 22 people - mostly foreigners - in the eastern Saudi city of Khobar... Some of the captives were killed during the raid, but most are said to be safe. ... Three of the militants escaped and a fourth - described as the ringleader - was arrested (BBC)

41 foreigners were rescued and 201 other residents who had been trapped in the compound were evacuated. (Reuters)

police surrounding the building stormed in and reached the fifth floor before the captors fired at them from the floor above, and both sides exchanged machine-gun fire. (CNN)

Dozens of foreign hostages have been freed after Saudi commandos stormed the oil worker's compound where they were being held, Saudi officials have said. (BBC)

Tens of American, European and other hostages were released Sunday and a gunmen believed to be the lead Islamic militant holding them was arrested, a Saudi security official said, adding that two other gunmen were "in the process of being arrested." The security official would not comment on the whereabouts or conditions of the hostages, saying only: "It has ended. One has been arrested and two are in the process of being arrested _ they are surrounded."

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi commandos on Sunday moved to free some 50 foreign hostages held by suspected al Qaeda militants, who had killed 16 people in a major attack on Saudi Arabia's vital oil industry.

Saudi commandos have launched an operation to free about 50 hostages held by suspected Islamic militants in an oil workers' compound in Khobar.

Saudi Arabian security forces attacked suspected al Qaeda militants in a Khobar residential complex early Sunday morning. The gunmen were holding as many as 50 hostages, CNN reported. The hostage situation followed attacks on two petroleum industry compounds Saturday in the port city, which is about 250 miles northeast of the capital, Riyadh. At least 11 people were reportedly killed in the initial attack, including at least one American and one British citizen.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi state television turned to interviewing everyone from children to intellectuals to try to rally citizens against terrorism as it reported Saturday on the latest outburst of extremist violence in the kingdom.

WW3 Battles - Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen opened fire on a convoy of sport utility vehicles Sunday in the Iraqi capital, killing at least two people and injuring a pregnant woman, witnesses and officials said. There were conflicting reports about what transpired after the first volley of shots, which appeared to come from an oncoming vehicle.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked three civilian vehicles carrying foreigners in northwest Baghdad Sunday, killing two Westerners and seizing three others, witnesses and police at the scene said. ... Locals and police said the attackers had dragged away three survivors of the attack. Their fate was unknown. ... After the attack, locals set the two vehicles ablaze, and later shooting erupted between gunmen and police at the scene.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Assailants ambushed a convoy of Westerners on Sunday on a northern Baghdad highway, killing at least two people and possibly abducting others, police and witnesses said. U.S. soldiers came under fire in a Shiite holy city as an agreement to halt fighting there appeared to be unraveling.

Foreign insurgents suspected of links to al-Qaeda are operating in the flashpoint city of Fallujah... A senior sheikh in Fallujah said the group was "out of control", adding: "We are worried that they are part of al-Qaeda. That means that we will have to force them out and it will be hard. But this is our country we are fighting for, and it is our fight with the Americans. They have their own country and their own ideas which we do not share."

WW3 Battles - Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban guerrillas riding in a fleet of vehicles shot up a government office in southern Afghanistan, killing four Afghan soldiers

WW3 Battles - India

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - An explosion ripped through a bus in Nepal's capital on Sunday, injuring at least 21 people, three critically, police and witnesses said. Police blamed the blast in Katmandu on communist insurgents.

WW3 Battles - Pakistan

Mass riots have erupted across Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, after the assassination of one of the country's top religious leaders.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Gunmen riding in two cars and a motorcycle opened fire on a pick up truck carrying a senior Sunni Muslim cleric in this violence-prone city Sunday, killing him and wounding four other people, police said. The cleric - Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai - died of gunshot wounds in a nearby hospital. He was attacked while he was driving to an Islamic seminary that he headed in an eastern Karachi neighborhood... A body guard of Shamzai returned fire wounding one of the six attackers

WW3 Battles - Colombia

THE rebels have seen 11 presidents come and go and have no fear of the latest counterinsurgency, backed by the US. The Farc, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, marked its 40th anniversary promising to continue its £200m-a-year business of drug smuggling, kidnapping and extortion.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Gunmen in a coastal Colombian city killed a former right-wing paramilitary leader who objected to the militia's involvement in drug trafficking

WW3 Battles - Human Right

Federal investigators are frantically trying to determine what happened to a missing laptop computer that contains sensitive data on as many as 100 Drug Enforcement Administration investigations around the country, including a wealth of information about many of the agency's confidential informants, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Christian beaten to death in hospital by Muslim cop Policeman: 'I have offered my religious duty ... I'm spiritually satisfied'

After displaying a painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, a San Francisco gallery owner bears a painful reminder of the nations unresolved anguish over the incidents at Abu Ghraib -- a black eye and bloodied brow delivered by an unknown assailant who apparently objected to the art work.

SAT 2004-MAY-29

Information

New research shows that much less sunlight is reaching the earth than 50 years ago.

Hollywood Disaster

mindless popcorn fun for moviegoers who get a vicarious thrill from seeing stuff get wrecked - and have a high pain threshold for tin-eared dialogue.

...Whatever your plans are, don’t waste any time on this ridiculous slice of apocalyptic nonsense. ...one of the funniest films of the year. But the trouble is I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s not supposed to be a comedy. ...Pompously self important, sickeningly sentimental, politically juvenile and jam-packed with clichés, The Day After Tomorrow is Hollywood at its very worst. (Mirror)

Ebert: What's amusing in movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" is the way the screenplay veers from the annihilation of subcontinents to whether Sam should tell Laura he loves her.... I doubt that the cataclysm, if it comes, will come like this. It makes for a fun movie, though. (Sun-Times)

Before its release, "The Day After Tomorrow" prompted argument over whether its science is any good. Now that it's on screen, the argument can shift to where it belongs - whether the filmmaking is any good. It isn't.... What slides into deep-freeze most quickly and permanently are any emotions you might have expected to feel during such a traumatic tale.... (CSM)

Age of the Bizarre

A schoolboy posed as a female British secret service spy in an internet chatroom to persuade a friend to try to murder him, a court heard yesterday... an "elaborate matrix of deceit" involving six fictional characters in the MSN chatroom and correspondence totalling 56,000 lines of text.

