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

me so war-ny! me bomb you all night long!

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=420206

Iran rejected an appeal from the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday for more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities... The Iranian Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharrazi, said... Tehran needed to know more about what was expected of it. "We have nothing to hide. We are ready to co-operate but that must be done within our commitments," he said.

...Mr Straw warned Iran of the urgency of international calls for it to sign two additional protocols of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. A 16 June report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had failed fully to uphold the treaty and asked it to sign the additional protocols to guarantee future compliance. The new protocols would give the body extra rights to inspect Iranian facilities.

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http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/june/06_30_1.html

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States must be willing to destroy a range of Iranian facilities to ensure the elimination of Iran's nuclear weapons program... A report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy asserts... that a U.S. strike on one or two nuclear facilities would not suffice in ensuring the destruction of Iran's nuclear capability.

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by any means necessary

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1054966503951&p=1012571727102

The US is putting concerted pressure on the Japanese government to pull out of a $2,000,000,000.00 oil deal with Iran that had been scheduled for signing within the next few days, a US official and sources close to the negotiations said on Friday... The deal... has been under negotiation for about two years.

...US pressure has come from various quarters. Condoleezza Rice, head of the National Security Council, contacted senior officials in Tokyo, while Colin Powell, secretary of state, raised the issue with Yoriko Kawaguchi, his Japanese counterpart, at a meeting this month in Cambodia. Richard Armitage, Mr Powell's deputy, delivered the same message to the Japanese ambassador in Washington. The consequences of going ahead with the deal were not spelt out, according to one source close to the negotiations, but Japan was told that its relationship with the US would suffer.

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http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en30491&F_catID=&f_type=source

TEHRAN, June 28: Iran has been locked in highly secretive and complex extradition talks with Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia over detainees it holds who are widely believed to be top members of the Al Qaeda network, diplomatic sources said... Iran has also pointed to its extradition of some 500 fugitives from Afghanistan in the wake of the US ouster of the Taliban, a figure that has been independently confirmed by a variety of well-placed sources. But diplomats here said they have strong reason to believe that three top Al Qaeda fugitives have been detained in Iran.

One is Egyptian-born Saif al-Adel, thought to have taken over as Al Qaeda's number three from military operations chief Mohammad Atef, who was believed killed in Afghanistan in late 2001. The second is Saad bin Laden, one of Osama's eldest sons. In his early 20s, he is thought to have taken a senior position in the running of the network. The third believed to be in Iranian custody is Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti-born Al Qaeda spokesman.

Diplomats said negotiations to extradite the detainees have been running for several weeks but were hitting snags, given that Iran has only low-level diplomatic ties with Egypt. Furthermore, diplomats point out that Osama bin Laden's son has been stripped of his Saudi nationality, while Abu Ghaith has been stripped of his Kuwaiti nationality. Those problems were believed to have dominated discussions during recent flying visits by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal and Kuwaiti Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khaled al Sabah, although it remains unclear if any extradition deal has yet been worked out.-AFP

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/29/1056825281853.html

Saddam Hussein must be captured or killed so he can no longer be a rallying point for anti-coalition fighters in Iraq, the top US official in the country said. Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraq, said... "I think it is important that we either catch him or kill him."

..."There are people out here, particularly remnants of the old regime... who do not accept the military outcome of the coalition," he told the BBC.

...He told the BBC progress was being made in restoring basic services and that 240 hospitals across the country and 95 per cent of health clinics were now operating [and that]... the capital, Baghdad, now had 18 to 20 hours of electricity a day. Christian Aid spokesman Dominic Nutt said Mr Bremer's optimistic view of the humanitarian situation was "unmitigated nonsense". "Security is deteriorating day by day," he told the BBC. [perhaps this speaker is a 'remnant of the old regime' who can't 'accept the humanitarian outcome'? --mrs. henry]

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http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/di/Qiraq-us-britain-chrono.Rkcl_DuR.html

BAGHDAD, June 28 (AFP) - The discovery on Saturday of the bodies of two US soldiers missing in Iraq and the death of another soldier in an ambush brings the total of American dead in hostile fire incidents since the end of the war to 23. A further 40 US soldiers have died in other incidents since May 1, the date President George W. Bush announced as the end of the war.

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feelin' frisky, fellas? come to liberated iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8336-2003Jun18?language=printer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. security concerns have clashed with Iraq's traditional culture in a potentially volatile flap over American men frisking Iraqi women. The practice is not widespread, and the Americans say they use it only as a last resort. But tales of such incidents - and television footage of a male American soldier patting down a chador-clad Iraqi woman - have sparked outrage in Iraq. The issue is being talked about throughout the country - in homes and cafes and during sermons by religious readers at Friday prayers.

"There's no doubt that unrelated men even touching Muslim women is not allowed in our religion," said Sheikh Muhammad Mahmoud al-Samarayee, a cleric at Baghdad's Imam al-Adham seminary... William Beeman, an anthropologist who heads Middle East studies at Brown University, condemned any searches of women by men as "extraordinarily ignorant and offensive" to Muslims, who may view the searches as a violation of a woman's honor.

"The matter is so serious that for some very conservative people it is the equivalent of being raped, and may render the women, if they are not married, unmarriageable," he said. Rather than preventing violence, the practice could spark more clashes, said Juan Cole, a history professor and Mideast specialist at the University of Michigan. "Many riots have been set off in colonial history by heavy-handed Western interventions in private life," said Cole.

