USA: PLAMEGATE

News Max: Dems Tap PatrickFitzgerald For Impeachment Probe

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are so pleased with reports that Leakgate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is about to indict senior White House officials that they want him to lead an impeachment investigation into whether President Bush lied to Congress about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg," House Judiciary Democrat Jerrold Nadler complains in a message posted to his web site.

In a letter asking the Justice Department to expand the scope of Fitzgerald's investigation, Nadler says: "We now have reason to believe that high crimes may have been committed at the highest level [and] wrongdoing that may have led us to war and imperiled our national security."


Opednews: THE COMING HURRICANE FITZGERALD...

There is a storm of historic proportions headed for the United States, one that will make Hurricane Wilma (also en route) look like a small splash in the pond by comparison. It's been building and gathering strength in the increasingly hot waters of the Special Counsel's office for almost two years, and in a matter of days it may lay waste to the entire political infrastructure of Washington, D.C., from one end to the other.


Rense: The Most Important Criminal Case In American History

Patrick Fitzgerald has before him the most important criminal case in American history. Watergate, by comparison, was a random burglary in an age of innocence. The investigator's prosecutorial authority in this present case is not constrained by any regulation. If he finds a thread connecting the leak to something greater, Fitzgerald has the legal power to follow it to the web in search of the spider. It seems unlikely, then, that he would simply go after the leakers and the people who sought to cover up the leak when it was merely a secondary consequence of the much greater crime of forging evidence to foment war.

BIRD FLU

Times: Deadly bird flu virus confirmed in Britain

A SERIOUS failure in strict quarantine regulations allowed a parrot to become infected with the deadly H5N1 avian flu strain after its arrival in Britain, animal health experts said last night.
The South American parrot appears to have been kept in quarantine too close to a bird from Taiwan, against official advice to bird importers. The apparent lapse in the system is expected to bring about a review of a policy that allows some commercial animal dealers to run their own quarantine operations under veterinary supervision.

Scotsman: Parrot had deadliest bird flu strain

Confirmation that the parrot had the most lethal form of the disease came as Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, said the UK faced an inevitable human flu pandemic, which could lead to people staying away from work and public gatherings. She conceded scientists had warned it was a case of when, not if, the flu strikes, but she could not give a timetable as "we simply don't know".

Reuters: Key dates in spread of bird flu from Asia

USA: BUSH POLLS ALL TIME LOW

CBS: Poll: Bush Ratings Hit New Low

President George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has reached the lowest ever measured in this poll, and evaluations of his handling of Iraq, the economy and even his signature issue, terrorism, are also at all-time lows. More Americans than at any time since he took office think he does not share their priorities.

PRESIDENT BUSH'S JOB APPROVAL

Approve

Overall
Now
37%
9/2005
41%
8/2005
41%

Terrorism
Now
46%
9/2005
50%
8/2005
54%


Iraq
Now
32%
9/2005
36%
8/2005
38%

Economy
Now
32%
9/2005
35%
8/2005
37%

Hurricane Katrina
Now
45%
9/2005
44%
8/2005
54%

USA: PLAME GATE

NY Times: Rove Ordered to Talk Again in Leak Inquiry

The special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has summoned Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to return next week to testify to a federal grand jury in a step that could mean charges will be filed in the case, lawyers in the case said Thursday.

The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has held discussions in recent days with lawyers for several administration officials suggesting that he is considering whether to charge them with a crime over the disclosure of an intelligence operative's identity in a 2003 newspaper column.

WAR ON TERROR

Rense: The Unwinnable War by Charley Reese

The so-called war against terrorism is unwinnable. It was designed to be unwinnable so that it can be carried on for an indefinite duration and thus support the vast military-industrial-anti-terrorism complex. The end of the Cold War scared this complex half to death. It can only survive with an enemy at the gates.

Conventional wars can be won because they are fought against governments. Either the enemy government can be destroyed or it is made to pay such a high price in casualties and assets that it will sue for peace. Either way, everybody knows the war is over. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russians ended their occupation of Eastern Europe. We should have dismantled the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as they did the Warsaw Pact, and moved to a peacetime situation.

Too many people in this country, however, have a vested interest in war, and they were in desperate need of a new enemy and some dramatic event to get the people all riled up. Osama bin Laden obliged on both counts.

PROPAGANDA WATCH

Bloomberg: Blair Says Bombs Used in Iraq May Be Linked to Iran

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair today said that there is evidence tying Iran to bombings in neighboring Iraq in the first public accusation that the Shiite Muslim country is supporting militants in Iraq.

``There have been new explosive devices used against British troops and elsewhere,'' Blair said. ``The particular nature of those devices leads us to either Iranian elements or Hezbollah that is funded and supported by Iran.

``We can't be certain of this at this time,'' he told a news conference in London with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, carried live by international broadcasters. ``Obviously, we will continue our investigations'' and ``discussions'' with Iran.

"What is Mr. Blair trying to sell? He fucked up his whole credibility. Fucked up Iraq. Its not the fault of the British Imperialists that they have little to zero progress in Iraq.it is not the fault of the british that Shia Death Squads roam the streets, that the sunni guerilla kill civilians everyday, that women have far less rights than they had under saddam, that people still have no electricy, that people still have no water in theyre homes, that iraq is on the brink of a civil war..lets blame IRAN..it was Iran who told Bush and Blair that they should invade Iraq in the first place"

Update:

Reuters: Iran not interfering in Iraq-Iraqi prime minister

ISRAEL SPYING ON USA

AP: US official admits spying for Israel


A top US Defence Department analyst with expertise in the Middle East has pleaded guilty to giving classified information to an Israeli embassy official and members of a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Lawrence Franklin, 58, said in court on Wednesday that he was frustrated with government policy and that he had hoped the two members of American Israel Public Affairs Committee could influence policy with their connections at the National Security Council.

He also admitted giving classified information to a political official at the Israeli embassy, but said the information he received from the official was far more valuable than what he gave.

PROPAGANDA WATCH

Washington Times: Iran Army Given Control Of Entire Nuclear Program
by David R. Sands

Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has placed the military firmly in control of his nation's nuclear program, undercutting his government's claim that the program is intended for civilian use, according to a leading opposition group.

"The military under the new president is firmly in control of the nuclear program and the nuclear negotiations with the United Nations and the West," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the NCRI's foreign affairs committee, in a telephone interview yesterday.

The NCRI is the political arm of the People's Mujahadeen, a secular Iranian bloc that broke violently with the Islamic leaders of the revolution shortly after the ouster of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The opposition group has had a checkered and at times contradictory role. Branded a terrorist group by U.S. and European governments, it also has proven to be the single best intelligence source on Iran's clandestine nuclear programs, exposing in recent years massive research and testing sites inside Iran unknown to U.N. and Western monitors.

"As Mr. Sands tells us late in the article, the MEK are actually regardet as Terrorist Group by the the US State Department. I wonder if he would call Al-qaida or Hamas an leading opposition group too. He doesn't tell us why they are branded by him as "single best intelligent source on Iran's "clandestine" Nuclear program. They are probably the single best source because there are no others. Anybody remembering Chalabis INC?