WW3 - Repercussions

WASHINGTON-- Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib, investigative documents show.

The sister of Nick Berg, the contractor from the Philadelphia suburbs who was beheaded earlier this month in Iraq, says she's dumbfounded by reports that liberal icon Michael Moore had filmed an interview with her late brother for his new anti-war film. "I'm very skeptical of this," ...she said there was no way to confirm that Moore had sent a tape of the reported 20-minute interview to their parents' home ...because the couple has been away. ...the strangest twist yet in the increasingly weird saga of Berg...

WASHINGTON - Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals football player who died in April while a U.S. soldier fighting in Afghanistan, likely was killed by friendly fire, an Army investigation has concluded.

''I see him as a good man and a loyal son of Iraq,'' Governing Council member Nasser Kamel al-Chaderchi said of Allawi. ''He is known for his ability to make decisions quickly and he also is decisive.'' Despite those attributes, Allawi's past associations particularly with the CIA and British intelligence could be a serious liability. (Boston)

US commanders, virtually alone in overseeing vast regions of Iraq, have pushed for at least superficial local empowerment as vital to stability. They have often forged ahead of civilian occupation authorities in Baghdad, resisting top-down mandates in favor of pragmatic problem solving from below. Yet so far steps toward Iraqi self-defense and self-rule remain fitful and tentative, hampered by mutual misunderstanding, resentment, and mistrust. (CSM)

WW3 - Human Right

A well-known Chinese house-church leader has been released after protests from Western organizations. Zhao Wenquan was let go Tuesday, suffering only "minor beatings," after his arrest May 9 in Hegou Town in Anhui province, reports Voice of the Martyrs... police raided a group of more than 4,000 Christians gathered for a special harvest celebration. ...He originally was charged with "disturbing the social order" and organizing an "illegal religious gathering"... (WND)

WW3 - Battles

(CBS/AP) Three U.S. Marines were killed in action Saturday in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military reported. The Marines were assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which is responsible for security in a wide area from just west of Baghdad to the borders of Syria and Jordan. The statement gave no further details, citing security.

KABUL, Afghanistan --Four members of the American special forces were killed in action in a southern Afghan province at the heart of a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency, the U.S. military said Sunday.

A senior Hamas commander, his assistant and a bystander died in a fiery Israeli air strike in Gaza City early Sunday

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A mortar bomb landed about 400 yards from the headquarters of the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad on Saturday, wounding four people

Suspected al Qaeda militants killed at least 16 people on Saturday and took 50 foreigners hostage in the second major attack in a month aimed at destabilizing Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter. (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia's 'war on terror'

Security forces have surrounded an oil company housing compound in the Saudi city of Khobar (BBC)

Islamic militants are holding more than 50 people hostage after an attack in the Saudi oil city of Khobar that killed at least 10 Saudis and foreigners. (VoA)

WW3 - Threats

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan successfully test-fired on Saturday a ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads, as part of efforts to boost defenses in its rivalry with India. ... The test ...came a week after a new government took office in India.

Rumsfeld addresses graduates at West Point. "Life is not predictable... the truth is we are closer to the beginning of this struggle -- this global insurgency -- than to its end. ... They seek no armistice, have no territory to defend, they have no public to answer to," he said. "They threaten us with shadowy networks not easily weeded out.... A terrorist needs to succeed only occasionally, but as defenders, we need to be successful always.... The only way to prevail in this struggle is to root out the terrorists before they develop still more powerful means to inflict damage on still greater numbers of innocent people...
Let me add a word about the young men and women you will have the privilege to lead -- the American soldier... They are the sons and daughters of America and some of the finest people you will ever meet. Take good care of them. Lead them and respect them. Your love for soldiers must be as unconditional as it is for your own families. Use the skills you've learned here to bring out the very best in them, including respect for others. Always fall back on the moral clarity of the Honor Code you have learned here.

The F.B.I. issued an urgent bulletin to several cities on Friday that warned of the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack but retracted the alert hours later, after the intelligence proved unfounded (NY Times)

The Bush administration's agreement for Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. special envoy to Iraq, to choose the next interim Iraqi government could signal the end of U.S. efforts to establish democracy in Iraq, says Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service. ...Under this scenario, Iraq will have had its election, the United States will have declared victory and the only losers may be those who hope for Iraqi and Arab democracy. (WND)

An official of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has threatened the United States and other Western nations with suicide and missile attacks aimed at 29 sensitive sites. (WND)

Traces of enriched uranium discovered on recently surrendered Libyan nuclear components appear to have come from Pakistan, a critical black-market supply hub that also made deliveries to Iran and North Korea, U.N. inspectors reported yesterday in Vienna.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. government officials declared on Friday they were working together to monitor terrorist threats after questions were raised about a possible Bush administration turf war over domestic security.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - An American Airlines flight attendant who told authorities she found a note saying there was a bomb in a jet's cargo hold was charged Friday for writing the threatening letter, which caused the plane to be diverted.

