~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.harpers.org/harpers-index/listing.php3

Fine levied on three Norwegians in 2001 for throwing paper airplanes at the U.S. embassy : $350

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/22/1053585644225.html

Norwegians, proud of their role as a global peacemaker, were puzzled and concerned yesterday that a leading al-Qaeda member singled out their country in a terrorist threat. The Arab television station Al-Jazeera aired an audio tape purportedly by Ayman al-Zawahri, the top lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, urging renewed attacks... The inclusion of the Scandinavian nation in his warning drew questions.

...Brynjar Lia, a terrorism expert... said there were plenty of reasons for radical Muslims to hate Norway as an... overwhelmingly Lutheran kingdom.

...Others said al-Zawahri may have confused Norway with neighbouring Denmark.

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http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-colombia20may20,0,4280173.story

SARAVENA, Colombia — President Alvaro Uribe's attempt to crack down on leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups by creating a special militarized zone in this war-torn region has failed, top human rights and government officials declared Monday. Instead of reducing violence in the oil-rich province of Arauca, where Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum operates [and where US forces protect the oil], the increased military presence has only intensified the conflict, the officials said.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/22/1053585647750.html

Elite Colombian troops eager to pocket $14,000,000.00 in rebel cash threatened to kill reluctant comrades before plunging into an orgy involving prostitutes, whisky and luxury goods. Feverish negotiations took place after 147 soldiers stumbled on the cash buried in plastic containers in a jungle minefield on Good Friday... "They had to take a share under threat," said Colonel Ramiro Gaitan, commander of the crack 6th Mobile Brigade, to which the renegades belonged... Some bought expensive sunglasses and clothes and went on trips to restaurants and brothels, drinking and showering prostitutes with dollar bills.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3050317.stm

A small sample of Afghan civilians have shown "astonishing" levels of uranium in their urine, an independent scientist says... But he found no trace of the depleted uranium (DU) some scientists believe is implicated in Gulf War syndrome. Other researchers suggest new types of radioactive weapons may have been used in Afghanistan.

...The Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) based in Washington DC... says: "Independent monitoring of the weapon types and delivery systems indicate that radioactive, toxic uranium alloys and hard-target uranium warheads were being used by the coalition forces." ...The UMRC sent urine specimens from 17 Afghans for analysis at an independent UK laboratory. It says: "Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium internal contamination. The results were astounding: the donors presented concentrations of toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times greater than in the Gulf veterans tested in 1999. If UMRC's Nangarhar findings are corroborated in other communities across Afghanistan, the country faces a severe public health disaster. Every subsequent generation is at risk."

...He told BBC News Online: "In Afghanistan there were no oil fires, no pesticides, nobody had been vaccinated - all explanations suggested for the Gulf veterans' condition. But people had exactly the same symptoms. I'm certainly not saying Afghanistan was a vast experiment with new uranium weapons. But use your common sense."

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-05-22-iran-alqaeda_x.htm

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran demanded on Thursday that Washington prove its claims that Tehran harbors al-Qaeda terrorists.

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2795836

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Iran said U.S. allegations it harbored al Qaeda members were based on faulty intelligence.

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http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-iran22may22,0,7638374.story

Iran has arrested several Al Qaeda operatives and they are undergoing interrogation in a new sweep that Washington is fully aware of, a senior Iranian official said Wednesday.

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http://www.harpers.org/weekly-review/

L. Paul Bremer, the new American overseer of Iraq, informed Iraqi leaders that the United States and Britain had changed their minds about setting up an interim government made up of Iraqis and that he would remain in control until further notice. Bremer toured Mosul and praised it as "a great example of embryonic democracy"; elsewhere in the city a crowd chanted "America is the enemy of God."