Irans Nuclear program is not "clandestine". Iran is under severe IAEA inspections and has the right to develop the nuclear fuel cycle for civilian purposes."

AOL: CENSORSHIP?

Prison Planet: AOL Time-Warner Censors Alex Jones Websites

Nationwide blackout a clear attempt to shut down free speech or just an error?

Has Time Warner's ISP, Road Runner, blocked access to all of Alex Jones' flagship websites across the entire United States or is this a wider Internet blackout issue?

We were first alerted to this problem early this morning when several locals in Austin reported that they were unable to access Infowars.com, PrisonPlanet.com or Prison Planet.tv.

Austin Time Warner had previously shut down access to our websites on a whim, claiming they were 'hate material' but in all cases had quickly restored them after receiving complaints.

However, this latest attack on free speech is occurring nationwide, with Time Warner subscribers from New York to California reporting that their access to the websites is being blocked. Is this deliberate or an Internet-wide issue? Only time will tell.

Update: Justin from Justin Buist's Log told me that Mr. Jones is wrong and i agree with him.
check what he is writing about the whole thing:

The Internet: It's broke!

This morning I see that an article has been written up on the subject: AOL Time-Warner Censors Alex Jones Websites

Simply put: I'm not buying that one bit.

ISRAEL: DEMOCRACY

Haaretz: More Israeli Jews favor transfer of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs - poll finds

Some 46 percent of Israel's Jewish citizens favor transferring Palestinians out of the territories, while 31 percent favor transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' annual national security public opinion poll.

Some 72 percent of Jewish Israelis are opposed to Arab parties being part of a coalition government, compared to 67 percent last year and 50 percent in 1999.

"What Haaretz describes as "transfer" is called ethnic cleansing in the rest of the world"

IRAQ

Al-Ahram: Zarqawi's war whoop

University of Baghdad Political Science Professor Jinan Ali says there is more to the Zarqawi threat than appears on the surface.

"The so-called war against Shiites began after Moqtada Al-Sadr announced his opposition to drafting the constitution," says Ali. ""Most of the Shiites targeted are Moqtada's followers intended to force them to cast a "Yes" vote in the coming referendum".

Many Iraqis are now wondering whether Zarqawi is a real figure or not.

"Zarqawi is a good pretext for striking any Iraqi city or town," Professor Ali explains.

"If Zarqawi is defending the Sunnis and his followers are operating in the Sunni areas, why were Najaf and Sadr city (mostly Shiite areas) targeted by the Americans and Iraqi forces several times before?"

CHINA: CENSORSHIP

Time: China's Web Watchers

The Internet was supposed to be immune to censorship, but Beijing has found ways to stifle online dissent

IRAN: PATH TO WAR

Prisonplanet: Will Israel Start World War Three?

Israeli rhetoric towards Iran has considerably heated in the last few weeks as the world hurtles towards an inevitable confrontation over Iran's nuclear programs.
Last week three senior Israeli lawmakers went public to warn that Israel would act unilaterally to eliminate any perceived Iranian threat.

"Threats of sanctions and isolation alone will not do it, we feel we are obliged to warn our friends that Israel should not be pushed into a situation where we see no other solution but to act unilaterally."

Estimates of when Iran is likely to have acquired a usable nuclear arsenal range from five to ten years, but the Israelis have been fear mongering by saying it will be as soon as one or two.

IRAQ: ABU GHRAIB PHOTOS

AP: Judge Orders Release of Abu Ghraib Photos

Saying the United States "does not surrender to blackmail," a judge ruled Thursday that pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America's image.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."

The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic.

IRAQ

AP:Top U.S. General Says Number of Capable Iraqi Battalions Drops to One

WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of Iraqi battalions capable of combat without U.S. support has dropped from three to one, the top American commander in Iraq told Congress Thursday, prompting Republicans to question whether U.S. troops will be able to withdraw next year.

Another Day in The Empire: From a Cave in Afghanistan:It’s the
al-Zarqawi Show by Kurt Nimmo

Osama, finally blessed with a donated kidney from a Pakistani religious student (the transplant was performed in one of his better equipped caves in Afghanistan), has launched an internet news show entitled “the Voice of the Caliphate,” featuring an anchorman wearing a black ski mask and an ammunition belt.

I’m not making this up. Well, I made up the part about the donated kidney (although Pakistani religious students have offered to donate their kidneys to their hero Osama), but the business about the internet show and the anchorman is true, if we can believe the Washington Post.

“The anchorman, who said the report would appear once a week, presented news about the Gaza Strip and Iraq and expressed happiness about recent hurricanes in the United States. A copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, was placed by his right hand and a rifle affixed to a tripod was pointed at the camera.”

Note all the pedestrian al-Qaeda stereotypes here—a prominent copy of the Koran, a rifle, the ski mask (brought back into vogue after Black September by that nimble—for a guy with one leg—Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), and of course expressions of joy over the death and misery of Americans, especially by way of natural disaster attributable to the will of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.

IRAQ: BASRA

ICH: Sinister Events in a Cynical War by John Pilger

Here are questions that are not being asked about the latest twist of a cynical war. Were explosives and a remote-control detonator found in the car of the two SAS special forces men "rescued" from prison in Basra on 19 September? If true, what were they planning to do with them? Why did the British military authorities in Iraq put out an unbelievable version of the circumstances that led up to armoured vehicles smashing down the wall of a prison?

ITAQ: SCOTT RITTER

Guardian: The Coup That Wasn't

Scott Ritter, reveals how the CIA plotted to use a UN weapons inspection to overthrow the Iraqi regime - and how fiasco turned to tragedy when it failed

check it

PR WATCH

Ad Age: MCDONALD'S HAS NO BREAKS TODAY

"Earlier this year, McDonald's Corp. unveiled plans to enlist rap
artists to produce several songs that would integrate the Golden
Arches' iconic Big Mac sandwich into lyrics," as "part of the
company's ongoing strategy to court the youth market, especially
young men, through hip-hop," reports AdAge. Although McDonald's
promised to pay artists $1 to $5 each time promotional songs air on
the radio, and hired the entertainment marketing firm Maven
Strategies to oversee the effort, no Big Mac tracks have yet been
recorded. "We have not identified the right opportunity," said a
McDonald's spokesperson. "We have not yet identified the match that
we've been looking for." McDonald's has also not launched its new
"hip street wear" uniforms, designed with input from Russell
Simmons' Phat farm, Sean "Diddy" Combs' Sean John, Tommy Hilfiger,
Fubu and American Apparel, according to AdAge.

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Haaretz: Cabinet okays options of shelling Gaza, assassinations

A few hours earlier, an Israeli aircraft attacked a school in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood, wounding at least 17 people, Palestinian medical officials said.

The blast struck the Arkam school, which was established by the late founder of the militant Hamas group, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. The army said the building was used by a Hamas-linked foundation to raise money for terrorist attacks.

The blast collapsed part of the school, and caused damage to at least five nearby homes. Hospital officials said women and children were among the wounded, and one person was in serious condition. Electricity in the neighborhood was knocked out, and dozens of people ran in the streets following the attack.

