.....................................................................................................................

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2970205.stm

'Bunker buster' missiles aim at Moon... The proposed mission is called Polar Night, a lunar orbiter that would fire instrumented missiles towards the surface of the Moon. Tests performed recently in New Mexico have shown that scientific equipment could survive the rapid deceleration of striking the ground and being buried a few metres beneath the surface of the Moon. The researchers hope that Nasa will approve their mission early next year for a 2007 launch... "Polar Night would conduct a highly detailed remote sensing survey of the poles to refine our understanding of the temperatures and distribution of hydrogen, then directly sample the polar ice with three hard-landing probes," Professor Paul Lucey of the University of Hawaii told BBC News Online. "The probes are based on bunker-buster penetrators."

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http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030425024154.jypfg9c0.html

North Korea said Friday that it was pushing ahead building military "deterrence" a day after US sources said the Stalinist state had admitted it possessed nuclear weapons... "Our strong military forces have emerged as the surest means to guarantee peace and prevent a war at this age of confusion," the daily said in an editorial monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We will continue exerting all our efforts to build up defense and prepare military deterrence that will destroy any kind of enemy weapons and aggressions."

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http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/286739.html

South Korean and Japanese experts expressed doubt Friday about the extent of North Korea's nuclear program... "It's a sheer lie. There is no sign whatsoever that North Korea has restarted its reprocessing facility," Kang [Jungmin, a nuclear analyst in Seoul] said. "Even if it has restarted its facility, it would take them four or five months to complete the reprocessing."

...On Thursday, the North's Korean People's Army vowed to "put all people under arms and turn the whole country into a fortress," and urged its soldiers to become "human bombs and fighters ready to blow up themselves" to protect leader Kim Jong Il. "If the U.S. imperialists and their followers intrude into even an inch of the inviolable sky, land and sea of the [North]... the KPA will deal merciless deadly blows at the aggressors and achieve a final victory in the confrontation with the U.S.," North Korean Defense Minister Kim Il Chol said in a speech reported by KCNA, the North's news agency.

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j042503.html

North Korea could nuke California – but do we really have to cite recent polls showing the increasing popularity of the GOP in the Golden State to deter the President from writing us off?

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/25/1050777410835.html

Soldiers returning to Britain from the Gulf will be offered tests to check levels of depleted uranium in their bodies to assess whether they are in danger of suffering kidney damage and lung cancer as a result of exposure, the Ministry of Defence says... A ministry spokeswoman said that if soldiers followed instructions correctly and wore respirators in areas where depleted uranium might have been used they would not suffer dangerous exposure.

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,943161,00.html

Tony Blair took repeated secret advice from the former American president Bill Clinton on how to unlock the diplomatic impasse between Europe and the US in the build-up to the war on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.

...Mr Blair and Mr Clinton had a warm, mutually supportive relationship during the latter's presidency.

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http://www.sunspot.net/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=bal%2Dmd%2Edelgaudio24apr24

A prominent Republican fund-raiser who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people" pleaded

guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to production of child pornography.

...Delgaudio, 50, of Burke, Va., is a frequent talk-radio guest and national figure in conservative politics. He is president of the Legal Affairs Council, a group that

helped pay the legal bills of former Reagan administration officials Oliver L. North and Caspar W. Weinberger after they were charged in connection with the

Iran-contra affair.

...As part of his restitution to the community, his attorney said Delgaudio would contribute $5,000 to "young mothers who are in distress and in need."

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/04/24/dogs/index_np.html

In the uproar over Rick Santorum's remarks, many if not all of us seem to have missed the most intriguing segment of the interview that created the controversy... The AP reporter who had innocently asked whether the Pennsylvania Republican would outlaw gay sex [received this answer]:

Santorum: In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality --

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

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http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,943416,00.html

American secretary of state Colin Powell has written to Spain's foreign minister defending the decision by US troops to open fire on a hotel in Baghdad used as a base for foreign journalists. Two journalists were killed, including a Spanish cameraman, and a further four injured when a US tank shelled the Palestine Hotel on April 8... "Our review of the April 8 incident indicates that the use of force was justified and the amount of force was proportionate to the threat against United States forces," Mr Powell wrote in a letter to Ana Palacio dated April 21.

...On the same day as the attack on the Palestine Hotel, a US aircraft fired two missiles at the Baghdad bureau of Arabic satellite TV channel al-Jazeera, killing the station's correspondent, Tareq Ayoub. American forces also opened fire on the offices of Abu Dhabi television on the same day.