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http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2003/5/22/technology/22bailout&sec=technology

The Pentagon made an interesting choice when it hired a US company to build a small wireless phone network in Iraq: MCI, also known as WorldCom Inc, perpetrator of the biggest accounting fraud in American business and not exactly a big name in cellular service... WorldCom revealed its $11,000,000,000.00 accounting fraud and plunged into bankruptcy last year. "We don't understand why MCI would be awarded this business given its status as having committed the largest corporate fraud in history," said AT&T Corp spokesman Jim McGann... "The last time I looked, MCI's never built out a wireless network," said Len Lauer, head of Sprint Corp's wireless division.

...The contract with WorldCom... was not put up for bids. "We were not aware of it until it showed up in some news reports," Motorola spokesman Norm Sandler said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2930940.stm

All members of the UN Security Council have voted in favour of a resolution on Iraq, except Syria which shunned the session... Wednesday's government-run Al-Thawra newspaper made very clear what Syria thought of the resolution. Al-Thawra said it was meant to give the US and Britain full control over Iraq's oil.

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the financial times pipes up

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1051390259396&p=1012571727172

The United Nations' decision on Thursday to lift sanctions on Iraq should remove a big legal impediment to foreign companies that have been pushing to do business in the country... It will also free billions of dollars in frozen assets and future oil revenues from the UN's control and place it at the disposal of coalition forces.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/international/worldspecial/22KURD.html?ex=1054627165&ei=1&en=def819710f1dfd99

ERBIL, Iraq, May 21 — The two main Kurdish political parties sharply criticized an American proposal today for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq, saying it would take away $4,000,000,000.00 that rightfully belongs to the Kurds. In a letter to L. Paul Bremer III, the chief allied administrator in Iraq, two leaders, Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, expressed outrage over a plan to redistribute unspent money from the oil-for-food program.

The United Nations let Iraq sell its oil [and] the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, semiautonomous after an uprising in 1991, received 13 percent from sales of the oil. The Kurds' money — $4,000,000,000.00 since 1996 — accumulated in a separate bank account. Now the United States is trying to get the United Nations to cancel economic sanctions [and] the money, according to the resolution, would be combined and transferred to an internationally monitored Iraqi Development Fund.

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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/1918624

UNITED NATIONS -- Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros said Tuesday he was setting up a watchdog group to guard against any abuses in how the United States manages Iraq's oil resources while it occupies Baghdad.

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,87584,00.html

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Thursday that U.S. plans cannot be judged "against a standard of unachievable perfection."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/21/international/worldspecial/21WEAP.html?ex=1054562112&ei=1&en=aff3cf207bfef3e4

United States intelligence agencies have concluded that two mysterious trailers found in Iraq were mobile units to produce germs for weapons, but they have found neither biological agents nor evidence that the equipment was used to make such arms, according to senior administration officials.

...The paper called the trailers an "ingeniously simple, self-contained bioprocessing system," one official said.

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http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030522-120239-8668r.htm

BAGHDAD — U.S. military inspection teams have concluded that material looted from Iraq's main nuclear facility at Tuwaitha poses little or no danger to the people who stole it.

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http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-iraqnuke22may22001423,0,1600144.story

RIYADH VILLAGE, Iraq — Elifat Rusum Saber, 14, has been nauseated, tired and bleeding from the nose since her brother brought home metal and chemicals from the neighboring Tuwaitha nuclear research center two days after the fall of Baghdad... A few blocks away, through trash-strewn streets reeking from open sewers, Hassan Aouda Saffah is recovering from a rash that left white blotches on the dark skin of his right arm. The rash appeared the same day he took a dusty generator from the nuclear site to restore some of the electricity the village lost during the war.

Dr. Jaafar Nasser Suhayb, who runs a nearby clinic, said that over a five-day period he had treated about 20 patients from the neighborhood near Tuwaitha for similar symptoms — shortness of breath, nausea, severe nosebleeds and itchy rashes. Suhayb is worried that the residents may be suffering from radiation poisoning.

...Since early April, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has repeatedly requested that the U.S. secure nuclear material at Tuwaitha... American troops are now guarding the research center, but the looting has continued... Army Staff Sgt. Robert Gasman says... looters break through nightly; they are often released within a few hours of being caught. "There's no way we can catch them all," said Gasman, from the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade. "For all I know, there are looters back there now."