IRAQ

Juan Cole: Why we Have to get the Troops Out of Iraq

They are sowing a vast whirlwind, a desert sandstorm of Martian proportions, which future generations of Americans and Iraqis will reap.

IRAQ: BASRA PROPAGANDA

ICH: Agents Provocateurs?
By William Bowles

Fascinating. No really, the ‘evolution’ of state disinformation has probably never been better displayed than in the case of the two (more than likely) SAS soldiers who were ‘liberated’ after being arrested by the Iraqi police on 19 September by a phalanx of tanks and helicopter gunships that stormed the police station where the two undercover soldiers were being held after they allegedly failed to stop at an Iraqi police roadblock and subsequently opened fire on the Iraqi police, killing one and wounding another.

The car they were travelling in was loaded with weapons including allegedly, assault rifles, a light machine gun, an anti-tank weapon, radio gear and a medical kit (’standard’ SAS issue according to the BBC). According to at least two reports, the car they were traveling in (A Toyota Cressida) was “booby-trapped”.

....Yet subsequent accounts revealed that they had in fact, been in the police station all along and, according to a CNN report, were being questioned by an Iraqi judge, not, as the British government alleged, by the ‘insurgents’.

By now, in a classic disinformation campaign, so many stories were being circulated that sorting out the truth from fiction was virtually impossible unless one is prepared to dig and dig deep.

What is clear is that the two SAS “undercover operatives” had been caught red-handed by the British government’s alleged allies, the Iraqi police, dressed as Arabs, replete with wigs and armed to the teeth and in a car which according to one report, was packed with explosives (the car by the way, has been taken away by the British occupation forces).

CHECK IT

USA: TORTURE

Human Rights Watch: Leadership Failure

Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army’s 82^nd Airborne Division

NY Times: 3 in 82nd Airborne Say Beating Iraqi Prisoners Was Routine

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 - Three former members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division say soldiers in their battalion in Iraq routinely beat and abused prisoners in 2003 and 2004 to help gather intelligence on the insurgency and to amuse themselves.

The new allegations, the first involving members of the elite 82nd Airborne, are contained in a report by Human Rights Watch. The 30-page report does not identify the troops, but one is Capt. Ian Fishback, who has presented some of his allegations in letters this month to top aides of two senior Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner of Virginia, the chairman, and John McCain of Arizona. Captain Fishback approached the Senators' offices only after he tried to report the allegations to his superiors for 17 months, the aides said. The aides also said they found the captain's accusations credible enough to warrant investigation.

IRAQ: BASRA

Globalresearch: Were British Special Forces Soldiers Planting Bombs in Basra?
Suspicions Strengthened by Earlier Reports

Does anyone remember the shock with which the British public greeted the revelation four years ago that one of the members of the Real IRA unit whose bombing attack in Omagh on August 15, 1998 killed twenty-nine civilians had been a double agent, a British army soldier?

That soldier was not Britain’s only terrorist double agent. A second British soldier planted within the IRA claimed he had given forty-eight hours advance notice of the Omagh car-bomb attack to his handlers within the Royal Ulster Constabulary, including "details of one of the bombing team and the man’s car registration." Although the agent had made an audio tape of his tip-off call, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, chief constable of the RUC, declared that "no such information was received" (http://www.sundayherald.com/17827).

This second double agent went public in June 2002 with the claim that from 1981 to 1994, while on full British army pay, he had worked for "the Force Research Unit, an ultra-secret wing of British military intelligence," as an IRA mole. With the full knowledge and consent of his FRU and MI5 handlers, he became a bombing specialist who "mixed explosive and … helped to develop new types of bombs," including "light-sensitive bombs, activated by photographic flashes, to overcome the problem of IRA remote-control devices having their signal jammed by army radio units." He went on to become "a member of the Provisional IRA’s ‘internal security squad’—also known as the ‘torture unit’—which interrogated and executed suspected informers" (http://www.sundayherald.com/print25646).

The much-feared commander of that same "torture unit" was likewise a mole, who had previously served in the Royal Marines’ Special Boat Squadron (an elite special forces unit, the Marines’ equivalent to the better-known SAS). A fourth mole, a soldier code-named "Stakeknife" whose military handlers "allowed him to carry out large numbers of terrorist murders in order to protect his cover within the IRA," was still active in December 2002 as "one of Belfast’s leading Provisionals" (http://www.sundayherald.com/29997).

Reliable evidence also emerged in late 2002 that the British army had been using its double agents in terrorist organizations "to carry out proxy assassinations for the British state"—most notoriously in the case of Belfast solicitor and human rights activist Pat Finucane, who was murdered in 1989 by the Protestant Ulster Defence Association. It appears that the FRU passed on details about Finucane to a British soldier who had infiltrated the UDA; he in turn "supplied UDA murder teams with the information" (http://www.sundayherald.com/29997).
Recent events in Basra have raised suspicions that the British army may have reactivated these same tactics in Iraq.

ECONOMY

ICH: Confessions Of A Hit Man
by Charley Reese

John Perkins' book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" explains American foreign policy better than any of the academic tomes you might read on the subject.

In a nutshell, the game is played this way: People like Perkins work for consulting firms, and their job is to entice a foreign head of state to go deeply in debt. They do this by greatly exaggerating the economic returns on big projects such as dams and electrification systems.The payoff comes in two ways. The foreign country hires American contractors to build the systems, and they make big profits. Then, mired in debt, the head of state will do what the United States government tells him to do. If he proves too independent or too honest to accept bribes, then he will be removed from power, either in a coup or in an accident.Yes, I know that sounds more like the Mafia than the great and good government of the United States, which wants only to spread peace, prosperity and democracy around the world. Read the book and decide for yourself. The publisher is Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc.

INDIA/IRAN

The Hindu: blackmailing India

FOR ALL its pretensions to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, India on Saturday flunked its first real test as a rising world power. Where no less than 11 countries smaller and less powerful than us — Venezuela, Algeria, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Yemen — had the courage and good sense to join Russia and China in refusing to endorse the U.S.-backed agenda of confrontation with Iran, India threw in its lot with Washington and the European troika.

Reuters: Iran warns atomic opponents trade ties may suffer

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Tuesday it would reconsider economic ties with countries that voted against it at last week's board meeting of the U.N. atomic watchdog.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Tehran was particularly surprised by the vote against it from India, which is seeking to import massive volumes of gas from the Islamic Republic.
"India's vote came as a great surprise to us," he told reporters at a weekly news conference.
"We will reconsider our economic cooperation with those countries that voted against us," he added

AUSTRALIA: 1984

Herald Sun: War on web terror

COMMENTS posted on a website praising a terrorist attack anywhere in the world could land a person in jail under tough new laws to be debated by state and federal leaders today.

Australians could also find themselves in breach of federal law for distributing books or other literature urging people to travel overseas to kill coalition soldiers or for praising a terror attack as a brave act that should be repeated.
New incitement and sedition laws on the table at today's Council of Australian Government terror summit could place some Australian organisations and businesses in danger of breaching the law

DAHR JAMAIL

ICH: More Dissent, More Censorship
by Dahr Jamail

A quarter of a million people jammed the streets of the capital this past weekend, as Mr. Bush conveniently found himself visiting the US Northern Command’s HQ in Colorado Springs.