FRI 2004-MAY-28

Current

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When word surfaced in Baghdad on Friday that Iyad Allawi would lead Iraq's interim government, confusion reigned both in Washington and at the United Nations

QAZVIN, Iran (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck the Alborz mountain chain in northern Iran, killing at least 20 people and damaging scores of villages

TEHRAN, Iran – A strong earthquake struck northern Iran on Friday, killing at least six people, injuring 20 and damaging dozens of buildings and homes

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Just before the heavy-driving Memorial Day weekend, more than 500 Shell and Texaco stations in the South have stopped selling gasoline because of high sulfur levels that can ruin vehicle fuel gauges and make an empty tank appear full.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's Senate voted Thursday to support a bill to limit a new e-mail service by Google Inc. over concerns it could threaten the privacy of users.

BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - A giant three-tiered mushroom ... measures a meter (yard) across ...found in the tropical forests of the Republic of Congo

Coca-Karma: The Very Secret Battle of Bob Kolody vs. Coca-Cola (GNN)

History

ST. LOUIS (AP) - While not as harrowing as Lewis and Clark's sojourn westward two centuries ago, the river journey by modern-day re-enactors has been anything but smooth sailing.

DETROIT -- Authorities in Detroit searched a home Friday looking for clues into the greatest murder mystery in U.S. history -- what really happened to Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa (Fox)

Justice?

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - After 17 years in prison, a man convicted of stabbing a newlywed couple to death and setting their home ablaze was expected to walk free on Friday. A federal judge ruled last June it was "reasonably probable" that Gordon Randall Steidl would have been acquitted if his defense attorney had done more to challenge the state's case against him.

Information

The Universe is at least 156 billion light-years wide

Evidence of microbes eating away at volcanic glass 3.5 billion years ago (CSM)

Hollywood Disaster

...while the movie's topical jabs have a sneering, Verhoeven-lite quality (you keep expecting Emmerich to splice in Independence Day's money shot of the White House being incinerated), the human-interest stuff reeks, not least because Emmerich and co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff have no discernible interest in humans. (Village Voice)

"The Day After Tomorrow" is a disarmingly pulpy, eye-popping disaster movie during its first half, and an increasingly dull survival melodrama during its second. (Todd McCarthy, Variety) WARNING: WRITTEN IN VARIETYSPEAK

There comes a point when "The Day After Tomorrow" gets so bad that the film actually reaches a certain level of sublimity. (Jason Walsh, Marin Independent Journal)

Showing people The Day After Tomorrow may, like showing them other images of Hell, make them dramatically change their ways. More likely, it will get us to weigh up the odds of salvation. And the likelihood is we will make the odd penitential gesture rather than give up worldly pleasure altogether. (Richard D. North, Financial Times)

WW3 - Repercussions

The Connection: The collaboration of Iraq and al Qaeda. by Stephen F. Hayes ...Iraq's contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994... (Weekly Standard)

A group of drunken off-duty police officers forced American students to kneel on the ground at their Fremantle dormitory while taunting and humiliating them about the United States involvement in Iraq.

For a man who has spent five years playing an elaborate game of cat and mouse with the British authorities, Abu Hamza al-Masri was uncharacteristically silent when police arrived at his Hammersmith home in the early hours of Thursday.

The threats that deterred pop icon Madonna from playing three Israeli concerts did not come from Palestinian Arab groups but more likely from local Islamist organizations in the United Kingdom where she lives most of the year

...in Iraq, where rumors alone can destroy a woman's reputation, the consequences of US detention are much more severe for women than for men. (CSM)

THE EXPERIMENT THAT ANTICIPATED ABU GHRAIB --In 1971 a group of 24 college men volunteered to act as either guards or prisoners in an experimental prison. Under the watchful eye of Dr. Philip Zimbardo, esteemed professor of psychology and former president of the American Psychological Foundation, volunteers went through several rounds of testing to ensure psychological and physical health and "normalcy." They were then designated either guards or prisoners by the simple flip of a coin.

In Australia Friday a man pled guilty to conspiring with al-Qaida in a terrorist plot to attack the Israeli embassy in the capital Canberra.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iyad Allawi, a former supporter of Saddam Hussein who then worked with the CIA to topple him, was chosen as prime minister of Iraq Friday.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - A soldier in the same ambush as former POW Jessica Lynch was not killed in action but captured by Iraqi fighters and then executed ...The family of Sgt. Donald Walters, 33, of Salem - who had pressed officials for an investigation of their son's death - learned the new information from the Oregon National Guard. Guard officials released the details to the public Thursday, more than a year after the March 23, 2003, ambush. The killing is being investigated as a war crime, and suspects have been identified. Their names have not b

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - A soldier initially listed as killed in action while riding in the same doomed convoy as former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch actually had been captured by Iraqi fighters before he was killed, the Oregon National Guard said Thursday.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - An Islamic civil rights organization said Thursday that a former professor accused of financing terrorists is being held under inhumane conditions. The wife of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian compared his treatment to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American troops.

WARSAW (Reuters) - The Polish army denied media reports on Friday that its troops had abused Iraqi detainees in their occupation zone in southern Iraq.

WW3 - Threats

2 suspected al-Qaeda agents dropped in for meal, says Denny's manager in Avon CO... They said they were from Iran and were driving from New York to the West Coast. ...called the FBI in Washington, D.C., ...the man who answered the telephone said he had to call the Denver office and declined to take down any of the information. ...called the Denver office, ...shuttled to voice mail ...five hours before a seemingly uninterested agent called back.

Pakistani officials say al-Qaida is becoming more decentralized and its top leader, Osama bin Laden, may not be running the organization

PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - Heavily armed IRS and immigration agents raided a Philadelphia mosque and two homes Thursday, seizing documents and detaining the imam on immigration charges. IRS officials gave no immediate explanation for the action, which came one day after U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced stepped-up operations based on concerns that al-Qaeda operatives were plotting an attack.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal official in charge of the nation's airports said Friday security has been "stepped up a notch" in the face of renewed terror warnings this holiday weekend and said authorities are asking the public to be vigilant.