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more about liberated iraq

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2986962.stm

UN officials in Baghdad say they are very concerned that religious extremists are intimidating women and girls into wearing the veil. In particular, some radical clerics have demanded that women - even Christians - wear the veil. The UN officials have also expressed alarm at a reported rise in rape.

...UN officials have raised the issue with American and British forces. They also say Iraqi women can no longer drive or walk in the streets at night as freely as they did in pre-war Iraq.

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more about liberated iraq

http://www.baghdadbulletin.com/pageArticle.php?article_id=39&cat_id=25

More than two months after the fall of Baghdad, the remnants of recorded history that have survived more than 5000 years continue to be destroyed at an alarming rate. The well-documented looting of the Iraqi National Museum has received considerable press attention. Yet the continued looting at archaeological sites, particularly the important Sumerian and Old Babylonian sites south of Diwaniya, seems to have drawn only moderate attention and even less concern from coalition forces.

These sites are the birthplace of the written word, etched out in clay bullae and on cuneiform tablets more than 5000 years ago. The invention of writing led to a flourish of literary activity in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, and great poetic works including the Gilgamesh epic and the Descent of Ishtar... Important sites such as Isin, Umma, Umma Akrab and Larsa were turned into swiss cheese by teams of looters, reportedly up to 200 to 300 strong at times. Returning from a recent patrol to the site of Isin where a number of looters were actively digging what was left of the decimated site, one Marine described it as looking like a rape scene.

...US Army Col. John Malay, who commands the Marine forces in Diwaniya, recognizes the problem but admits frankly that it is not a priority. "People being killed is the number one priority, not guarding archaeological sites," he said... "We are not trained for this," said one Marine on a patrol to Isin. "Marines are good for kicking in doors and killing people." Malay even suggested the looting might have some unintended advantages. If the looters were not looting, he said, they might be killing instead.

...It is clear the coalition forces would like to see this issue disappear. Italian Ambassador Pietro Cordone, the newly appointed Iraqi Cultural Minister, has been avoiding a press eager for answers. In response to a request for an interview, the Ambassador's office said that Ambassador Cordone did not wish to speak about the looting, but would be happy to talk about the future.

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bbc airs documentary about liberated iraq

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/PA_NEWDEFENCEIraqfr17iraqipunch?source

The BBC says it has footage of a British soldier punching an Iraqi civilian while handing out water. The soldier is shown punching a man in the stomach in an apparently unprovoked attack, a spokesman for the corporation said. It will be shown during the BBC's Fighting the War series on Sunday.

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trouble at the beeb

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,987356,00.html

The unprecedented row between the [British] Government and the BBC took a dramatic twist last night when Andrew Gilligan, the reporter at the centre of claims that Number 10 deliberately 'sexed up' evidence against Saddam Hussein, announced... that he would take legal action against Phil Woolas, the Deputy Leader of the House, unless he received a full apology for allegations made against him. The threat of legal action centres on a letter sent by Woolas to Gilligan which claimed that the reporter had misled the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the Government's handling of the run-up to war. The letter was released to the media on Thursday before Gilligan had received it.

'On Thursday, you made the extremely serious allegation that I had "misled" Parliament in my evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee,' Gilligan's response to Woolas says. 'You have clearly not read my evidence, or else have disregarded it. In the light of the incontrovertible evidence of what I said to the committee, I regard the allegation in your letter, which was released to the Press Association long before it reached me, as defamatory... Your claim is not protected by parliamentary privilege. I now require a full apology and retraction of your claims... I write this letter with the full knowledge and support of the BBC.'

...The committee itself, which will publish its report in eight days' time, is likely to censure Campbell for his failure to properly control the contents of the 'dodgy dossier' on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and for allowing the Prime Minister to claim in the House of Commons that 'fresh intelligence' had been laid before Parliament despite much of it being cribbed from the internet.

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so much trouble at the beeb!

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/312675.html

Israel declared over the weekend that it is cutting off ties with the BBC to protest a repeat broadcast on non-conventional weapons said to be

in Israel... Before the broadcast Saturday, Israeli officials tried to pressure the BBC to cancel the broadcast, saying that the program was biased and presented Israel as an evil dictatorship, ignoring the existential threat it was facing. The forum members were furious at the trailers to the program, which showed pictures of the Dimona nuclear reactor and the biological institute in Nes Tziona, with the narrator saying, "Which country in the Middle East has not declared the nuclear and biological weapons in its possession?"

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yet more hot bbc action!

http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/content_objectid=13121566_method=full_siteid=86024_headline=-BRIT-TROOPS-SLAM-YANKS-name_page.htm

A BRITISH Army Colonel has branded US Marines in Iraq as "idiots" and "stupid". The outburst [is] to be shown on a TV documentary tonight... Colonel Steve Cox, dubbed The Mayor of Umm Qasr, made the remarks after learning US Marines had arrested three innocent Iraqi civilians. The BBC programme Fighting the War shows Cox's anger as he speaks to the camera.

...The BBC followed Cox as he set up a British command centre in the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr in March. On a trip to the town's harbour, controlled by the US Marines, he discovered three prisoners he recognised after they requested help in the city. The men had their hands bound. But they were released and taken back to the city by Cox... In his explanation for the cameras he said: "These nobbers here, sorry these Americans, the people came down here to look for help. They've tied them up in the room there. I think one is a guy whose daughter was hit by a US bomb the day before yesterday and we have been trying to track down his daughter. These idiots would keep him here all night. Stupid."

...The man who he had recognised was later reunited with his missing daughter.