While veterans from the current debacle in Iraq and scores of military families who oppose the Bush Junta joined the throngs of protestors in Washington DC to express their dissent, there were other goings-on related to Iraq while Bush had his photo-op in Colorado.

A contractor I know working in Iraq wrote me recently. He gives me periodic updates about how life is on the base where he works in support of the military. He wrote:

“Another convoy hit hard-3 drivers killed and many others wounded- I don’t know if it’s my friends yet. They don’t like to advertise these kinds of things much around here because they cause the exit planes to fill up - the only problem is, there are more plane loads waiting in Houston [to come here]. The gullible waiting for their chance at the tarnished brass ring. [Me and my friends] agree this countries’ policies of oil have led us down the path of Armageddon.”

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Haaretz: UN rights expert: Pullout diverted attention from W. Bank expansion

GENEVA - A United Nations rights expert yesterday said the disengagement from the Gaza Strip has allowed the Jewish state to divert attention from its further expansion into East Jerusalem and other Palestinian territories."This focus of attention on Gaza has allowed Israel to continue with the construction of the wall in Palestinian territory, the expansion of settlements and the de-Palestinization of Jerusalem with virtually no criticism," South African lawyer John Dugard said in a 19-page report.

PUERTO RICO: US STATE TERROR

WSW: U.S. Assassinates Puerto Rican Independence Figure

Filiberto Ojeda Rios represents an act of state terror and cold-blooded murder by the US government. It is one more proof that in the name of a “global war on terrorism,” Washington has arrogated to itself the right to conduct political assassinations and act as judge, jury and executioner against opponents of US policies and interests.

Aged 72, Ojeda Rios was the leader of the Boricua Popular Army, also known as the Macheteros, a group that advocated independence for Puerto Rico. He was wanted on charges that he had participated in the planning of a 1983 Wells Fargo armored car robbery in Hartford, Connecticut, in which $7.1 million was taken. A fugitive for 15 years since fleeing house arrest in 1990, he was sentenced in absentia to 55 years in jail.

Ojeda Rios was alone with his wife in their home in the rural southwestern Puerto Rican municipality of Hormigueros, near the city of Mayagüez, when scores of FBI agents stormed his property, unleashing a rain of bullets. According to reports, at least 100 armed agents were involved, backed by helicopters and a squad of military sharpshooters brought to the island from Virginia.

The nationalist leader was struck by a single bullet from a sharpshooter’s high-powered rifle. While he suffered no wound to any vital organ, he was left to bleed to death on the floor of his home as FBI agents refused to allow Puerto Rican authorities and emergency medical teams anywhere near the house, maintaining a militarized perimeter for 24 hours.

Later, an FBI spokesman claimed that the agents who had surrounded the house and shot Ojeda Rios feared that the house could be wired with explosives and were waiting for reinforcements to fly in from the US.

IRAQ: BASRA

BBC: Basra warrant for two UK soldiers

A Basra judge has issued an arrest warrant for two British soldiers after an Iraqi civilian was reportedly killed and a police officer injured.

The two servicemen - believed to be undercover SAS officers - were detained after a confrontation on Monday.

UK troops later freed the soldiers from Iraqi custody after storming a police station in the southern Iraqi city.

Defence Secretary John Reid said no warrant had been received - and British personnel were immune from Iraqi laws.

"The MoD has not received any arrest warrant relating to any British personnel in Iraq," he said.

"Iraqi law is very clear: British forces remain subject to British jurisdiction.

"Even if such a warrant was issued, it would therefore be of no legal effect."

"It would be interesting to know who made such a deal with the Occupation Forces. Was ist Bremer, Occupation Puppet Allawi or the new Puppet Goverment? Under internation Law it is not allowed to change the Laws of an country under occupation. Im not a law proffesor but under these circumstances one could argue that in this case the special deal between the Puppet Goverment and the Occupation Forces is irrelavant."

911

Tomflocco: 9-11 crash victim Barbara Olson arrested in Europe
"to be confirmed"

French and American intelligence agents have arrested Barbara Olson, the wife of a former Bush administration official, a few days ago on the Polish-German border, according to agents close to and with knowledge of the incident.The alleged 9.11 Pentagon crash victim was found to be in possession of millions in fake interbank Italian lyra currency, according to the agents.Olson was also reportedly in possession of a fraudulent Vatican passport and was held on charges of counterfeiting.
Barbara K. Olson

The former Fox News TV commentator and Independent Women's Forum activist was said to have called her husband Theodore Olson from her plane to seek help in countering hijackers who had allegedly taken over American flight 77 which the Bush administration said was crashed into the Pentagon- although the impact only left an opening approximately 16 feet across.

"It is by no means possible to check the validity of this story, so i regard it as untrue"

911: PENTAGON

Pentagonstrike.co.uk: What hit the Pentagon on 911?

professionally made Flash Presentation in 11 languages

HYPOCRITES

SFgate: Bush Waives Saudi Trafficking Sanctions

President Bush decided Wednesday to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Washington's closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.

IRAN: COUNTDOWN TO WAR

Aljazeera: EU drops bid to refer Iran case to UN

The European Union has backed off from its attempt to have Iran immediately called before the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme, due to fierce opposition from Russia and China, diplomats said.

IRAQ: RESISTANCE

Guardian: Bush: Troops will not withdraw on my watch

Meanwhile, the governor of Basra, Mohammed al-Waili, today threatened to halt cooperation with British forces until Tony Blair apologised for the storming of a prison in the southern Iraqi city.

Mr al-Waili also demanded compensation for the damage caused when British forces destroyed part of the prison compound on Monday following the detention of two undercover SAS soldiers.

The Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, called the attack by British forces "a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty".

FREE SPEECH

Guardian: This attack on free speech will fuel Muslim hostility

If Britain's proposed laws on inciting terrorism were applied fairly, those who incite wars of aggression would also be in the dock

BIRD FLU

Rense: Massive H5N1 Infections At Ragunan Zoo In Jakarta

Apriantono told the ElShinta private radio that 19 out of 27 samples taken from various birds at the zoo, including pigmy chickens and eagles, contained the bird flu virus.

Xinhua: 6 With H5N1 Symptoms Admitted To Jakarta Hospital


6 Indonesian residents, including 4 children, have been admitted to a hospital with avian influenza symptoms, spreading fears of a major outbreak of the deadly disease in the world's fourth most populous nation.

PRIVATE PROPAGANDA

SLATE: You Can't Handle the Truth

LONDON—Over the past 24 hours, seven people have checked into hospitals here with telltale symptoms. Rashes, vomiting, high temperature, and cramps: the classic signs of smallpox. Once thought wiped out, the disease is back and threatening a pandemic of epic proportions.

The government faces a dilemma: It needs people to stay home, but if the news breaks, mass panic might ensue as people flee the city, carrying the virus with them.