WW3 - Battles

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Five Iraqis were killed and 14 wounded in clashes between U.S. troops and Shi'ite militiamen in the holy city of Najaf and in nearby Kufa on Friday

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi driver working for two missing Japanese journalists said both were killed in an attack on their vehicle south of Baghdad

WW3 - Human Right

Polk County Police Chief Billy Wills recently announced an operation conducted by members of the Polk County Police Departments’ Narcotics Enforcement Team (N.E.T.) in which $50,000 worth of marijuana was seized.

MORE than 9000 motorists will be randomly tested for drugs in a world-first initiative by Victoria Police. The test, which uses a saliva swab to test for cannabis and methamphetamine (or speed), is expected to hit the streets on July 1. Like random breath-testing for alcohol, police will not need reasonable suspicion to drug-test drivers - a fact that sets Victoria apart from European countries where the test is done.

A Georgetown man elected trial by jury after he was arraigned last Wednesday on a charge of possession for the purpose of trafficking after police found $200,000 worth of marijuana in a van Tuesday, May 18.

The police at Kpong paraded a 32-year old married man and father of two, naked to their station for questioning.

Bush orders 420 removed from national time keeping system

As a medical cannabis patient (quadriplegic) fortunate enough to have a doctor’s recommendation for the past five years, I feel compelled to comment on recent developments in our community regarding the cultivation and dispensing of medical marijuana. (Berk Daily Planet)

ROLLA (AP)--An elaborate drug sting operation that started when a motorist on Interstate 44 failed to use his turn signal in Phelps County has led to the arrest of three men in suburban Boston ... stopped by a Phelps County sheriff's deputy for failing to use his turn signal.

A Mount Healthy man who said he was growing marijuana for medical purposes will not spend any time in prison. Carter Singleton was convicted on drug charges after police found marijuana plants in his home. Singleton said marijuana helped stimulate his appetite when he was undergoing cancer treatment. Hamilton County Judge John Andrew West decided not to sentence Singleton to prison but said he must use prescription drugs to ease the pain. (WCPO)

MEXICO CITY – Four state policemen have been charged with abuse of authority in arresting two Tarahumara Indian environmentalists, lending credence to the Indians' claims they were hit with trumped-up weapons and drug charges to discourage their activism.

BEIJING - Police in China have placed prominent dissidents under house arrest to prevent them from publicly commemorating the 15th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown

SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court is deciding whether to throw out the conviction of a 15-year-old boy who served 100 days in juvenile hall for writing a poem that included a threat to kill his fellow students.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish art exhibit featuring cannabis plants ...due to open on Saturday ...was partially destroyed when police cut the plants to take them away as evidence, artist Sture Johannesson said.

THU 2004-MAY-27

Current

May 27, 2004 -- WASHINGTON -- When it comes to that great tradition of summer -- the backyard barbecue -- voters would rather fire up the grill with President Bush than John Kerry, a new poll showed yesterday. (NY Post)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- U.S. and Canadian troops helicoptered aid to a submerged Haitian village where up to 1,000 people are believed to have drowned in massive floods that lashed the island of Hispaniola Monday (Newsday)

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A man who sent 850 million junk e-mails through accounts he opened with stolen identities was sentenced to up to seven years in prison on Thursday. Atlanta-based Internet service provider Earthlink Inc. said it hoped the sentence and an earlier $16.4 million civil judgment against Howard Carmack will deter other spammers.

Information

WASHINGTON (AP) - The list of diseases linked to smoking grew longer Thursday. Add acute myeloid leukemia, cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach, abdominal aortic aneurysms, cataracts, periodontitis and pneumonia.

WASHINGTON - America's prison population grew by 2.9 percent last year, to almost 2.1 million inmates, with one of every 75 men living in prison or jail.

Despite stereotypes to the contrary, researchers are increasingly convinced that mother-daughter fighting, which they say is more intense and frequent than any other parent-child two-some, is less about teenage girls pushing mothers away than about daughters trying to forge new connections based on their emotional and cognitive growth. What's more, the quality of the fights can affect the quality of the time in-between them. (Boston.com)

The increasing use of antibiotics to treat disease may be responsible for the rising rates of asthma and allergies. By upsetting the body's normal balance of gut microbes, antibiotics may prevent our immune system from distinguishing between harmless chemicals and real attacks. "The microbial gut flora is an arm of the immune system," says Gary Huffnagle at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbour. His research group has provided the first experimental evidence in mice that upsetting the gut flora can provoke an allergic response. (NewScientist)

WW3 - Human Rights

OAKLAND (KRON) -- Some teachers in Oakland are rallying behind two students who were interrogated by the Secret Service. That followed remarks the teenagers made about the President during a class discussion. ... the students were grilled by federal agents without legal counsel or their parents present, just the principal. "When one of the students asked, 'do we have to talk now? Can we be silent? Can we get legal council?' they were told, 'we own you, you don't have any legal rights,'" (Kron)

Tammy Lafky has a computer at home but said she doesn't use it. "I don't know how"... But her 15-year-old daughter, Cassandra, does.... Lafky, a sugar mill worker and single mother ...became the first Minnesotan sued by name by the recording industry this week for allegedly downloading copyrighted music illegally. ... Lafky ,,earns $12 an hour and faces penalties that top $500,000. ...says she can't even afford an offer by the record companies to settle the case for $4,000. (SiliconValley.com)

DENVER -- A 13-year-old Denver girl said she was threatened with a knife at her middle school and her hair was set on fire, yet she was the one who was told to stay home for the remainder of the school year while her alleged attacker wasn't suspended or even investigated. (Denver 7)

WW3 - Repercussions

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib said they were abused by troops from Poland and other coalition countries... new and more detailed allegations of abuse by military intelligence soldiers

Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school teacher and personal friend, was fired last year and classes in poetry and the poetry club at Rio Rancho High School were permanently terminated. It had nothing to do with obscenity, but it had everything to do with extremist politics. (Daytona News-Journal)

Support among U.S. teens for the war in Iraq has slipped by one-third since the fighting began, according to an online survey that suggests fears of a revived military draft are eroding teen backing for the conflict.