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sucks to be you, squaddy

http://www.sundayherald.com/34963

BRITISH soldiers fear they could be acting illegally while serving in Iraq and could face war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court... British officers and squaddies are concerned that there are no clear rules of engagement for dealing with civilians and that firing on civilian rioters could see them charged with war crimes... [These] fears chime with those of Stephen Solley QC, an international human rights lawyer, who warned before the invasion of Iraq that 'no-one has made a legal case for war'.

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http://www.sundayherald.com/34962

DELIBERATELY misrepresented intelligence at least 10 years old was used by the British government to claim that Iraq could deploy chemical weapons in just 45 minutes. 'We are talking about information relating to the first Gulf war and afterwards,' a senior intelligence source said. 'We told the government when this information was handed over that it was old and they ignored that fact,' he added.

The 45-minute claim relates to information about Iraqi missile systems, including Scuds. The source added: 'These were mobile missiles. A good Iraqi team would take about 20 minutes to get them active, an average team would take 45 minutes -- that is where the government claim comes from.The government elected to use this to say Saddam Hussein could deploy chemical weapons in 45 minutes. But it's total rubbish. Saddam's capabilities were destroyed. Iraq simply wouldn't have had this ability when we invaded. There was only the very remotest possibility that he had Scuds or chemical weapons left. It can't be denied that Saddam did once have this capability, but when intelligence handed this information to the government, the 45 minute claim was extracted in isolation and misrepresented. You can't use 10-year-old intelligence as the basis for anything.'

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brits: capitalists or what?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,987215,00.html

British Customs officials are to launch an inquiry into the sale of jet fighter which look likely to be involved in military operations against civilians and rebels in one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars. An Observer investigation has revealed a loophole allowing potentially lethal British military hardware to slip out of the country without official scrutiny, licence or control. The sale of the two Strikemaster jets to the Ivory Coast government discloses a trail which begins with a British air display pilot and ends with a former commando in the French special forces now plying his trade as a mercenary in the war-torn state. It will come as a further embarrassment to the Government following recent revelations of how British tanks and planes were used by the Indonesian military to suppress a popular uprising.

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worldwide war part 1

http://www.sundayherald.com/34956

Australia is to send hundreds of police and troops to restore order in the Solomon Islands, a little-known corner of the south Pacific plagued by civil war, gang violence and corruption. The Australian government agreed last week to spearhead a regional force, which could include contingents from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. The intervention follows pleas for help from the Solomon Islands' prime minister, Sir Alan Kemakeza. In what will be Australia's biggest military intervention in the Pacific since the second world war, the force will include a warship and up to 1500 police and troops.

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

worldwide war part 2

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45910-2003Jun28?language=printer

MONROVIA, Liberia, June 28 -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the Security Council today to authorize a multinational force for Liberia to end fighting between government and rebel forces that has killed hundreds of civilians. In a letter to the council, Annan said the deployment was necessary "to prevent a major humanitarian tragedy and to stabilize the situation in that country." ...Meanwhile, Liberia's government said it was talking to foreign countries, including the United States, about deploying a force to stop the fighting.

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worldwide war part 186

me soooo war-ny. pakistan, anyone?

http://www.paknews.com/flash.php?id=20&date1=2003-06-29

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: June 29 (PNS) - Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal has categorically stated, there is no plan to recognize Israel in near future and speculations in this regard are incorrect.

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worldwide war part 2,147

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=312394&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

SEOUL - A move by Washington to bring the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program to the United Nations will be seen as a "prelude to war," the North warned yesterday, adding it would respond with a "corresponding measure." ...Washington's "intention to refer the issue to the UN can never be tolerated, as it seeks to use the UN in achieving its criminal aim to isolate and stifle" North Korea, KCNA [north korea's official news agency] said.

Also yesterday, KCNA released a copy of a letter from North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun to the Security Council, harshly criticizing the United States and urging the council to remain neutral on the nuclear dispute. "It can be said that now, the United Nations is at the crossroads of whether it will maintain the international order led by the United Nations or give way to the establishment of a dangerous world order led by an individual country," the letter said.

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

worldwide war, the beta version

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/28/1056683951244.html

A Swiss air traffic controller jokingly put an "al-Qaeda" label on a French helicopter that strayed into restricted air space during the Group of Eight summit, nearly leading to a shooting down of it by the French air force. The controller put the tag on his radar screen during the June meeting in Evian, France, on Lake Geneva. Spokesman for air traffic firm Skyguide Patrick Herr confirmed that the French military picked up the label on its own radar and immediately scrambled Mirage fighter jets. Only at the last moment did the Mirage pilots realise that it was a French transportation helicopter. The controller has been suspended during an inquiry.

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visit scenic liberated afghanistan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,1271,-2844585,00.html

British troops are making final preparations for their new security role in Afghanistan... Crime and disorder are rife throughout Afghanistan and the country is the world's leading exporter of opium.

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coming soon to a ground zero near you

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=419946

A network of high-security laboratories for storing and investigating some of the most lethal viruses known to mankind is being built across the US, leaving communities in uproar. They not only fear the risk of the viruses escaping, but also contend that the programme, part of the $6,000,000,000.00 Project BioShield, is a stunning case of overkill. For none of the germs to be studied is related to bioweaponry.

In the tiny town of Hamilton, Montana, campaigners worry that they will become a terrorist target if the proposed laboratory goes ahead. In New York State, congressmen have already blocked a proposal to house a laboratory on Plum Island, off Long Island.