Initially, thieves merely cut through the fence. Recently, they have stolen portions of the fence itself... Most looters have been more interested in the containers on the site than in the radioactive material inside them, and they dumped the contents on the ground, residents said. Since the health problems began, some people have been returning stolen items to the nearby Al Hudaa Mosque... Residents are afraid to enter a nearby school, where equipment from the nuclear site is stored, saying the proliferation of dead flies proves it is lethal.

...The U.S. security force doesn't even bother with squatters such as Fathyla Tharib Shala, who says she was forced to take refuge in the [Tuwaitha] guard post because of poverty... She has lived in the post with her husband, three sons and 11 grandchildren since she was evicted for failing to pay rent two days after Baghdad fell... [Her] grandson Yasser Satar Abed Karim, 9, amuses himself by submerging his body in a 2-foot-square hole in the ground filled with murky water, which residents fear may be contaminated. Despite the health concerns, Shala uses the water for cooking... "It's the only water I can use."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0522/p01s02-woiq.html

BAGHDAD – Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country... "Thousands are dead, thousands are missing, thousands are captured," says Haidar Taie, head of the tracing department for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad. "It is a big disaster."

...Human Rights Watch... have found evidence of "massive use of cluster bombs in densely populated areas," according to Human Rights Watch researcher Marc Galasco, contradicting coalition claims that such munitions were used only in deserted areas. Dispersing thousands of bomblets that shoot out shards of shrapnel over an area the size of a football field, such weapons become indiscriminate and thus illegal under the laws of war, if used in civilian neighborhoods.

...Civilian victims of US military action in Afghanistan... are also supposed to receive assistance. So far, however, USAID has not disbursed any of that money.

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http://www.harpers.org/

Chance that the United States bombed Iraq on any given day last year : 1 in 6

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-689414,00.html

The Arab Saraefien tribe... had survived unscathed through the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq. As opponents of Saddam they even welcomed the American invasion. But it is the peace... that has destroyed their lives. On April 11, two days after the fall of Saddam, Kurdish fighters entered Khanaqin, ordering all 15,000 Arabs to leave within 48 hours... After seven days of travelling by foot and by donkey from Khanaqin, 1,500 of the tribe ended up in the abandoned prison, 30 miles north of Baghdad. They had nowhere else to go. They are part of the rising tide of internal refugees in Iraq

...The tribe has appealed for help to the coalition forces, but no one has even visited them. They have eaten or sold almost all their animals, and have only a week left of food. Now they hate the Americans... Hadeb Hamed Hamed, the tribe’s sheikh, sat on mats on the prison officer’s porch, and said: “The Americans promised us food and medicine and freedom. But we have lost our homes, our land, our crops. Now we live in prison with nothing, and they ignore us. It is the allied forces that have done this to us. When we run out of food, I don’t know what we will do.”

In fact, he does know, because with starvation looming, he has been talking about it with the other elders. “If we don’t have a solution, we will fight the Americans even if they kill us. It is better than sitting here with nothing and just dying,” he said.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-689407,00.html

THE most senior Republican authority on foreign relations in Congress has warned President Bush that the United States is on the brink of catastrophe in Iraq. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Washington was in danger of creating “an incubator for terrorist cells and activity.”

...Mr Lugar’s warning came as it emerged that the CIA has launched a review of its pre-war intelligence on Iraq to check if the US exaggerated the threats posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The review is intended to determine if the Pentagon manipulated the assessment of intelligence material for political ends.

...Mr Lugar also [mentioned] Mr Bush’s victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln earlier this month, delivered under a banner that read: “Mission Accomplished”.

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12983218&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=BRITISH%20TROOPS%20STEP%20IN%20TO%20BAIL%20OUT%20YANKS

COALITION chiefs plan to send 5,500 British Paras to Baghdad to save US troops from losing control of the Iraqi capital. Central Command top brass are terrified that war-weary American soldiers in Saddam Hussein's former power base have turned the population against them. Little if any peacekeeping experience and only minimal training have been blamed for the growing disaster.