A shadowy media firm steps in to help orchestrate a sophisticated campaign of mass deception. Rather than alert the public to the smallpox threat, the company sets up a high-tech "ops center" to convince the public that an accident at a chemical plant threatens London. As the fictitious toxic cloud approaches the city, TV news outlets are provided graphic visuals charting the path of the invisible toxins. Londoners stay indoors, glued to the telly, convinced that even a short walk into the streets could be fatal.

This scenario may sound like a rejected plot twist from a mediocre Bond flick, but one company is dead set on making this fantasy come to life.

Strategic Communication Laboratories, a small U.K. firm specializing in "influence operations" made a very public debut this week with a glitzy exhibit occupying prime real estate at Defense Systems & Equipment International, or DSEi, the United Kingdom's largest showcase for military technology. The main attraction was a full-scale mock-up of its ops center, running simulations ranging from natural disasters to political coups.

IRAN: COUNTDOWN TO WAR

Rense: Iran War Clouds On The Harvest Moon
by Webster Griffin Tarpley

The Bush-Cheney war drive continues unabated, despite hurricane Katrina. The US government continues to operate under Cheney's order to prepare in the short term for the nuclear bombing of Iran in the wake of a new 9/11 of state sponsored, false flag synthetic terrorism, as revealed in late July by Philip Giraldi in The American Conservative.

But Iran is not the only possible target in the wake of a new 9/11. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the United Nations this past week, formally accused the US of preparing an unprovoked aggression against his country as well. Chavez promised a hundred years, war to beat back such an invasion.

IRAQ: RESISTANCE CONTROLS BAGHDAD

Juan Cole: Security Situation in Baghdad Sinking like the Titanic

"The situation has deteriorated in Baghdad dramatically today. Five neighborhoods (hay) in Baghdad are controlled by insurgents, and they are Amiraya, Ghazilya, Shurta, Yarmouk and Doura. It is very bad. My guys there report that cars have come into these neighborhoods and blocked off the streets. Masked gunmen with AKs and other weapons are roaming these areas, announcing that people should stay home. One of my drivers in Amiraya reports that his neighborhood is shut down totally, and even those who need food or provisions are warned not to go out.

The government will respond feebly. It will go into a contested neighborhood, and then just like Fallujah, Ramadi, Tel Afar, the insurgents will flee to take over another area on another day. Bit by bit they are taking over the main parts of Baghdad. The only place we are sure they cannot control is Sadr City, unless of course they want to take on Jaish Mahdy [Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army], and that would be bloody.

A few minutes ago Jaafari came on television to tell everyone in Baghdad to stay home. Can't wait for his next bold move.

There are flyers in public areas of Baghdad warning people not to gather in large numbers because they will thereby become targets. I am trying to get a copy of the flyer.

Notwithstanding Al-Hayat's claim that Zarqawi and the Sunni resistance are not together, my street listeners claim otherwise. My folks are convinced that the two groups, broadly defined, are together, "100 percent" is the claim of certainty. It is hard to get a handle on this because people in Baghdad tend to lump all resistance groups, except for Zarqawi, into one large category.

SYRIA

huffingtonpost: US Ambassador To Iraq Predicts US Will Go Into Syria…

Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, made the off the record prediction that the US will go into Syria to combat insurgents that have been using the country as a staging ground for terrorist activity in Iraq.

Ambassador Khalilzad’s comments were made at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend.

IRAN

Haaretz: Iran calls on UN to probe how Israel acquired nuclear weapons


UNITED NATIONS - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday a UN committee should investigate how Israel acquired nuclear weapons.

In an unyielding speech to the General Assembly, Ahmadinejad said his country had the inalienable right to produce nuclear energy and accused the United States of violating a treaty banning the spread of atomic weapons.

Seeking to turn the tables of Western powers that suspect Tehran of developing nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad offered to allow other countries and private companies to participate in his country's uranium enrichment program to prove that Tehran is not producing nuclear weapons.

Calling the charge that Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons "a pure propaganda ploy," Ahmadinejad said Iran has a right to a nuclear fuel program, but stressed that the country's "religious principles" prevent it from seeking atomic weapons.

USA: KATRINA

Rense: Unreported Deadly Force In Katrina Aftermath?
by Wayne Madsen

Pentagon covering up shooting incidents in New Orleans and environs? Reports are emanating out of New Orleans that National Guard, regular military, officers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and private security personnel have shot to death homeless and needy survivors of Hurricane Katrina. One shooting incident is alleged to have occurred last week at Louis Armstrong International Airport where over a hundred people were subjected to lethal force after troops feared they were going to "riot." It is uncertain how many people have been killed by lethal force in New Orleans, but the numbers mentioned are in excess of 150.

USA: KATRINA

Xymaphora:The Danziger Bridge incidents

USA: KATRINA

Bella Ciao: The Great New Orleans Land Grab-The 17th Street Canal levee was breached on purpose

s the world watched the events unfolding, one could not help think that something was terribly afoot concerning the rescue by FEMA of the city’s poor and predominate Black population. It seems that a well laid out plan was put into effect to grab valuable real estate from well established but poverty stricken Black families of New Orleans? What is being implemented now is nothing less than a sophisticated scheme to purge and ethnically cleanse what Whites have termed "Black and ’welfare bloated’ New Orleans".

Another telling incident that points to a "nefarious plan" is what New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said at the height of the crisis. He said publicly, "I fear the CIA may take me out!" Mayor Nagin, a Black, said this twice. He told a reporter for the Associated Press: "If the CIA slips me something and next week you don’t see me, you’ll all know what happened." Later he told interviewers for CNN on a live broadcast that he feared the "CIA might take me out." What does Mayor Ray Nagin know and why does he fear the CIA?

ork that deployed throughout the hurricane ravished region reported that the airwaves were being "jammed" making it impossible to communicate emergency information. Churches, hospitals and other essential community groups reported that the first thing that the US military did, when they arrived, was to cut their telephone lines and confiscate communications devices.

IRAQ: RESISTANCE

Forbes: Al-Qaeda-linked group says it fired chemical arms in Baghdad

An Al-Qaeda linked Sunni group in Iraq said it used chemical weapons to attack targets in Baghdad today, according to their statement released on an Islamist website.

Jaish al-Taefa al-Mansura (Army of the Victorious Community) said its fighters fired shells filled with chemical agents at the interior ministry, foreign ministry, the 'green zone' and Baghdad's security academy.

In Baghdad, the interior ministry said five rounds of mortar fire exploded, including two in the heavily fortified green zone which houses the Iraqi government as well as the US and British embassies.

Two struck the heavily protected 'green zone' which is home to the government and to the US and British embassies, but it was not immediately known if there were casualties.

1984

Guardian: Access denied

This is the golden age of the internet, a time of glorious anarchy where information is free and anyone, rich or poor, can blog their views to the world. But government and big business are moving in - the clampdown has started.

IRAQ

Aljazeera: The Iran Trap by Scott Ritter

the complicated world of international diplomacy surrounding the issue of Iran's nuclear program, there is but one thing that the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the so-called EU-3 (Germany, France and Great Britain) and Iran can all agree uponIran has resumed operations of facilities designed to convert uranium into a product usable in enrichment processes. From that point forward consensus on just about anything begins to fall apart.