If Sanchez isn't being removed for cause, he should be. (NY Post editorial)

Recently translated documents captured by U.S. forces provide new evidence of a direct link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Rosters of officers in Saddam's Fedayeen list Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at the January 2000 al-Qaida "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9-11 attacks were planned, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Filmmaker Michael Moore...said Thursday that he has footage unused in the film of Nicholas Berg, the American civilian later beheaded in Iraq. The footage, of an interview with Berg, "is approximately 20 minutes long. We are not releasing it to the media," Moore said in a statement. "It is not in the film. We are dealing privately with the family." (WKMG)

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has its first entertainment television channel, three years after the fall of the radical Taliban regime that banned the medium.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Saudi Arabian national who is believed to have roomed with a friend of two of the Sept. 11 hijackers was arrested on Thursday on immigration violations

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A nuclear scientist once jailed by Saddam Hussein hinted Thursday that he took himself out of the running for the prime minister's job because major Shiite political parties want to fill the post with one of their own.

LONDON, May 27 -- The British police arrested a radical Islamic leader, Abu Hamza al-Masri, early today after the United States requested his extradition on a variety of charges, including trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and aiding Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (NYTimes)

President Pervez Musharraf says junior army and air force personnel were involved in assassination attempts on him last December. General Musharraf said that several military servicemen had been arrested and would soon be tried. (BBC)

WW3 - Battles

Former basketball star loses hand in Baghdad attack (Chi Sun-Times)

Army Pfc. Richard H. Rosas, 21, of Saint Louis, Mich.

Army Pfc. James P. Lambert, 23, of New Orleans, La. died May 25 in Fallujah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device hit their patrol.

Marine Lance Cpl. Kyle W. Codner, 19, of Wood River, Neb.

Marine Cpl. Matthew C. Henderson, 25, of Lincoln, Neb. died May 26, due to hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

Army Pfc. Daniel P. Unger, 19, of Exeter, Calif., died May 25 in Forward Operating Base Kalsu (Iskandariyah, Iraq) during a rocket attack.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States hopes Sudan and rebels in Darfur will implement a cease-fire this week to staunch a humanitarian crisis threatening hundreds of thousands of lives

TOKYO (AP) - Gunmen attacked a car carrying two Japanese men, their interpreter and driver in Iraq, Japan's top government spokesman said Friday. The government was unable to confirm details about the incident given it was still late at night in Iraq

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces agreed to a truce offered by Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday, suspending their attacks and allowing Sadr's Mehdi Army fighters to pull out of the city.

WW3 - Threats

Some allies of the Department of Homeland Security within the Bush administration and members of Congress criticized Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday for issuing terrorist threat warnings at a news conference on Wednesday, contending he failed to coordinate the information with the White House and with Homeland Security, which has the job of releasing threat warnings. (Wash Post)

A London-based Muslim cleric has been caught on film urging his followers to kill non-Muslims – particularly Americans – and to commit other acts of terrorism.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two preachers grounded a flight leaving Buffalo, New York, after they frightened passengers by declaring the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were a good reason to pray, officials said on Thursday. One preacher told fellow passengers as the Continental Airlines plane taxied down the runway, "Your last breath on earth is the first one in heaven as long as you are born again and have Jesus in your heart,"

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - An American Airlines jet flying from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Boston was diverted Thursday after a flight attendant found a note saying there was a bomb in the cargo hold. Investigators were examining a "suspicious package,"

ONDON : International Institute for Stategic Studies says United States has become preoccupied with the ongoing insurgency in Iraq... Bush administration is deeply divided over a strategy to contain the weapons of mass destruction arsenals of Iran and North Korea... Therefore... Bush administration has relayed considerable responsibility for efforts to curb Iranian and North Korean WMD to other countries. (World Tribune)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and the United States agreed on Thursday to lock away some of the most dangerous nuclear material scattered around the globe to keep it away from "terrorists," but experts said that was no easy task.

WED 2004-MAY-26

Information

BERLIN (Reuters) - The universe looks like the Eiffel Tower topped with a never-ending spire, a German physicist said Wednesday.

History

MONTPELIER, Vt.-- David Dellinger, one of the Chicago Seven arrested and tried for their part in the violent antiwar protests that broke out during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, has died at 88. (Chi Sun-Times)

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) - Five days into the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, with the superpowers on the brink of confrontation, President Nixon was too drunk to discuss the crisis with the British prime minister

Current

Mayor Daley scolded Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry Tuesday for making a wisecrack about the bicycle accident that scraped the face, hands and knees of President Bush.

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, N.J. -- A man has been charged with child abuse for not applying enough sunblock to his 12-year-old son before a day at the beach.

ROME (Reuters) - ...Italian legislators are mulling a detailed draft law laying down rules to protect real Neapolitan pizza. ...three pages, eight articles and six sub-clauses ... Italy's leading financial daily... gave it a half-baked review. "It's useless to close the stable door now that the horse has bolted," the paper said, noting that people and restaurants the world over were making pizza any way they wanted.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of Russia's border guards, fed up with their dour image, has ordered them to start smiling at visitors

WW2 - Still with us

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A pilot killed when his P-51 fighter was shot down over Germany during World War II will be laid to rest Friday alongside his brother, who died less than three weeks after he did in 1944. The remains of Lt. William Lewis were exhumed from a field near Oberhof, Germany, by a U.S. recovery team that spent a month excavating the site before returning the bones to Lewis' daughter, Sharon Cross of Houston.