...[A] British military source said: "Nobody is saying the US can't do soldiering. But war fighting and peace keeping are very different." But the likely plan has also caused fury among the Paras, who have already been overseas and in Iraq for almost five months. Many are desperate to come home. The 5,500-strong brigade - which includes the Parachute Regiment's three battalions - are still on peace keeping duties around Basra.

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http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030522-010744-6001r.htm

The U.S. military deployed air-defense missiles and fighter jets in Washington for an exercise amid heightened threats of terrorism... The Defense Intelligence Agency notified U.S. military commanders Tuesday night... that the likelihood of an attack is high.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20030521/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terror_warning

The FBI warned anew Wednesday that the bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco could be a "possible prelude" to a terrorist attack in the United States... [and] acknowledged Wednesday the information was nonspecific, pointing to no particular time, target or method of attack.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,960922,00.html

The biggest US defence budget since the cold war is being rammed through Congress by the Republican majority this week despite persistent questions over waste and the Pentagon's own admission that it cannot account for more than a trillion dollars. The 2004 military spending request of over $400,000,000,000.00 does not include the occupation of Iraq, which will be covered by a later, supplemental bill of up to $35,000,000,000.00. Very little of the money will go towards the war on terrorism or homeland security, which are principally paid for by other agencies like the FBI and the CIA.

...The lion's share of the money is being spent on traditional weapons such as the jet fighters and submarines originally designed to fight the Soviet Union... Defence contractors have been celebrating the budget's generosity. Ronald Sugar, the chief executive of Los Angeles-based defence company Northrup Grumman, recently said he saw "very significant growth in sales and earnings" as a result of the hikes in budgets.

The budget is being accompanied by a Pentagon bill entitled "Defence Transformation for the 21st Century" which would significantly reduce congressional oversight on military spending.

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http://www.harpers.org/harpers-index/listing.php3?sub_date=2003-02-01

Estimated number of asteroids whose orbits Earth crosses each year: 20,000,000

Ratio of U.S. spending on tracking asteroids this year to spending on missile defense: 1:1900

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http://www.dmregister.com/opinion/stories/c5917686/21304375.html

All wars need their tales of heroism, and Americans got the perfect one in the daring military rescue of 19-year-old Private First Class Jessica Lynch from a hospital bed in Iraq... What actually happened may be a far cry from what you've been told.

According to reports first in the Toronto Star and later on the BBC and ABC Nightly News... there never was a need for the April 1 raid on the Nasiriyah hospital... Not only was there no enemy fire against [the 'rescue' team], but hospital staff had tried to deliver Lynch in an ambulance to American troops nearly two days earlier and were forced to retreat after being fired on.

Other pieces of the Lynch story already have morphed several times since the initial report that she was wounded by gunfire and stabbing when her unit, the 507th Maintenance Company, was ambushed... Early intelligence reports said Lynch took part in a gunfight and had been stabbed to death. She was admitted to the hospital suffering from a head wound, several fractures and a spinal injury, but her injuries are now said to have not been life-threatening, and may have resulted from falling out of her vehicle.

...The government has kept Lynch from the press, saying she can't remember what happened... A Pentagon official denied the Pentagon was responsible for putting out misinformation, and says it never released a report about Lynch.

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http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/4925481?source=Evening%20Standard

A senior British officer celebrated as a hero in the Iraq war today strongly denied accusations that he is a "war criminal". Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins, 43, stands accused of a number of "serious breaches" of the Geneva Convention after claims that he punched, kicked and threatened Iraqi prisoners of war to force information from them and that he opened fire needlessly. The allegations are now being looked into by the Army's Special Investigations Branch.

...The Royal Irish Regiment officer, who led his men in battles across southern Iraq, is also accused of: Pistol-whipping an Iraqi civic leader, gashing his head; Shooting the tyres of vehicles when there was no threat to British or American life and there were no weapons visible, in contravention of the Army's rules of engagement; Firing at the ground near the feet of Iraqi civilians to intimidate them; Threatening local townspeople to force them to obey his demands.