In Davis, California, home to a major branch of the state university system, activists have sued the university for failing to abide by state environmental regulations in making its application to house nasties ranging from Ebola to hanta virus and tick-borne encephalitis... In Davis, in particular, there are serious security concerns. This is a university that managed to spread major contamination in a 1950s experiment to irradiate beavers. The clean-up is still going on. In February, a rhesus monkey used in disease experiments mysteriously disappeared from campus and has never been found. Now, the university is proposing to contract out security for the new biolab to Los Alamos, the nuclear laboratory in New Mexico embroiled in numerous security lapses - most recently when it lost what it called a "small" amount of low-grade plutonium.

...The biolab plan would entail the transport of highly dangerous materials in and out of town in ordinary lorries [i.e., trucks] - a system that recently brought a Hazmat team out on to a road in Ohio after an explosion involving a lower-grade biological agent.

...The broader question, however, is why these laboratories are being built at all. According to Richard Ebright, professor of chemistry at Rutgers University, it is a matter of crazy bureaucratic logic. Congress flooded the National Institutes of Health with so much money that the NIH simply could not work out how to spend it all on biodefence.

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nat hentoff discusses steven brill's 'After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era'

http://villagevoice.com/issues/0327/hentoff.php

A section in After, "Saturday, September 29, 2001," starting on page 145, is based, says Brill in the source notes, on accounts from "two of the people who are closest to Ashcroft and were directly involved in these discussions [in the Justice Department]." The material is further confirmed, Brill adds, "by a White House official familiar with Ashcroft's articulation of the strategy in White House meetings." Central in formulating this strategy was Michael Chertoff, assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division. Recently, Chertoff has been confirmed by the Senate, 88 to 1, for a seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (a level directly below the Supreme Court). The one opposing vote was from Senator Hillary Clinton.

...You decide, from what follows, whether Michael Chertoff is fit to be a federal appellate judge.

...Brill, based on his sources, reports that in the strategy sessions at the Justice Department, Chertoff, agreeing that the detainees should be held for long periods of questioning, said that even if some got a hearing, "the hearings could not only be done in secret, but also could be delayed... There was nothing in the law that said they absolutely had to be deported immediately. They could be held still longer."

As for the detainees' right to contact lawyers, Chertoff and the others in the room, reports Brill, knew that under INS rules, the prisoners "were entitled to call a lawyer from jail, but the lists the INS provided of available lawyers invariably had phone numbers that were not in service." (Emphasis added.) Brill adds that "according to one person who says he was there, someone in the room remarked that the government should not try too hard to make sure these people could contact lawyers. 'Let's not make it so they can get Johnnie Cochran on the phone,' another lawyer added."

...Months later, at the House Judiciary Committee hearing at which John Ashcroft testitifed... The attorney general claimed, in his testimony, that the president does have the power to arrest citizens on any American street, designate them "enemy combatants," and imprison them indefinitely, without access to lawyers or their families. After all, Ashcroft said, "The last time I looked at September 11th, an American street was a war zone."

So, all of us, not just [sic] aliens in America, can become the disappeared. The Justice Department still will not name the "detainees" in the previous roundup. It's necessary, said Ashcroft, "to protect their privacy."

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takes-one-to-know-one dept.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/178/metro/Flier_from_senator_angers_Muslims%2B.shtml

[Massachusetts state] Senator Guy W. Glodis has... sent [an announcement flier] to fellow senators that says terrorist attacks could be deterred if convicted Muslim extremists were buried with pig entrails. The flier, which Glodis's 39 colleagues received Wednesday, said an execution of Muslim extremists in the Philippines was ordered by General John Joseph ''Black Jack'' Pershing before World War I, in which the terrorists were shot with bullets dipped in pigs' blood, then buried with ''pigs' blood, entrails, etc.''

According to the flier, contact with the blood and entrails of pigs ''instantly barred'' Muslims from paradise, dooming them to hell. It said news of the burial deterred other terrorist attacks for ''the next forty-two years.'' ''Maybe it is time for this segment of history to repeat itself, maybe in Iraq,'' the flier concluded. ''The question is, where do we find another Black Jack Pershing?''

...The flier merely recounted historical fact, Glodis said, and should not have offended anyone. ''If some of my colleagues are so weak-kneed and politically correct and cannot accept historical fact, I suggest they lodge a formal complaint with the secretary of the Army,'' Glodis said.

[view the visage of this cretin at http://www.state.ma.us/legis/member/gwg0.htm --mrs. henry]

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your tax dollars at work: rumsfeld's july 4th bombing-celebration website. not a satire.

http://www.defendamerica.mil/otf/graphics/Thank-You-Kids.jpg

[this page shows you the family circus cartoon you should print and color. you really have to see it to believe it.]

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alternative flyers for the day o' bombing-celebration.

http://protest.bmgbiz.net/

[mrs. henry thinks the cutest one is the one that says "georgie bush! our sons and daughters are not your little green army men. FIND ANOTHER TOY." kudos also for "websearch: "funeralgate" "bush+awol" "bush+enron" THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE." also note ultra-cute 'peace pretzel' logo at the bottom of the page]

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more excellent rumsfeld ideas

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/27/1056683907322.html

The United States would train and lead an international police force, bypassing traditional peacekeeping bodies such as the United Nations and NATO, under a proposal by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The plan [would involve] thousands of Americans permanently assigned to peacekeeping... Mr Rumsfeld told defence industry leaders in Washington last week, "I think that it would be a good thing if our country provided some leadership for training of other countries' citizens who would like to participate in peacekeeping ... so that we have a ready cadre of people who are trained and equipped and organised and have communications that they can work with each other."

One defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "It's something that is being discussed in a very serious way by some very serious people right now." Mr Rumsfeld had not decided how many US troops would be needed, although some estimates put the number at about 10,000. The overall size of the force, or who would pay for it, have not been discussed.

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and just in case

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=420256

Forty-three of the world's poorest nations have caved in to American pressure and signed agreements not to send US citizens for trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was set up last year to hear allegations of crimes against humanity. Governments that continue to defy America after its deadline expires tomorrow risk losing US military support and economic aid. Washington... has forces deployed in more than 140 countries... A report published by Amnesty International shows that most of the 43 states that have already signed bilateral immunity treaties are heavily indebted to the United States.

...The court is authorised to deal with crimes committed after 1 July 2002, provided that either the accused are citizens of a country that has ratified the court's statute, or the alleged crimes were committed on the territory of a ratifying country.

BOWING TO THE US: Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovinia (!), Cambodia (!!), Democratic Republic of Congo (!!!), Djibouti, Dominican Republic, East Timor(!!!!), Egypt, El Salvador (!!!!!), Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Madagascar, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Mongolia, Nauru, Nepal, Nicaragua, Palua, Philippines, Romania, Rwanda (!!!!!!), Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uzbekistan.

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crazy, crazy, crazy

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/27/MN158961.DTL

Las Vegas -- Down the corridor from the blackjack tables and 24-hour slots at the J. W. Marriott hotel, 700 clapping advocates for abstinence-only sex education cheered lustily as Elvis imitator James "Love" Rompel swiveled about the luncheon tables singing "Viva! Viva Las Vegas!" Thus began the seventh annual convention of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, a nationwide network of educators who preach against sex before marriage and oppose the promotion of condoms to teenagers... There are twice as many participants at this Las Vegas convention than at the Clearinghouse's first annual get-together, held in Minneapolis.

...President Bush is seeking a record $135,000,000.00 [six big zeroes] for abstinence sex- education programs as part of next year's federal budget. But the big prize is a potential $1,000,000,000.00 windfall [nine big zeroes] in his five-year, $15,000,000,000.00 program to bring AIDS relief to 12 African and two Caribbean nations... [including] a provision that one- third of the money alloted to HIV-prevention be spent on "abstinence-until-marriage programs" [like this one, linked in the article: "East Texas Idol Contest" sponsored by "Virginity Rules". see http://www.virginityrules.com/Idol%20Consent%202003.doc].

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new privacy tips!

http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/archives/00000159.html

You know how businesses will sometimes ask your SSN when they have no real "need to know"? For instance, when you're cashing a check or filling out some form that's only going to be used should you abscond with a library book. I've always either refused or taken advantage of my (genuine) numeric dyslexia at such moments. But Gary, who prefers not to be dyslexic and who doesn't like to see clerks get that "slapped in the face look" when he refuses, came up with something clever.

When a clerk asks for his SSN, he politely explains that he won't give them that, but he can, instead, give them his "personal ID number." At that moment, he whips out a business card he created in his computer. Printed on it, looking very official, is "Personal ID: 322-24-8536." The happy little clerks copy it down, satisfied with any number that looks so official.

Gary generates the number at random, changes it from time to time, and makes no attempt to ensure that he's not using someone's SSN (after all, since it's NOT and since he never CLAIMS it's an SSN, it shouldn't matter).

You can also generate a null number never used by the Social Security Administration [via http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/ssn.structure.html] if you prefer. Or, if you want to be sure the number actually DOES match an issued SSN, you can download this software [http://www.sao.state.tx.us/Resources/Tools/ssn.cfm], used by state governments to check.

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arts and crafts for activists

http://www.falloutshelternews.com/ArtsAndCrafts.html

Not sure how to create an overpass banner that won't be mistaken for a homeless guy's dirty laundry? Having trouble sticking that "Impeach Bush" sign to a telephone pole? Entertaining 20 hungry vegans after a protest and you're all out of tofu? Does the head keep falling off your Bush effigy? This is the page for you.

Please help us grow this page. Whether you are adept at fundraising, producing professional counter-propaganda or knitting gas masks, we'd love to hear from you! Send a link or send instructions to: contactus@falloutshelternews.com

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it's a man's life in the army

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/01/1056825376086.html

The Pentagon used potentially dangerous chemical and biological agents in 50 secret tests involving US military personnel in a decade-long project to measure the weapons' combat capabilities, according to Pentagon findings. The tests were done between 1962 and 1973 and involved 5,842 service members. Many were not told of the tests.

..."Project 112" and "Project SHAD" were developed in 1961... Tests were conducted in Hawaii, Alaska, Maryland, Florida, Utah, Georgia, Panama, Canada, Britain and aboard ships in the North Atlantic and Pacific oceans... Congressman Mike Thompson, a Democrat from California, and several of his colleagues had sent a letter to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [saying]... "Veterans who may have been exposed during these tests deserve to know all the facts," Thompson said. "The Department of Defence's decision to close its investigation may unfairly deny them that right." The inquiry began three years ago after several Navy veterans reported health problems they believed might have been caused by their involvement in the tests.