WW3 - Repercussions

ASHINGTON -- America's "war on terrorism" has made the world more dangerous -- not safer -- since the Sept. 11 attacks, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.

WASHINGTON, May 26 (UPI) -- Six U.S. soldiers have been diagnosed by the military with permanent brain damage from an anti-malaria drug used in Iraq and Afghanistan, and health officials must reassess its safety

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Attorneys for a Saudi man accused of using his Web sites to foster terrorism rested their case Wednesday after presenting a single witness: an expert who testified the computer student never condoned terrorism.

And that is not to defend what happened and it is not to suggest that it's harmless and no big deal, but then expanding on this and trying to say this is the kind of behavior that defines the U.S. military, that's being done on purpose by people who wish to wound the U.S. military, and they are probably the same people who try to make us believe they support the troops. -Rush Limbaugh on the Abu Gahrib prison scandal aftermath, quoted by Kate O'Beirne, Washington Editor for National Review

Remarks by Al Gore May 26, 2004 at MovOnPAC.org -- George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world....

RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke issued the following statement today in response to a speech by former Vice President Al Gore attacking President Bush.

Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson has apologized for remarks at a campaign rally in which he compared a segment of the Republican Party to the Taliban.

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) - Nearly a decade after the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols was found guilty of 161 state murder charges Wednesday for helping carry out what was then the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. He could get the death sentence he escaped when he was convicted in federal court in the 1990s.

MCALESTER, Okla. (Reuters) - Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols was found guilty on Wednesday of all 161 counts of murder for his part in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building.

Key dates in the Oklahoma City bombing and the case against Terry Nichols (AP)

MADRID, Spain -- Spanish police told the FBI all along that they doubted the fingerprints on a plastic bag containing detonators like those used in the Madrid train bombing belonged to the Oregon lawyer wrongly arrested in the case

PARIS (AP) - Two Frenchmen and an Algerian were convicted Tuesday of organizing networks that sent militants to Afghan camps for training in terrorism. The three men were sentenced to between two and 10 years in prison.

WINDER, Ga. (AP) - Two 14-year-old students accused of plotting a killing spree at their middle school were ordered held without bail Tuesday after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to support the charges.

WW3 - Human Right

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday his government will move to ban gay marriages and same-sex couples from adopting children from overseas.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Amnesty International charged Wednesday that Brazilian police killed hundreds of suspects over the past year, despite a commitment by the government to set higher standards for public security.

SINGAPORE (AP) - Ultra-tidy Singapore is lifting its notorious ban on chewing gum after 12 long years - but only for registered users. Gum dealers face jail if they break the rules.

Cold War - Still with us

SEOUL (Reuters) - Generals from opposite sides of the world's last Cold War frontier sat down for talks on Wednesday in the highest-level meeting between military officers from North and South Korea since the 1950-53 war.

WW3 - Threats

Greece has vowed to shoot down any aircraft trying to wreck the Olympics with a 11 September-style attack. (BBC)

Amid fears of an imminent Islamist attack, the Bush administration has tried to energize the hunt for terrorists by reissuing months-old data about two Canadians thought to have trained as pilots. (Globe & Mail)

WW3 - Battles

Army Spc. Alan N. Bean Jr., 22, of Bridport, Vt. Army Sgt. Kevin F. Sheehan, 36, of Milton, Vt. died May 25 in Forward Operating Base Kalsu (Iskandariyah, Iraq,) when their unit came under mortar attack.

Army Pfc. Owen D. Witt, 20, of Sand Springs, Mont., died May 24 in Ad Dawr, Iraq, when his armored high-mobility-multipurpose-wheeled vehicle rolled over.

Army Spc. Beau R. Beaulieu, 20, of Lisbon, Maine, died May 24 in Taji, Iraq, during a mortar attack on Camp Cooke.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 26 -- American troops in Najaf captured a key lieutenant to Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, during fierce fighting that killed "a very large number" of rebels (NYTimes)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. warplanes struck a suspected Taliban camp during a battle with the militants in southern Afghanistan... At least eight fighters were killed, but no U.S. casualties were reported.

Hussain al-Shahristani, a Shiite nuclear scientist imprisoned in Abu Ghraib for years for refusing to help Saddam Hussein build a nuclear weapon, is being considered as prime minister of the interim government ... The head of Iraq's Governing Council said President Bush's idea of demolishing Abu Ghraib prison was "a waste of resources." ... Masked gunmen killed two Russian technicians and wounded at least five in an ambush on their convoy in Baghdad, prompting the company employing them to order its staff out of Iraq. ... Five people were killed and seven others injured by a roadside bomb in Baqouba, about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad ... U.S. troops killed a man and injured his wife in their car five minutes after curfew in Kirkuk... The couple's baby was not hurt.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Two cars exploded minutes apart Wednesday outside an English-language school near the U.S. consul's residence in the southern city of Karachi, killing one person and injuring 25

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A road accident south of Tikrit killed a U.S. soldier and injured two

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. warplanes helped Afghan forces pound Taliban militants in the mountains of southern Afghanistan Tuesday, killing some 20 suspected insurgents at a recently discovered camp, a senior Afghan commander said.

TUE 2004-MAY-25

INFORMATION

NEW ORLEANS, May 24 - A Russian scientist at a former Soviet biological weapons laboratory in Siberia has died after accidentally sticking herself with a needle laced with ebola, the deadly virus for which there is no vaccine or treatment ... the accident occurred May 5 (NY Times)

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - The sound of 40 kg (90 pounds) of finely tuned cucumbers, leeks, potatoes, radishes, peppers, aubergines and marrows entertained a German audience at a weekend concert by the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra. The nine-piece orchestra plays a range of original compositions on instruments constructed from vegetables -- including a flute made from a carrot, a saxophone carved out of a cucumber and a pumpkin converted into a double bass.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Several statues of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary in an Australian hall have apparently begun weeping and bleeding rose oil, prompting the Catholic Church to launch an investigation, a church official said on Tuesday.