...Col Collins, a father of five, has now left the RIR [royal irish (sic) regiment] and is in line for a gallantry medal... He has also been selected for promotion to full colonel on a salary of £55,000 a year.

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http://www.turks.us/article.php?story=20030522201930690

LONDON, May 22 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair denied on Thursday, May 22, press reports based on a leaked memo from the British attorney general that the role of the U.S.-Anglo forces in post-war Iraq was illegal. Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith had indicated in the memo leaked to the New Statesman magazine that a further U.N. mandate was necessary to authorize any activities in post-war Iraq beyond maintaining law and order. Asked about the memo, Blair insisted at his monthly televised press conference at Downing Street that the government had acted legally throughout.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=408114

Tony Blair has been accused of misleading MPs [members of parliament] and concealing the tapping of politicians' telephones by the security services. The Prime Minister promised when he came to power in 1997 that no MPs' telephones would be tapped... But two MPs - one a minister - are known to have had their phone conversations recorded by the security services... Mr Blair has refused to make a statement on the tapping of phones.

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http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1051390270274

Tony Blair yesterday pledged more laws imposing further curbs on asylum seekers in spite of welcoming new figures showing a fall in applications... Iraqis... together with [refugees] from Somalia and Zimbabwe - represent the highest number of applicants.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3041179.stm

Just a couple of hours after White House press secretary Ari Fleischer announced he was standing down, the [British] prime minister's official spokesman Godric Smith revealed he too was quitting... It must be planetary alignments.

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1052251623253&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

A study by the RAND think-tank, strongly endorsed by former U.S. senator Sam Nunn and his non-profit group The Nuclear Threat Initiative, paints a devastating picture of Russia's strategic capabilities and challenges assumptions about the degree to which better U.S.-Russian relations have improved security... The chilling assessment came as the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate cleared the way for research and development of a new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons... New Scientist magazine, meanwhile, reports that the British government is recruiting scientists for its nuclear weapons program.

...Nunn said... "on balance my belief is that the risk has increased for a perfect storm in terms of a nuclear miscalculation or an accident." The RAND study cites three reasons for this: First, the United States and Russia retain large nuclear forces on "hair-trigger" alert, meaning they could be launched in minutes and destroy both societies in an hour. Second, economic and social problems have led Russia to rely increasingly on nuclear arms... Third, the vulnerability of Russian forces is enhanced by the increasing capability of U.S. forces to deliver accurate and devastating strikes, the report concluded.

...The report foresaw three scenarios: an intentional unauthorized nuclear weapon launch by a terrorist or rogue commander; a missile launched by mistake; or an intentional launch of nuclear weapons based on incorrect or incomplete information.

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http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=7&id=260479

BEIJING — The U.S. Defense Department dispatched a research team to Japan and South Korea from late last year through early this year to collect information on the geological structure of North Korea, Japanese government sources said Tuesday... Experts said it is possible the United States began the geological survey with limited air strikes on North Korea in mind, given that it has important military facilities underground.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/21/1053196642080.html

The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has indicated his country would be prepared to make a pre-emptive strike against a foreign threat... Mr Koizumi also advocated amending Japan's war-renouncing constitution to allow its 240,000-strong Self-Defence Forces to be called the military.

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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_21-5-2003_pg1_7

WASHINGTON: The US Central Command (CENTCOM) has removed all information on Pakistan from its website, after a report in Daily Times on May 18 saying that by joining the US-led war in Afghanistan, Pakistan had lost $10,000,000,000.00... Barring the references to Pakistan, the rest of the website is untouched.

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http://www.msnbc.com/news/916720.asp

Two weeks ago, the Pentagon called the French Embassy’s military attaché here to say that France had been disinvited from participation in a long-scheduled Air Force exercise called Red Flag to be held next year in Nevada. JUST TWO weeks before, France had been informed that the Defense Department would limit its participation in next month’s Paris Air Show... All planes flown over from the United States would stay on the ground during the exhibition.