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http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2003_06_01_xymphora_archive.html

June 30, 2003 - David Kay has been appointed by CIA Director George Tenet to be Special Advisor for Strategy regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs. This means Kay will go to Iraq and lead the 1,300-member Iraq Survey Group to find those missing weapons of mass destruction. This is an extraordinary development for a number of reasons:

Who is David Kay? ...He is the former U.N. Special Commission chief nuclear weapons inspector, and as such spent time in Iraq right after the Gulf War looking for nuclear weapons on behalf of the United Nations... He is a former Corporate Senior Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), an extremely successful privately owned military contractor. He has spent much of the last five to ten years giving presentations in favor of attacking Iraq based on its alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction... Kay's own professional reputation lies in the balance if such weapons of mass destruction are not found.

...One of the great puzzles of the attack on Iraq is the fact that the Americans have still not yet planted the weapons of mass destruction... Obviously, being caught would be disastrous, so it will require a top expert to do the job. Is David Kay that expert? Might he be getting assistance from some military contractor that he used to work for?

...We know that Cheney and Rumsfeld and Bush were in receipt of CIA intelligence that should have left them unable to continue to use the excuse of weapons of mass destruction posing an imminent threat to the United States, but in the face of that intelligence they lied over and over again. Now a man who has been warmongering against Iraq for years based on the statement that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and a man with connections to a large military contractor with extensive ties to the Pentagon's missile defense program and Future Combat Systems Program [note: article also detail SAIC's operation of the american radio & tv stations in umm qasr -mrs. h], is being sent out to find these weapons. Do you think he'll find what he's looking for?

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perhaps korea will get afghanistan's reconstruction money

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jul2003-daily/01-07-2003/world/w9.htm

TOKYO: U.S. ambassador to Japan Howard Baker said on Monday that the world community would likely give substantial aid to North Korea if the communist country agreed to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

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re-deconstructing iraq

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=716322003

US FORCES in Iraq detained close to 200 people yesterday in a series of lightning raids across the country, involving tanks, armoured vehicles and thousands of troops. Operation Desert Sidewinder marked the latest effort to end a wave of attacks on US and British soldiers, spokesmen said. "We want to send a message of ‘don’t mess with us’," said Lieutenant Colonel Aubrey Garner of the 4th Infantry Division, according to the New York Times. The raids seemed to encounter little resistance.

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more iraq re-deconstruction

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-07/01/article01.shtml

FALLUJAH, Iraq, July 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Angry residents in Fallujah vowed revenge Tuesday, July 1, after ten people were reportedly killed in the main mosque which, witnesses said, was pounded by an American helicopter gunship late Monday, June 30.

...Eyewitnesses told Al-Jazeera channel they saw a U.S. helicopter gunship firing a missile at the mosque, where a number of worshippers were listening to a religious lesson. "This mosque is where the resistance will effectively start," shouted a man, as other men around him cheered. Sheikh Ahmad al-Janabi, a scholar at the mosque, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that "targeting the mosque is a provocation to all Muslims." "If their (Muslims') mosques are threatened, what would they do? What do the Americans expect from us? Simply retaliation," the sheikh told AFP.

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me so glad i missed this telecast

http://www.unknownnews.net/insanity9.html

July 2, 2003 — President Bush on Wednesday had a tough message for Iraqi militants attacking U.S. troops — "Bring them on" — and said the U.S. military presence was sufficient to deal with the attackers. Bush spoke in the face of increasing American concern about the rising casualty toll among U.S. troops.

...New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg sharply criticized Bush for the "bring them on" comment. "I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander — let alone the commander in chief — invite enemies to attack U.S. troops," said Lautenberg in a statement.

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bremer begs to differ

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6213247.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

The top American administrator in Iraq, confronting growing anti-U.S. anger and guerrilla-style attacks, is asking for more American troops... The Pentagon has been looking for three international divisions, about 60,000 troops. The deployment was being held up because Pakistan and other countries said they couldn't afford it. The United States is exploring the creation of an international fund that oil-rich Persian Gulf nations, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, would be asked to finance to help pay for peacekeeping, said a State Department official, who also requested anonymity.

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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/30/1056825334735.html

US ambassador [to Australia] Tom Schieffer has said... after reports that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to create a standing force of peacekeeping troops that would cement America's role as the world's dominant military power and policeman... [that] instead of having military forces focused on the Cold War targets of the former Soviet Union and China with US forces based in Germany and Japan, the post-September 11 security threats demanded greater flexibility, Mr Schieffer said. The US-led international force could be one way of providing such flexibility.

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from a lengthy, paranoid - and i mean that in the nicest way possible - analysis.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/070103_beyond_bush_1.html

Let's just suppose for a moment that George W. Bush was removed from the White House. Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz and Rove too. What would that leave us with? It would leave us stuck in hugely expensive, Vietnam-like guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would leave us with the Patriot Act, Homeland Security and Total Information Awareness snooping into every detail of our lives. It would leave us with a government in violation of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to the Constitution.

It would leave us with a massive cover-up of US complicity in the attacks of 9/11 that, if fully admitted, would show not intelligence "failures" but intelligence crimes, approved and ordered by the most powerful people in the country. It would leave us with a government that now has the power to compel mass vaccinations on pain of imprisonment or fine, and with no legal ability to sue the vaccine makers who killed our friends or our children. It would leave us with two and half million unemployed; the largest budget deficits in history; more than $3.3 trillion missing from the Department of Defense; and state and local governments broke to the point of having to cut back essential services like sewers, police, and fire.

It would leave us with a federal government that had hit the debt ceiling and was unable to borrow any more money. And we would still be facing a looming natural gas crisis of unimagined proportions, and living on a planet that is slowly realizing that it is running out of oil with no "Plan B". Our airports however, would be very safe, and shares of Halliburton, Lockheed and DynCorp would be paying excellent dividends.