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030424221200226

BAGHDAD (Agencies) — Every morning Bakr Al-Saied wakes with only one thought: to find the 130 children who fled the Al-Rahma orphanage and took to Baghdad’s mean streets while their home was being looted and burned... “After the Americans came, an official from the Social Ministry came to the gate and told us to open everything. He took the television and the equipment and food and drove away in his car,” he said. “Then the other people came. They broke everything. They set the pharmacy on fire. Many of the children were screaming and crying. They started to run away and we couldn’t stop them,” he said. There had been 160 children at Al-Rahma. Now, about 30 have come back.

...At the door to Al-Rahma, two serious looking men now stand guard with Kalashnikov rifles. They say they will shoot anyone who tries to loot the place again as it starts to be rebuilt and the children come back. Asked whether they expect the missing ones to be found, they simply say “Inshallah” — if God wills it. But they add grimly that if they don’t, there will be more orphans from the war to take their places.

Meanwhile, a United Nations watchdog warned yesterday that war damage to sanitation and electricity systems, coupled with worsening pollution, had aggravated Iraq’s environmental crisis and posed a threat to health. The report, issued in Geneva by the UN Environment Program, called for urgent action to restore Iraq’s water and sewerage system, clean up pollution “hot spots” and eradicate piles of rubbish and medical waste.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/25/1050777410844.html

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi information minister whose briefings made him a worldwide celebrity during the war and who is high on a list of people wanted by the United States, tried to hand himself in via a contact with Portuguese journalists, a newspaper reported.

The Portuguese daily Diario de Noticias said on Thursday that a family claiming to be sheltering Sahaf, in a poor neighbourhood of Baghdad, had been in contact with two journalists... A member of the family had negotiated with the reporters for five days... The reporters said they had been promised an interview with Sahaf in exchange for them helping him hand himself over safely to US forces. However, at the time and place agreed for the interview, only the person they had spoken to turned up, and he told the reporters to forget about the whole affair and not to mention it to anyone.

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED25Ak02.html

Chalabi, 58, has long been the poster boy of Iraqi exiles and its most public face. It is fair to say that he is better known outside Iraq than inside it... Although his father and grandfather once held high-ranking ministerial posts in the Iraqi government, they were forced to flee in 1958, when Chalabi was 13.

...If Chalabi wants to make his way in Iraq he will have to rely on US military forces. But that is certain to cement his reputation among Iraqis as a tool of the Americans; not something that will do him much good, unless he prefers being known as the Karzai of Iraq, a la Hamad Karzai in Afghanistan.

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http://www.itv.com/news/447924.html

Retired US general Jay Garner has said... that Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, is not Washington's choice to lead Iraq... Mr Garner also repeated that Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi is not recognised by the US as mayor of Baghdad and will be removed if Iraqis reject him.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/25/1050777415465.html

Former Iraqi spy chief Farouk Hijazi has been captured by US forces in Iraq, a US official said yesterday. Hijazi is Iraq's ambassador to Tunisia... He is "the biggest catch so far I would say," former CIA Director James Woolsey told CNN.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20030424/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

LIMA, Ohio - President Bush raised the possibility Thursday that any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were destroyed before or during the U.S.-led war... "But we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth."

...He also said U.S. troops would remain in Iraq "as long as necessary.... Who knows?"

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34715-2003Apr24?language=printer

CANTON, Ohio, April 24 -- Confronting stiff Senate resistance to his proposed $726,000,000,000.00, 10-year tax cut, President Bush visited Ohio today to urge lawmakers to support his "robust package" instead of the "little bitty" $350,000,000,000.00 tax cut senators approved.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s838968.htm

The United States is interested in developing a "non-lethal" landmine that would zap intruders with an electric shock, New Scientist reports... The system would be based on a prototype gadget, the Taser Area Denial Device (TADD), which in turn is designed on the Taser, an electric shock gun widely used by police forces around the world... TADD has up to 12 pairs of darts that can be fired independently at different targets, with a battery capable of delivering up to 200 three-second shocks of 50,000 volts.

...Tasertron is hoping to sell TADD to prisons... For instance, if there is a jail breakout, a guard would trigger the device to immobilise escapees. The Pentagon, though, is interested in an automatic version that would be a de-facto landmine, dispersed to create no-go areas.

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030424220659652

RAMALLAH (Agencies) — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat bowed yesterday to key Cabinet demands from his reformist premier-designate, clearing the way for the release of an international plan to tackle 30 months of Middle East bloodshed... The United States swiftly said it welcomed the deal and looked forward to working with Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen.

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http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/5713783.htm

TEHRAN, Iran -Iran on Thursday brushed off accusations by Washington that it was interfering in Iraq, saying that the United States was the one occupying the country and should be looking to cooperate with Tehran rather than rebuking it.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35146-2003Apr24?language=printer

The death rate for the worldwide outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has fluctuated for months, has recently begun what looks like an ominous

rise... Although the rate of deaths from the strange new illness initially hovered as low as 3 percent, it has soared to twice as much in recent days, prompting questions about whether the virus is growing more lethal, spreading faster or striking more vulnerable people.