A German historian said Sunday a distant relative of Adolf Hitler could sue the state of Bavaria for royalties from the Nazi dictator's book "Mein Kampf" but the retired Austrian engineer said he wants no part of it.

WW3 - Repercussions

DENVER (AP) - Four U.S. soldiers will be reprimanded for forcing two Iraqi detainees to jump off a bridge into the Tigris River earlier this year... There have been questions about whether one of the Iraqis died, but Fort Carson spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Budzyna said no one was killed.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says that after the transfer of power on 30 June, Iraq's interim government will have a veto on operations by coalition troops. (BBC)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Iran will sign a deal soon with Russia obliging it to return spent fuel from a new nuclear reactor to Moscow, a Russian official said, in a move intended to ease U.S. fears the material could be used to make bombs.

President Bush's speech Monday evening on RealAudio

Four months ago, Ahmad Chalabi sat with first lady Laura Bush during President Bush's State of the Union address. At the time, the Iraqi banker-politician enjoyed the support of some of the Pentagon's highest ranking civilian officials. Today, Chalabi's defenders are more likely to be found in Iran, the country that Bush famously described as part of the "axis of evil." The government and the online press in Iran are coming to the defense of Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim, whose Baghdad headquarters were raided by U.S. troops last week. Several of Chalabi's associates have been charged with providing U.S. intelligence information to Iran. The Islamic Republic News Agency called the espionage allegations "baseless." (Wash Post)

WW3 - Threats

"I'm more worried than I was at Christmastime," said one senior U.S. intelligence official, comparing the "election threat" to the cancelling of specific airline flights around the holidays. He said the U.S. government is convinced there are still as yet unidentified al Qaeda operatives residing in the United States, waiting for the word to launch plots. "They are here, and there are indications they are preparing" attacks, said the official, who government policy bars from being named. (Wash Post)

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials have obtained new intelligence deemed highly credible indicating al-Qaida or other terrorists are in the United States and preparing to launch a major attack this summer... among the most disturbing received by the government since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001

WW3 - Battles

Army Spc. Jeremy L. Ridlen, 23, of Paris, Ill., died May 23 in East Fallujah, Iraq, from small arms fire after a dump truck on the side of the road was detonated while his military convoy passed by.

Marine Staff Sgt. Jorge A. MolinaBautista, 37, of Rialto, Calif., died May 23 as a result of hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - A parcel bomb exploded Tuesday at a checkpoint in the port area of the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, killing at least two people and injuring five, police and an emergency worker said.

BAGHDAD, May 25 (Xinhuanet) -- A suspected car bomb exploded early Tuesday outside a Baghdad hotel close to the Australian embassy, wounding at least five people

MON 2004-MAY-24

CURRENT

NEW YORK More than half of all national journalists (51%) and almost as many local journalists (46%) believe that their profession is off the mark and headed down the wrong path, according to a comprehensive study released today by The Pew Research Center, The Project for Excellence in Journalism and The Committee of Concerned Journalists. (E&P)

The self-styled "toughest sheriff in America" loved and loathed as the larger-than-life embodiment of law enforcement in Davidson County N.C. facing 15 felony counts in a corruption and abuse investigation pleaded guilty last week to two counts of obstruction of justice in a deal that kept him out of prison. ...a sheriff who misused county funds, intimidated and threatened his own officers and endangered the public with his recklessness. ... three of his officers were sent to federal prison for their involvement in a drug ring.

Michael Moore, ...in his first bestselling book, Stupid White Men. ...wrote he'd once been "forced" to listen to my comments on a TV chat show, The McLaughlin Group... the next day he said he called me. ...none of this is true. It never happened. Moore is a liar. He made it up. It's a fabrication on two levels. ...(Weekly Standard)

Wielding baseball bats and sticks, a mob in northwest Houston today chased down a man suspected of preying on neighborhood children in recent weeks. "We know him. The whole neighborhood knows him." ... "The little kids spotted him. The little kids started the chase.... All the little kids in the neighborhood -- they had sticks an everything."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vermont was designated an "endangered place" on Monday by preservationists who say Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, threatens the picturesque state with huge new stores that smash rural life.

"Kerry told reporters in front of cameras, 'Did the training wheels fall off?' " Mr. Drudge reported on his Web site, www.drudgereport.com. Interviewed by The Washington Times yesterday, Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter would say only that the words Mr. Drudge reported were "off the record." (Wash Times)

Girls as young as 11 are stacking colorful rubber "sex bracelets" up their arms while their parents are unaware that each piece of the cheap jewelry represents a different sex act, according to a secret-code the kids share. ... A black bracelet indicates sexual intercourse, blue is oral sex, red is a lap dance or French kiss and white is a homosexual kiss - and it gets more in depth. Green represents having sex outside. Some of the bracelets stand for specific sexual positions, and there's even a light-green glow-in-the-dark version that means "using sex toys." Megan Stecher, 11, a fifth-grader who sells the $1 bracelets to her classmates at Holy Child Jesus School in Richmond Hill, Queens, for $1.25 said her teachers are not aware of what they symbolize. (NY Post)

KOREAN WAR - Still with us

Nineteen sets of remains believed to be those of American soldiers missing in action from the Korean War were recovered by two teams of U.S. specialists and will be repatriated to U.S. control at Yongsan Military Compound in Seoul May 27.