This is not good management.

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asia times tells it like it is

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EF28Ag01.html

KARACHI - The resistance movement in Afghanistan has fully re-organized itself, even setting up offices, and official claims to the contrary, US forces are fighting in the dark. In an audio tape sent to the Pakistan daily The News, which is accepted as authentic, the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, urges Muslims to step up their jihad against the US and other coalition occupation forces in Afghanistan... The 10 men identified by Omar as members of the Rahbari Shura (leadership council) include former Taliban military commanders, most of whom are veterans of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet occupation of 1979-1989.

...Investigations carried out by Asia Times Online reveal the following: The resistance movement has been named Saiful Muslameen (Sword of Muslims)... The central office is located in Asadabad... Several training camps have been established in Parachinar and Miran Shah (both in Pakistan)and other places. These are mobile camps... The main military committee is headed by Mullah Omar, supported by his commanders... Under the Saiful Muslameen, Afghanistan has been divided into five operational zones.

...These is also another force in play. An organization called the Khuddamul Furqan (Servants of the Holy Koran) was established soon after the Taliban retreated... and they announced their separation from the Taliban over Mullah Omar's policy to harbor Osama bin Laden. Pakistani elements then helped them to contact the new Afghan government with a view to being inducted into the provisional administration in Kabul, but Northern Alliance members would have none of it, and the leaders of the organization have been biding their time ever since. Now, though, they have thrown in their lot with the resistance movement, and they have established their own pocket of resistance.

Recent large-scale US operations in Afghanistan, backed by Pakistani troops in Pakistan's tribal areas, have failed to produce any significant results other than provoke controversy in the tribal areas, where the country's regular army has not ventured for 100 years... US intelligence simply does not really know what is going on in the Taliban and al-Qaeda camps. This is evidenced by the countless raids that have been launched in recent times, none of which have resulted in the capture of anyone in Afghanistan.

...US authorities recently made two initiatives involving the Taliban... They tried to establish a new Taliban leadership through Mullah Ghous and other Taliban leaders who were expelled during Taliban rule from 1996-2001. This failed virtually before it was born. A second attempt was then made to forge contacts with "real" Taliban, with the idea being that they provide any acceptable leadership (ie, not Mullah Omar) to take a significant part in the running of the country so that peace could be established. This, too was rejected. Another attempt to give Afghan clerics an important role in power politics is in the US cards in Afghanistan, but like the other attempts, this, too, looks like another shot in the dark.

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you don't want to read this but you must.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13128966_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-THE-FORGOTTEN-ORPHANS-OF-AFGHANISTAN-name_page.html

JACK Straw flew into Kabul yesterday for talks with Afghanistan's interim president, Hamid Karzai. The [British] Foreign Secretary was making his second visit to the country since the overthrow of the Taliban, and said that he believed life there was now better than it had been under the regime.

...IF this is better, maybe someone could explain to this little boy how worse might feel. While Jack Straw discusses the futures of thousands of children like him, 10-year-old Hamat Zia is left to splash about in a puddle, his worn shoes letting in the water, his future as fragile as the crumbling, bullet-scarred hovel he calls home. This place, which houses 950 children in conditions worse than those of a Dickensian workhouse, is a shocking testimony to the suffering the west has inflicted upon millions of innocents.

Hamat's story did not form part of Jack Straw's briefing to journalists yesterday. Had it, one wonders if he could have insisted with such certainty that life in Afghanistan is better now than it was under the Taliban. Hamat lost his entire family during a coalition bombing in 2001... Hamat was the only member of his family who [wasn't home that day]. "I was training to become a mechanic, and my parents said I must work in another uncle's garage and come along afterwards," he told me when I visited the Allahuddin Orphanage recently. "But on the way home I was stopped by some boys who told me... all my family had been killed. I ran for three miles without stopping to get to the house, and when I arrived I began searching for my family in the smoke and fallen stones."

The first person he found was his 35-year-old mother, Fatima, he said, gazing at me almost defiantly. Only her head was visible, and she had lost a hand. A few feet away lay the body of his father, Shaffi, a 40-year-old bus driver. He was also partially buried but Hamat could see that one of his legs was missing. Scattered around them were his three brothers and three sisters, aged between two and 16... Here was his uncle Samir, whose wedding robe was bloodied and torn. And over there, the pretty teenager who would have been his bride. Also dead were a favourite cousin, another uncle and a neighbour who babysat for him when he was small.

In all, 60 people were killed by a single American missile that day... Every member of Hamat Zia's family was wiped out - and he will never forgive. "I hated the Taliban, but now I hate the Americans even more. I want to kill them when I grow up," said Hamat chillingly. "One day, I want to gain revenge for my family." His words spell out the perversity of Bush and Blair's War on Terror.

...In the Allahuddin Orphanage, I met 16 boys and girls who have been orphaned by US bombing but across Afghanistan there are hundreds, possibly thousands, more. The British and American public - and the media and politicians - may have grown bored with this benighted country, yet the US-inflicted casualties are still mounting steadily. According to one independent study, by a New Hampshire university, by last autumn the mission to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters had killed more than 3,100 innocent Afghan civilians. Inevitably the numbers are now significantly higher. During my visit, earlier this year, at least 16 villagers allegedly suffered life-threatening injuries in US raids near the southern border with Pakistan.