GUANTANAMO

Independent: Revealed: the diary of a British man on hunger strike in Guantanamo

More than 200 detainees are starving themselves to protest against conditions at the camp in Cuba where they are being held without trial. Here the Independent on Sunday publishes a shocking extract from the journal of Omar Deghayes, a British resident, who has been imprisoned there since September 2002

IRAQ

Reuters: Militants put price on Iraqi PM's head

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant group has offered up to $100,000 for killing the prime minister and top officials who launched an offensive on rebels in a northern town, according to an Internet statement posted on Monday.

The Islamic Army in Iraq, among several insurgent groups fighting U.S. troops and Iraqi forces, said Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and the defense and interior ministers should die for the fighting in Tal Afar.

"The leadership of the army has issued orders to all the mujahideen to intensify their attacks... to avenge the mass extermination occuring in Tal Afar," said the statement which was not dated but bore the group's logo

IRAQ: TAL AFAR

Iraqwar.ru: Tal Afar Residents Send Out SOS

Residents of the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar has sent out an SOS to the international community to interfere with the US occupation authorities to stop their continuing bombing of their devastated city, revealing a terrible humanitarian situation. "US and Iraqi forces are still besieging Tal Afar amid ongoing intensive bombing, ordering residents of Hassan Kawi and Sarray neighborhoods to evacuate immediately," a Tal Afar tribal leader told IOL over the phone Thursday, September 8.

"The Americans are seemingly bombing the city with chemical weapons," he said, adding Tal Afar residents are speaking of suffocations and other health problems upon exposure to any hit area.

USA: KATRINA

CNN: Judge Blocks Feds News Ban On Recovery Of N.O. Dead

At the request of CNN, a federal judge in Texas Friday night blocked emergency officials in New Orleans from preventing the media from covering the recovery of bodies from Hurricane Katrina.

Attorneys for the network argued that the ban was an unconstitutional prior restraint on news gathering.

U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order against a "zero access" policy announced earlier Friday by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security director.

USA: KATRINA

Rense: Explosive Residue Found On Failed Levee Debris

Note - This story below is racing around the net and we present it *only* as something to be so noted. 'Well placed sources' and unnamed sources 'speaking on conditions of anonymity' have essentially no credibility from a journalistic standpoint. Unless one of the principals steps out of the shadows and comes forward with proof of the allegations below, this story must be considered as just another internet rumor

Divers inspecting the ruptured levee walls surrounding New Orleans found something that piqued their interest: Burn marks on underwater debris chunks from the broken levee wall!

One diver, a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saw the burn marks and knew immediately what caused them. He secreted a small chunk of the cement inside his diving suit and later arranged for it to be sent to trusted military friends at a The U.S. Army Forensic Laboratory at Fort Gillem, Georgia for testing.

According to well placed sources, a military forensic specialist determined the burn marks on the cement chunks did, in fact, come from high explosives. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity said "We found traces of boron-enhanced fluoronitramino explosives as well as PBXN-111. This would indicate at least two separate types of explosive devices."

ISRAEL

Uri Avnery: Who Murdered Arafat?

The day before yesterday the Haaretz headline screamed: "Doctors: Arafat died of AIDS or poisoning". Aids appeared in first place.

The key word is, of course, "AIDS". Throughout the long article there is no trace of proof for this allegation. The reporters quote "sources in the Israeli security establishment". They also quote Israeli doctors "who heard from French doctors" - an original method for medical diagnosis. A respected Israeli professor even found conclusive proof: it was not published that Arafat had undergone an Aids test. True, a Tunisian medical team did test him in Ramallah and the result was negative, but who would believe Arabs?

USA: KATRINA

Guardian: Mercenaries guard homes of the rich in New Orleans

Hundreds of mercenaries have descended on New Orleans to guard the property of the city's millionaires from looters.
The heavily armed men, employed by private military companies including Blackwater and ISI, are part of the militarisation of a city which had a reputation for being one of the most relaxed and easy-going in America.
After scenes of looting and lawlessness in the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina struck, New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state and federal law enforcement officers, as well as 70,000 national guard troops and active-duty soldiers now based in the region.

USA: KATRINA

Prison planet: Blackwater Mercenaries: Coming Soon to Your Town

It is now obvious how martial law (not officially declared as such) will work in America in the wake of the devastation of New Orleans. Instead of federal troops or an influx of National Guard troops sent to “restore order” (the latter mandated in our now anachronistic Constitution; see Article 1, Section 8) and empowered to “suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions,” in Louisiana the state and federal governments have brazenly violated the Constitution by sending in Blackwater Security and other private goon squads. “Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans,” write Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo.

“Some of the mercenaries say they have been ‘deputized’ by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force.”

USA: KATRINA

Online Journal: New Orleans: covert operations underway?

September 10, 2005—Wednesday's broadcast of KPFA's "Flashpoints" featured a telephone interview with Malik Rahim, who gave a gut-wrenching and shocking firsthand account of the staggering horror of still-neglected New Orleans that he and other survivors are facing.

In stark contrast to increasingly optimistic mainstream media coverage (cover-up) about "improving relief efforts" and "rebuilding," Rahim exposed the fact that there is no relief. No Red Cross, no food, no emergency medical care under a FEMA lockdown that has kept any relief from getting into New Orleans.

Meanwhile, as the Bush administration's combat operations ramp up, and troops prowl the streets, no help whatsoever has been offered to residents, according to Rahim. Rotting corpses litter the streets. People, heroically fending for themselves and their own, are being left in shocking conditions to suffer and die.

KATRINA

About.com: Dumb Quotes About Hurricane Katrina

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." –Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) to lobbyists, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." –President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring Hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the Hurricane flood evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5, 2005

"I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water." –Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, on NPR's "All Things Considered," Sept. 1, 2005

NEW ORLEANS

ICH: The Siege of New Orleans
by Mike Whitney

Neither the Mainstream media nor the alternative-Leftist web sites have told the true story of what really happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For the people of the region it was the greatest natural catastrophe they'd ever faced. For the Bush administration it was just another opportunity to use fear and anarchy to advance their global agenda.

PEAK OIL

The New York Times: The Breaking Point

Shaybah, one of Saudi Arabia's oil fields, which all told can produce 10.5 million barrels of oil a day. The Saudis say they can boost production to 12.5 million barrels a day, or 15 million, or more. But there is a limit to how much you can ask of the earth, and it is fast approaching, some experts say.

1984

New Statesman: Fears for Free Speech by John Pilger

If those who seek to understand what drives people to commit terrorist acts are vilified as "just one notch less despicable" themselves, we can say goodbye to freedom of speech. By John Pilger

On 15 July, Blair's Britain of the future was glimpsed when the police raided the Iqra Learning Centre and bookshop near Leeds. The Iqra Trust is a well-known charity that promotes Islam worldwide as "a peaceful religion which covers every walk of life". The police smashed down the door, wrecked the shop and took away anti-war literature which they described as "anti-western".