...She rising numbers are cause for concern for three reasons. First, the current -- higher -- death rate is statistically more reliable than the previous -- lower --

estimates. Second, as hospitals learn to cope with the outbreak and doctors find ways to treat or stabilize patients, the death rate ought to head down, not up. Finally, large numbers of cases so far, especially in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore, have involved hospital workers, who tend to be younger and healthier. As the SARS virus has spread to the general population in some places, it may strike more vulnerable elderly people and increase in lethality.

...In Canada, the death rate yesterday as reported by the World Health Organization was 10.71 percent, one of the highest in the world, with most of the cases in the

Toronto area.

...One thing that worries health officials about SARS is that so far, it seems to be considerably more deadly than influenza... The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19 had a death rate estimated to have been 2 percent. It, however, killed perhaps 25 million people worldwide because it quickly swept the globe and infected millions. "What made it such a big killer was that so many people were infected," said Stephen S. Morse, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the Mailman

School of Public Health of Columbia University.

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http://www.mindspring.com/~mmckenna/stories.html

There has never been an epidemic like the 1918 flu. The medieval Black Death killed as many people ---possibly 40,000,000 Europeans, one out of every three ---but

it took 150 years to do it. The Spanish flu was more efficient. From March 1918 to the following February, it sickened and killed families, cities, regiments on the battlefield: 675,000 Americans, 90,000 people in the Philippines... 20,000,000 in India [that's right, 20 million]... The toll was so great that it reduced average U.S. life expectancy by 13 years... The Spanish flu killed more Americans than World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.

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http://www.parkinson.org/pdflu.htm

Viruses can cause Parkinson Disease (PD)... Between 1918-1926, 15,000,000 people world-wide developed encephalitis, sleeping sickness... Of the people who survived the 1918-1926 encephalitis, 5,000,000 later developed PD... It’s never been clear whether the same virus caused encephalitis in some people and flu in others, or whether the flu virus transformed itself into the encephalitis virus, or whether they were two separate viruses.

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http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/26Apr2003_biz07.html

Anti-virus software firm Sophos has issued a warning of a new computer worm that takes advantage of growing concern over the biological Sars virus. Known as W32/Coronex-A, the mass-mailer worm forwards itself to all contacts in Outlook address books and attempts to dupe innocent users into opening an attachment offering details on the Sars epidemic. The Coronex worm uses a variety of subject lines, message bodies and attachment names to entice users into double-clicking including: "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome," "Sars Virus" and Hongkong.exe.

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http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=84958

Unicef has reported an outbreak of Black Fever and other diseases in Iraq, in which children will be the biggest victims, because of the lack of clean water and health care, coupled with a breakdown of all civic services. The organisation has received reports of six fatalities from Black Fever and an increase in the number of those infected all around the south of Iraq.

A dramatic increase in diarrhoea has also been recorded with 50 cases reported in one day alone in some parts of the country. In some children's hospitals, 70 per cent of patients are suffering from diarrhoea in a country where half of the population is below 18 years, said Rawhi Abeido, a spokesman for Unicef. The situation is expected to worsen with the rising temperatures and the fact that the children of Iraq are inherently weak because of the years of sanctions, and after three wars in 20 years said Abeido. "The average Iraqi child suffers from 15 bouts of severe diarrhoea before the war, which is higher than average, and with the lack of clean water the situation will be worse," he said.

Black Fever, a waterborne disease also know as laeshmaniasis, can be fatal and children under five are the most vulnerable. Abeido pointed out that Unicef has delivered some medication for the infection transmitted by the bite of sand flies. The common symptoms of the disease include prolonged irregular fever, enlarged spleen and weight loss.

...Further complicating the situation is that the chlorine factory in Basra, which supplied the south, has been burnt down.

...Giving an example of the bad situation, Abeido said at Saddam Paediatric Hospital on the western side of the Tigris, there have been so many deaths that the hospital staff are burying the dead in the hospital garden. They have no means to transport the bodies to a graveyard.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2972613.stm

People in Iraq need urgent advice on avoiding exposure to depleted uranium (DU), the United Nations has said. It wants the US and UK to provide precise details of sites targeted with DU weapons.

...The US says it has no plans for any DU clean-up in Iraq. It does not test all exposed veterans. DU, left over after natural uranium has been enriched, is 1.7 times denser than lead, and effective for destroying armoured vehicles. When a weapon with a DU tip or core strikes a solid object, like the side of a tank, it goes straight through before erupting in burning vapour which settles as dust.