...The defense spokesman also said that the Pentagon was still “in the gathering stage and the intelligence phase” of investigating a media report that France had provided French passports and visas for fleeing Iraqis... But a spokesman for Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who had asked the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the passport report, said yesterday the department had determined there was no truth to it.

...When six French journalists, arriving at Los Angeles International Airport this month to cover a video game trade show, were detained and expelled for not having visas... But Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based international organization that monitors freedom of the media, protested in a letter to Howard Leach, the U.S. ambassador to France, that the journalists were “treated like criminals — subjected to several body searches, handcuffed, locked up and fingerprinted.” ...A Homeland Security spokesman said yesterday that... handcuffing expelled travelers during transport to a detention facility... was standard operating procedure.

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http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%7E1865%7E1405464,00.html

Assailed Tuesday by civil libertarians, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said his California anti-terror intelligence center never should have issued a warning of "potential violence" by anti-war protesters at the Port of Oakland, where police five days later fired wooden slugs at activists... Lockyer stopped shy of saying the California Department of Justice shouldn't monitor protesters or issue warnings about their activities. But he pointedly disavowed his own spokesman's comments drawing parallels between anti-war protesters and terrorists.

CATIC [California Anti-Terrorism Information Center] spokesman Mike Van Winkle, an employee of the state Justice Department, said last week that "you can almost argue that a protest against (a war ostensibly against international terrorism) is a terrorist act."

"I disassociate myself strenuously from his comments," Lockyer said. "They do not reflect my philosophy or the policy of this administration."

...Lockyer has instructed CATIC director Ed Manavian to produce explicit intelligence-gathering rules "that are respectful of peaceful protest activities, to delineate with some rigor the line between peaceful assembly and criminal activity." Lockyer plans to review those rules with the ACLU.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17171-2003May20?language=printer

The Justice Department has used many of the anti-terrorism powers granted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pursue defendants for crimes unrelated to terrorism, including drug violations, credit card fraud and bank theft, according to a government accounting released yesterday.

In a 60-page report to the House Judiciary Committee, Justice officials also confirmed for the first time that nearly 50 defendants were secretly detained as material witnesses in connection with the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. The government has not previously characterized how many defendants had been held.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/21/international/worldspecial/21PATR.html?ex=1054526215&ei=1&en=7477aa57239ec98a

In the most detailed public accounting of how it had used its expanded powers to fight terrorism, the Justice Department released information today showing that federal agents had conducted hundreds of bugging and surveillance operations and visited numerous libraries and mosques... Justice Department officials said they were now reviewing some 4,500 intelligence files... The department portrayed its use of its new powers as judicious and restrained. [details of this judicious restraint may be found in original --mrs. h]

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2702085,00.html

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A commander with the Texas Department of Public Safety ordered the destruction of all documents and photographs gathered in the search for the Democratic state legislators who fled to Oklahoma to block a congressional redistricting bill. The order was issued via e-mail on May 14, a day before the Democrats ended their boycott and returned to Texas, DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats on the House floor in Washington pushed for more information Wednesday from the Homeland Security Department on its role in the search.

...Three Democratic state representatives filed a request Monday for all documents about DPS involvement in the search. However, it was not clear if any requests were made before the records were destroyed.

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http://www.fair.org/activism/fcc0305.html

A majority of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intends to ratify a sweeping plan to weaken or eliminate rules that limit the size and power of media companies. Among other things, the FCC's three Republican commissioners hope to revoke the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule, which prevents a company from owning a newspaper and a TV station in the same market, and to significantly increase the number of TV stations one company can own.

...Imagine living in a community where one large, multinational conglomerate controlled eight radio stations, two major TV stations and the leading daily newspaper.