Among this was, reportedly, a DVD of George Galloway addressing the US Senate and a New Statesman article of mine illustrated by a much-published photograph of a Palestinian man in Gaza attempting to shield his son from Israeli bullets before the boy was shot to death. The photograph was said to be "working people up", meaning Muslim people. Clearly, David Gibbons, this journal's esteemed art director, who chose this illustration, will be called before the Blair Incitement Tribunal. One of my books, The New Rulers of the World, was also apparently confiscated. It is not known whether the police have yet read the chapter that documents how the Americans, with help from MI6 and the SAS, created, armed and bankrolled the terrorists of the Islamic mujahedin, not least Osama Bin Laden.

CHECK IT

GLOBAL WARMING

Independent:Global warming: Will you listen now, America?

Two of the leading contenders to contest the next US presidential election have delivered an urgent warning to the United States on global warming, saying the evidence of climate change has become too stark to ignore and human activity is a major cause.

GEOPOLITICS

Independent:Russia and China join forces to challenge US dominance

Ten thousand Russian and Chinese troops were preparing to invade the Shandong Peninsula in the Yellow Sea yesterday in a first joint military exercise, seen as a reaction to US dominance of world affairs. The eight-day exercise, called Peace Mission 2005, will use air, sea and land forces to simulate a mission stabilising a restive country, and marks a new friendly phase in a bilateral relationship that has often been characterised by open hostility

AL-QAEDA FAKE

Zaman: Al-Qaeda, a Secret Service Operation?

Countries facing the al-Qaeda threat are awaiting the intelligence Turkish security is to provide. Amid the smoke from the fortuitous fire emerged the possibility that al-Qaeda may not be, strictly speaking, an organization but an element of an intelligence agency operation. Turkish intelligence specialists agree that there is no such organization as al-Qaeda. Rather, Al-Qaeda is the name of a secret service operation. The concept “fighting terror” is the background of the “low-intensity-warfare” conducted in the mono-polar world order. The subject of this strategy of tension is named as “al-Qaeda.”

Zaman: Sakra: i dispatched men to USA and UK for Terror Operations

Sakra who assumed a mysterious personality during the police interrogation confessed that the US Central Intelligence Agency, Syrian al-Mukhabarat, and the Turkish National Security Organization wanted to employ him as an intelligence agent. Security officials noted that whatever Sakra might tell during his trial could be very important, considering his obscure relations. “If during his trial, Sakra tells half of the information we heard from him, al-Qaeda’s real face will emerge. But what he has said so far has more to do about a formation permeated by secret services rather than the terror organization of al-Qaeda.”

Journal of Turkish Weekly: A ‘Strange’ Al Qaeda Leader: “I Don’t Pray, I Drink Alcohol’

NKARA - Luai Sakra, one of the 5 most important key figures in Al Qaeda, was captured last week by Turkish Police. Israel police was almost spoiling all operation, Turkish officials say. Sakra, who has been interrogated in Istanbul Police Department Anti Terror Office for 4 days has made many interesting confessions. He noted that he knew Muhammad Ata, planner of the attacks on the WTI and Pentagon. Sakra claimed that he has organized terrorist activities for Jihad but he said that he drinks alcohol and does not pray.

IRAQ

Independent: Iraqis extend deadline for new constitution
by Robert Fisk

AS usual in Iraq, a grotesque political failure was being dressed up as a semi-victory last night by an Iraqi government that controls little more than a few square miles of Baghdad.

For inside the infamous Green Zone - the castellated, concrete-barricaded pseudo-castle in which most of Iraq’s principal politicians are now forced to live - the almost equally infamous constitution, which was supposed to have completed its drafting yesterday, appeared to be falling to pieces.

IRAQ

Independent: Secrets of the morgue - Baghdad's body count by Robert Fisk

Bodies of 1,100 civilians brought to mortuary in July Pre-invasion, July figure was typically less than 200 Last Sunday alone, the mortuary received 36 bodies Up to 20 per cent of the bodies are never identified Many of the dead have been tortured or disfigured

We are not supposed to know that the Iraqi capital's death toll last month was only 700 short of the total American fatalities in Iraq since April of 2003. Of the dead, 963 were men - many with their hands bound, their eyes taped and bullets in their heads - and 137 women. The statistics are as shameful as they are horrifying. For these are the men and women we supposedly came to "liberate" - and about whose fate we do not care.

It is clear that death squads are roaming the streets of a city which is supposed to be under the control of the US military and the American-supported, elected government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Never in recent history has such anarchy been let loose on the civilians of this city - yet the Western and Iraqi authorities show no interest in disclosing the details. The writing of the new constitution - or the failure to complete it - now occupies the time of Western diplomats and journalists. The dead, it seems, do not count.

LONDON ATTACKS

Telegraph: Shot Brazilian 'Did Not Jump Barrier And Run'

The Brazilian electrician shot dead by police on the London Underground last month was being restrained when he was killed by officers from Scotland Yard's firearms unit, according to documents leaked last night.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head by two plainclothes policemen who had followed him on to the train at Stockwell station in the mistaken belief that he was a potential suicide bomber. Documents and photographs leaked to ITV News also confirmed that Mr de Menezes did not run from the police, as had been reported, had used his Tube pass to enter the station, rather than vault the barrier, and had taken a seat on the train before being grabbed by an officer.

He was wearing a light denim jacket and not as previously reported a padded coat which could have concealed explosives.

9/11

rense: 'Shut Him Down' Letting 9/11 Happen

A Seattle woman who was a close informant of former FBI agent and Al Qaeda hunter John O'Neill during the crucial months prior to the 9/11, said they both provided vital information in an attempt to stop the attack but were blocked by officials in the New York and Washington bureaus every step of the way.

GAZA PULLOUT

Uri Avnery: A Miracle of Rare Device

A picture engraved in memory: Ariel Sharon in the Knesset. Around him the storm is raging. The Members rush about, shouts ring out from all sides. The Member on the podium waves his arms, denounces and curses him. Sharon sitting at the government table. Alone. Immovable. Massive and passive. No muscle in his face is moving. Not even the nervous tic of his nose, that was once his trade-mark (and that many people considered a kind of lie-detector). A rock in the raging sea.
This is the man who decided alone to withdraw from Gaza and dismantle the settlements. The man who is implementing this practically alone. The man who will stand this coming week facing a hurricane that has no equal in the history of Israel.

PEAK OIL

BBC: Oil Tops $67 As US Demand Soars

The US thirst for gasoline and fears of a hurricane have pushed the oil market further into uncharted territory, with prices breaking the $67 mark on Friday.

US light crude closed $1 up at $66.80 a barrel, after hitting $67.10 earlier, while in London Brent crude closed $1.12 higher at $66.50.

Worldwide petrol and gasoline prices are at unprecedented levels.

USA VS. IRAN

Haaretz: US, Israel United Against Iran's Nuclear Ambitions - Bush

U.S. President George W. Bush said on Israeli television he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program.

"All options are on the table," Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said in the interview with Channel 1 TV broadcast on Friday.