WW3 - Human Right

Ben Shapiro attended the University of California at Los Angeles and came out dismayed by much of what he heard and saw. Professors there, he laments, routinely spouted liberal propaganda and rarely had their biases challenged. Conservative thinkers, on the contrary, Mr. Shapiro says, were generally shrugged off as not too bright. As a columnist for UCLA's student paper The Daily Bruin, he was able to voice his outrage until, he claims, he was fired for his views. Now - having already graduated from UCLA at 20 - Shapiro has written "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth" (WND Books), alerting the world to what Shapiro sees as the sorry state of US higher education.

WW3 - Repercussions

WASHINGTON, May 24 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States will demolish Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad if the Iraqi interim government that is to take over sovereignty on June 30 agrees, the White House said in a statement on Monday. "Under Saddam Hussein, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values," the statement said. A new Iraq will need "a humane, well supervised" prison system and the United States will pay to build "a new maximum security prison," the statement said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - More than 5,500 Iraqis died violently in just Baghdad and three provinces in the first 12 months of the occupation

There is increasing evidence of Saddam Hussein's complicity in bringing West Nile virus to the U.S.... some American intelligence sources believe Saddam Hussein unleashed his active chemical and biological weapons program on the U.S. in the form of West Nile virus.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will seek to convince skeptical Americans that he has a plan to bring stability to Iraq in a prime-time speech on Monday night

Israeli Justice Minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid stunned Cabinet colleagues on Sunday by saying a picture of an elderly Palestinian woman searching through rubble reminded him of his grandmother. Mr Lapid is a Holocaust survivor. His grandmother was not. She died in Auschwitz.

RAMADI, Iraq (AP) - A videotape obtained by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say U.S. planes later attacked, killing up to 45 people. ... Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt showed photographs of rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes possibly for illegal drugs as well as other items that he said suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.

May 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and U.K. presented a resolution to the United Nations Security Council that, while granting Iraqis ``governing authority'' by June 30, gives U.S. military forces full control over the nation's security. The five-page text says that a multinational force under U.S. command ``shall have the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq by preventing and deterring terrorism.'' It calls for a ``partnership'' between the troops and the interim government to ``ensure coordination between the two.''

...evidence North Korea secretly supplied Libya with 1.7 tons of uranium for its nuclear weapons program in 2001 (WND)

WW3 - Battles

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A roadside bomb killed two British civilians traveling in an armored car near coalition headquarters on Monday one of a series of blasts that rocked the center of the Iraqi capital. After the bombing, insurgents fired mortar rounds around Baghdad. One projectile landed in the Green Zone, which houses coalition headquarters, the U.S. command said, but there were no reports of casualties or damage. Another mortar shell damaged the roof of a primary school; classes had ended for the day, and no injuries were reported. Another mortar round exploded in the Karrada district.

Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew J. Zabierek, 25, of Chelmsford, Mass., died May 21 due to hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

Common wisdom in the Iraqi capital is that nearly all the Mahdi army fighters in the holy cities are poor and ignorant Shias from the sprawling Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. But most of those fighting the Americans this weekend were local. Some were educated and from well-off families. Many of them have joined the uprising in the last two months, revolted by what they see as American arrogance, brutality and callousness. The torture of Iraqi prisoners by Americans has also served as a recruiting sergeant. (Telegraph)

BAGHDAD : Several blasts rocked Baghdad, killing seven people, including two Britons, while clashes between US troops and Shiite militiamen left 18 people dead in the populous Sadr City neighborhood.

NABLUS, West Bank -- Three members of the Hamas militant group were killed Sunday while handling explosives, Palestinian security sources said. The men had pulled their car up alongside an abandoned vehicle used to store their explosives, and the storage vehicle blew up while one of the militants was handling materials inside, the sources said.

SUN 2004-MAY-23

INFORMATION

A new, subscription-based service called DidTheyReadIt... will notify its users via e-mail when recipients open a message sent using its technology -- including the time and geographic area in which each e-mail was read. ... Each message sent through DidTheyReadIt contains a link to a tiny, invisible "Web beacon" image file hosted on the company's Web site. DidTheyReadIt will then log when the message is opened and the beacon is viewed -- assuming the recipient's mail program can display Web-formatted e-mail, as most do. SET YOUR EMAIL PROGRAM TO NOT HAVE WEB-FORMATTED DISPLAY!!

Rats with spinal cord injuries regained 70% of their normal walking function with a three-part treatment aimed at regrowing nerve cells, researchers have shown.

The Blue Rose (Telegraph)

The Black Death, which killed 23m people in the middle ages, could be lying dormant and could strike again, say researchers. ... research led them to conclude that the deaths were not caused by bubonic plague but by some other viral disease. ..."Although the last known outbreak of plague occurred over three centuries ago, we believe the virus is merely lying in wait, ready to strike again."(BBC)

...preventable medical errors in hospitals contribute to thousands of deaths in Canada every year.

CURRENT

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Friday Riyadh had already decided to raise output to nine million barrels daily next month, up from about 8.3 million bpd in April. World oil prices eased on news of the Saudi plan, U.S. crude ending Friday trade off 87 cents at $39.85 a barrel, the first close below $40 in 10 days. (Reuters)

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe was mobbed by a legion of screaming teenage girls as he arrived for the New York premiere of his latest adventure. "It's astonishing - it's really, really, really scary but it's brilliant," the 14-year-old enthused. (BBC)

DHAKA (Reuters) - Two river ferries capsized or sank in Bangladesh's storm-hit south Sunday and 240 passengers were reported missing as divers began a desperate search for survivors.

President Bush... fell off a bicycle. ..."It's been raining a lot, and the topsoil is loose," he said. In addition, Duffy reasoned, "He likes to go all out. Suffice it to say he wasn't whistling show tunes." Fortunately, Duffy reported, Bush was wearing a helmet and mouth guard. (Wash Post)

WW3 - Sideshows

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau apologized and several newspapers