...It would be tough to know much about the changes in the works. ABC World News Tonight aired a May 15 report on FCC deregulation... and a May 18 report on radio deregulation. At CBS and NBC, there have been no mentions of the sweeping proposals on any of the nightly newscasts, and only three brief early-morning reports. These networks are all owned by companies that stand to profit from the FCC's plan.

...[FCC] Commissioner Michael Copps says that the FCC has received over 18,000 comments from individuals, which overwhelmingly opposed relaxation of ownership restrictions... Comments from the public are running at least 10 to 1 against the FCC's plan... [but] if media corporations and the FCC's Republican commissioners get their way, the FCC's vote will disregard this overwhelming public opposition.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15395-2003May20.html?nav=hptoc_tn

The Pentagon assured Congress that its planned anti-terror surveillance system will only analyze legally acquired information and changed the name of the project... The Total Information Awareness program now under development by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, will henceforth be named the Terrorism Information Awareness program.

...The goal is "to protect U.S. citizens by detecting and defeating foreign terrorist threats before an attack."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,960922,00.html

OREGON'S SENATE Bill 742, section 19, chapter 666 [th' mark o'the beast! --mrs. h] defines the "unlawful labeling of a sound recording" [i.e., mp3] as terrorism and would make it punishable by a minimum life sentence of 25 years in prison without parole. After 25 years (if they're fortunate) the state might allow them to find "employment at a forest or work camp" or other similar "post prison supervision".

Other acts described as terrorism include (but are not limited to): Blocking traffic; School walkouts; Computer crime; Accepting a bribe; Theft and Burglary; Unauthorized use of a vehicle; Unlawful labeling of a videotape; Unlawful recording of a live performance; Negotiating a bad check [oh noooooo! --mrs. h]; Producing fake IDs; Using another's driver's license; Drunk driving; Selling cigarettes to a minor [and so on]... Now might be the time for citizens of Oregon to call their Senators.

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http://www.harpers.org/harpers-index/listing.php3?sub_date=2003-03-01

Chance that an ACLU member has joined the group since George W. Bush became president : 1 in 2

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http://www.nynews.com/print_newsroom/052103/a0121tarryjudge.html

TARRYTOWN [New York] — Anissa Khoder... went to court on Thursday to contest a pair of parking tickets. As she approached the judge's table, she said, [Judge William] Crosbie considered her name out loud and asked if she were a terrorist... "I felt offended, and I kept it to myself," she said, but then it got worse. After completing her explanation for why the tickets should be dismissed, she said the judge asked her, "You don't really want to pay these tickets, do you?"

"Then he said something like, 'You have money to support the terrorists, but you don't want to pay the ticket,' " Khoder said. "I could not believe I was hearing that." She was unable to say anything in protest and, almost immediately, collapsed to the floor [in a faint].

...Crosbie yesterday confirmed that he made the initial comment, asking Khoder if she were a terrorist, and acknowledged that it "may have been inappropriate."

...Both of Khoder's parking tickets were dismissed after she was helped from the courtroom. Crosbie said one of them was improperly issued, but he could not explain why he dismissed the second one... "I was probably kidding with her in the beginning," Crosbie said. "Sometimes, you just pose that question to people. I don't know what I based it on."

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http://www.harpers.org/harpers-index/listing.php3?sub_date=2003-03-01

Chances that an Arab American is Christian : 3 in 4

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http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000427.html

The Pentagon is about to embark on a stunningly ambitious research project... The embryonic LifeLog program would take every e-mail you've sent or received, every picture you've taken, every web page you've surfed, every phone call you've had, every TV show you've watched, every magazine you've read, and dump it into a giant database... combined with a GPS transmitter, to keep tabs on where you're going; audio-visual sensors, to capture all that you see or say; and biomedical monitors, to keep track of your health. This gigantic amalgamation of personal information could then be used to "trace the 'threads' of an individual's life," to see exactly how a relationship or events developed, according to a briefing from the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, LifeLog's sponsor.

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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.hatfill20may20,0,7356374.story

FBI anthrax investigators' relentless surveillance of a former Army bioterrorism expert took a bizarre turn Saturday when a vehicle driven by an agent hit Dr. Steven J. Hatfill on a busy Georgetown street - and Hatfill wound up with a $5 ticket.