In the interview, Bush said the United States and Israel "are united in our objective to make sure that Iran does not have a weapon."

Asked if that included the use of force, Bush replied: "As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country."

BBC: Germany Attacks US On Iran Threat

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has warned the US to back away from the possibility of military action against Iran over its nuclear programme.

His comments come a day after President Bush reiterated that force remained an option but only as a last resort.

ELECTIONS 2004

Commondreams: Election Fraud Continues in the US

New Data Shows Widespread Vote Manipulations in 2004

More importantly national exit polls showed Kerry winning in 2004. However, It was only in precincts where there were no paper trails on the voting machines that the exit polls ended up being different from the final count. According to Dr. Steve Freeman, a statistician at the University of Pennsylvania, the odds are 250 million to one that the exit polls were wrong by chance. In fact, where the exit polls disagreed with the computerized outcomes the results always favored Bush - another statistical impossibility

STREETART

Banksy: Banksy Bombs Separtion Wall

ABU GHRAIB

New York Times: Officials See Risk in the Release of Images of Iraq Prisoner Abuse

enior Pentagon officials have opposed the release of photographs and videotapes of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that they would incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk, according to documents unsealed in federal court in New York

"The Problem is not longer what they did in Abu Ghraib but the reaction of the people if they are allowed to know what was going on there"

KAMINSKI

Rense: Who's Wagging Whom?

"But what may be the even more significant aspect of the question "Who's Wagging Whom?" is the growing notion that world politics is not really determined by its recognizable political entities. People are beginning to figure out that it's not a simple matter of the capitalists vs. communists, whites vs. blacks, or North vs. South. It's not simply the U.S. vs. Germany and Japan, U.S. vs. USSR, or the free world vs. the supposed Muslim terror menace.

This growing notion senses a more authentic line of demarcation that identifies rich vs. poor as the more appropriate label between sides in this new war, which is also the old war, and the endless war."

USA VS. IRAN

Wayne Madsen: Bush/Cheney to grab Irans Oil in Nuclear Attack

August 10, 2005 -- U.S. prepared to grab Iran's southwestern majority Arab and oil-rich province after saturation bombing of Iranian nuclear, chemical, and command, control, communications & intelligence (C3I) targets. According to sources within the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND), the Bush administration has drawn up plans to hit Iran's nuclear, other WMD, and military sites with heavy saturation bombing using bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear weapons. The attack will be coordinated with urban and rural critical infrastructure sabotage carried out by elements of the People's Mujaheddin (MEK), Pentagon Special Operations units, and other Iranian dissident groups. The German intelligence comes from classified briefings provided by elements within the CIA that are concerned the neocons in the Bush administration will, in attacking Iran, set off a chain of events that will lead to world war.

9/11

Daily Mail: 911 On Trial

Note: So Far this is the largest Article ever printed by the UK Mainstream Media raising many of the serious questions about the 9/11 coverup

LONDON ATTACKS

Globalresearch: 7/7 Mock Terror Drill: What Relationship to the Real Time Terror Attacks?


fictional "scenario" of multiple bomb attacks on London's underground took place at exactly the same time as the bomb attack on July 7, 2005.

Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, a private firm on contract to the London Metropolitan Police, described in a BBC interview how he had organized and conducted the anti-terror drill, on behalf of an unnamed business client.

The fictional scenario was based on simultaneous bombs going off at exactly the same time at the underground stations where the real attacks were occurring:

POWER: At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now.

HOST: To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while you were running the exercise?

POWER: Precisely, and it was about half past nine this morning, we planned this for a company and for obvious reasons I don't want to reveal their name but they're listening and they'll know it. And we had a room full of crisis managers for the first time they'd met and so within five minutes we made a pretty rapid decision that this is the real one and so we went through the correct drills of activating crisis management procedures to jump from slow time to quick time thinking and so on.

(BBC Radio Interview, 7 July 2005)

WORLD WAR 3

Uruknet: Why Iran will lead to World War 3 by Mike Whitney

“As President Bush scans the world’s horizon there is no greater potential flashpoint than Iran, the President and his Foreign Policy team believe the Islamic regime in Tehran is actively pursuing nuclear weapons.” Chris Wallace, FOX News

The facts about Iran’s “alleged” nuclear weapons program have never been in dispute. There is no such program and no one has ever produced a shred of credible evidence to the contrary. That hasn’t stopped the Bush administration from making spurious accusations and threats; nor has it deterred America’s “imbedded” media from implying that Iran is hiding a nuclear weapons program from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). In fact, the media routinely features the unconfirmed claims of members of terrorist organizations, like the Mujahedin Klaq, (which is on the State Depts. list of terrorist organizations) to make it appear that Iran is secretively developing nuclear arms. These claims have proved to be entirely baseless and should be dismissed as just another part of Washington’s propaganda war.

MONSANTO

Greenpeace.org: Monsanto files patent for new invention: the pig

Geneva, Switzerland — It's official. Monsanto Corporation is out to own the world's food supply, the dangers of genetic engineering and reduced biodiversity notwithstanding, as they pig-headedly set about hog-tying farmers with their monopoly plans. We've discovered chilling new evidence of this in recent patents that seek to establish ownership rights over pigs and their offspring.

TERROR

Newsweek: CIA Commander: We Let bin Laden Slip Away

CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. "He was there," Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK

IRAQI RESISTANCE

Reuters: Security incidents in Iraq, Aug 7

TIKRIT - Bomber killed at least five people in an attack on police headquarters : BAQUBA - Bomb kills two Iraqi policemen and a civilian. BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed three Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes. BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed two Ministry of Oil employees. TAL AFAR - Bomb kills two Iraqi civilians. SAMARRA - The bodies of two police officials were found in Samarra

GALLOWAY

ICH: Straight-shootin' George Galloway by Mike Whitney

"I am utterly against the punishing of innocent people for the crimes of the guilty, whether it is done on the underground of London or the streets of Falluja by George Bush's air force".

George Galloway MP George Galloway is quite a guy.

His trip to the Middle East is causing a ruckus back in London, where his criticism of Bush and Blair is appearing like a spread-sheet on the front-page of the tabloids. Congrats, George; those two deserve a good lambasting. Yesterday he fired-off another barrage, landing a direct hit on Prime Minister Milquetoast and his Texas-twin. He said,

"There's far more blood on the hands of George Bush and Tony Blair than there is on the hands of the murderers who killed those people in London."

Ka-boom! Right on target.

Galloway was stellar; praising the Iraqi resistance as "martyrs" and telling them that they "are not just defending Iraq, but defending the whole world against American hegemony."

Bulls-eye.

ENGLAND

Independent: Intelligence chiefs warn Blair of home-grown ' insurgency'

Intelligence chiefs are warning Tony Blair that Britain faces a full-blown Islamist insurgency, sustained by thousands of young Muslim men with military training now resident in this country. The grim possibility that the two London attacks were not simply a sporadic terror campaign is being discussed at the highest levels in Whitehall. Fears of a third strike remain high this weekend, based on concrete evidence supplied by an intercepted text message and the interrogation of a terror suspect being held outside Britain, say US reports.