Then there are the unexploded American cluster bombs which litter the hills and valleys like bright yellow soup-cans, and could almost have been designed specially to attract the attention of curious children. At the Kabul Emergency Hospital, new victims arrived almost every day. "The lucky ones lose only one of their feet," said a senior member of staff. "But if they are unlucky they have both legs blown off." With commendable adherence to principle, the hospital refuses to accept money from the US, Britain or any nation which unleashes bombs with one hand and doles out aid with the other. It relies on private donations, largely from Italians.

...THE director of Afghanistan's orphanages, which provide the most rudimentary shelter for just 35,000 of the estimated one million children who have lost one or both parents during two decades of brutality, is [angry]. Abdul Habib Samim shows me around the unsanitary, foul-smelling premises, where there is insufficient fuel to run the generator for more than two hours a day, where rice is the staple, and greasy meat and fresh fruit are available just twice a week. Where there is no car to ferry the sick to hospital, where scabies is endemic and showers are available only on Mondays for boys and Tuesdays for girls. "I am ashamed because I am failing our children," the former Northern Alliance soldier says angrily.

"When we defeated the Taliban I thought life for my children would be better, but it is not. We need a minimum £3 a day per child to give them decent accommodation, education and food. We have perhaps 75p. We were promised aid, but we get almost none. The US ambassador did visit us once. He brought some sweets and toys, and that must have made him feel better, but it didn't help us much. We get so many western visitors like that. They always make sure they are filmed when they come here - it creates a good impression in their own countries."

The orphans of Allahuddin deserve better. One missile costs £750,000. If we donated the price of just one, it would pay for a new orphanage with brand new facilities. If that is too much to ask, then perhaps we might provide some of the children with a western education, giving them the chance to fulfil their ambitions to build the new Afghanistan, by becoming doctors, teachers and leaders of industry. Even the Soviets did that during their years of occupation.

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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/01/1056825385792.html

The security fence Israel is building around the West Bank has exploded onto the diplomatic scene amid US fears the fence will hinder the road map to peace. The barrier - cutting off the West Bank from Israel with fencing, trenches and walls - was sharply criticised by US President George W Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice during talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. According to the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, Rice told Sharon on Sunday that the construction of the fence was seen by the Palestinians as the precursor to the border of a future Palestinian state. Such a border can only be determined through negotiations... But Sharon responded: "If we need to choose between a conflict with the United States and the fact that terrorists are going to blow themselves up here, our choice is clear."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/01/international/middleeast/01ARAB.html?ex=1058080231&ei=1&en=92ab4910b04faa13

CAIRO, June 30 — The Arab world greeted the news of the Palestinian cease-fire and the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with wary optimism today, tempered by long frustration over the Middle East conflict. In official circles, the developments were met with the greatest enthusiasm in Egypt and Jordan, the countries that had been most deeply involved in efforts behind the scenes to work out a deal... [But] a common thread running through official statements, and even more strongly in editorial comments, was whether the Israeli government would refrain from further targeted killings of Palestinian militants or abide by other conditions that Palestinians had set for the truce, like the halting of house demolitions and the release of prisoners.

..."The Palestinians are coping with the requirements of the road map and hoping the Israelis will do the same," said Nabil Osman, chairman of the Egyptian State Information Service. [A former Egyptian ambassador to the United States, Abdel Raouf el-] Reedy expressed similar reservations "because I don't know what Sharon has under his sleeves," a reference to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel.

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http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030630/D7RVSV4O0.html

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's Shin Bet security agency has held Palestinian prisoners incommunicado for weeks at a time at a secret detention center in violation of international law, The Associated Press has learned. Prisoners say they are blindfolded and kept in black, windowless cells. When they ask where they are, they are told: "On the moon." Israel refuses to say where the center is located or who is being kept there, but hints foreigners are among the prisoners.

The state's attorney confirmed the existence of the center, known as facility 1391, in a June 9 response to a Supreme Court petition filed by the HaMoked human rights group over missing detainees Bashar and Muhammed Jodallah. But Israel would only say the center was located on a secret army base, arguing that revealing the location would jeopardize national security. Shin Bet only used the center for a brief period when Israel's incursion into the West Bank in April last year resulted in hundreds of Palestinian arrests and a "shortage of detention places," the response said.

Since then, all Palestinian prisoners have been moved, and the center "is used, if at all, for special circumstances, for detainees who are not residents of the territories," it said. It was not clear which law enforcement agency continues to use the facility. Both the army and prime minister's office, which is responsible for Shin Bet, refused to comment on the identities and nationalities of prisoners kept there, or what is meant by "special circumstances."

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anti-turkish wave? nice word choice.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=312774&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Some 88 years after one and a half million Armenians were slaughtered in Turkey in World War I, members of the Armenian community in the United States feel for the first time that it is possible American Congress will finally recognize the genocide they experienced. A draft resolution that explicitly notes that what happened to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the years 1915-1918 was a case of genocide has already won the

endorsement of the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee and is currently in the process of obtaining preliminary endorsement from the Senate... Because of the anti-Turkish wave now sweeping over the United

States since the war against Iraq.

The resolution cites a number of cases of genocide in the 20th century, such as the murder of the Herero in Namibia by the Germans in 1904, the death of 5 million Ukrainians during World War II, the murder of the Hutu by the Tutsi and the Tutsi by the Hutu in Rwanda, the slaughter of civilians in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, the murder of 2 million people by the Muslim Front in Sudan and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Among this list can be found, for the first time in an official American document, the genocide of the Armenian people.