...Hatfill was cited for "walking to create a hazard."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3046819.stm

Panorama reporter, Betsan Powys answered your questions in a forum for the BBC's Six O'clock News.

...Frozen chicken could contain undetectable remains of pigs and cows, the BBC's Panorama programme has discovered. In a report to be shown on Thursday night, the programme tells how some Dutch suppliers routinely pump the meat full of water to make it weigh more - thereby increasing their profit. But to keep the water in, they add extracts of beef and pork. The Food Standards Agency is able to test chicken for bovine and pork DNA, but Panorama has discovered a company that claims it can break down this DNA to make it undetectable. While the practice is not illegal, misleading or inaccurate labels are.

...What we're talking about is chicken that's probably reared in Thailand or Brazil, probably killed in Thailand or Brazil, then it is frozen and it comes over to mainland Europe - in this case into Holland. They then defrost it... they add the proteins, they add the water, then it's refrozen and then it comes over to the UK... You quite often see the words, processed in the UK, but actually the original chicken could have come from a processing plant in Holland.

...The risk of catching CJD [the human 'mad cow disease'] from eating chicken where the beef protein is infected is very, very small. But nobody can discount it. When we've talked to BSE ['mad cow disease'] experts who say yes the risk maybe very small. But no matter how small, if there's bovine material in the product you want to know and you want to know where it's come from.

...We tested for bovine and porcine DNA and we found both. The Food Standards Agency also found a lot of porcine DNA in products that were being sold as halal... Then they go into take-aways [i.e., fast food joints], they go into all sorts of places who might claim that their food is halal, well clearly it can't be.

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http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=260815

ATLANTA — A disease expert working to control the spread of SARS in Taiwan will be flown to an Atlanta hospital after showing symptoms of the virus, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/13/1052591774910.html

A couple in China have named their baby son Saddam SARS to mark the two important events taking place at the time of his birth, a news report said today.

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news from 2 years ago!

http://www.harpers.org/weekly-review/weekly-review.php3?date=2001-05-15

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to withhold $244,000,000.00 in United Nations dues if American did not regain its seat on the Human Rights Commission. "This is an affront," sputtered Dick Armey, the House majority leader, "more to the whole notion of international human rights than it is to us as a nation." ...President George W. Bush asked Vice President Dick Cheney to figure out what to do about terrorism... Texas enacted a hate-crimes law previously killed by Governor George W. Bush... A psychiatrist at the American Psychiatric Association convention announced that he was trying to come up with a scale of depravity to help courts judge the evil that men do... President George W. Bush said that free trade was "a moral imperative." ...President Bush said that his big tax cut was the best way to deal with high energy costs... California was suffering from rolling blackouts.

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and 1 year ago.

http://www.harpers.org/weekly-review/weekly-review.php3?date=2002-05-28

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, told German television that the German government needs to educate its people about the horrors of Saddam Hussein. "We also expect German support for the story that we are telling about this terrible man who has tried to acquire terrible weapons his entire life," she said... Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, predicted that suicide bombing attacks in America are "inevitable." Other officials, including the vice president and the secretary of defense, also warned of vague, unspecified threats... Face-recognition software that compares tourists' faces to those of known terrorists was installed at the Statue of Liberty... The White House admitted to a Senate investigation that it had many more contacts with Enron executives than had previously been disclosed... The Irish Food Safety Authority reported finding bovine and porcine DNA in a significant percentage of chicken fillets, leading to fears that mad cow disease could be transmitted via chicken meat.

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http://borowitzreport.com/

One day after Christine Todd Whitman departed her post at the Environmental Protection Agency, President George W. Bush announced ambitious new plans to phase out the environment altogether by 2004. "In addition to cutting taxes, it is the goal of this administration to cut our wasteful, bloated environment," Mr. Bush said in a speech before the Association of Indiscriminate Applauders in Washington, D.C.

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