Fiona McCann
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Papal collusion
HoustonChronicle.com Immunity in suit sought for pope May 27, 2005, 11:35PM  Joseph Ratzinger The Vatican has sought the intervention of the U.S. State Department to declare Pope Benedict XVI immune from a sexual abuse lawsuit filed here, according to court documents. A church official contacted the State Department May 20, asking it to notify a Houston federal court of the pope's immunity as the head of a foreign state, according to the defense motion. Vatican attorneys requested a delay on the matter Thursday. A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, which also was named as a defendant in the suit, could not be reached for comment Friday. The lawsuit filed by plaintiffs identified as John Does I, II and III accuses the pope, then acting as a cardinal, of conspiring to cover up the alleged abuse about a decade ago. The suit names a former seminary student as the alleged abuser. |
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1.6.05 04:08 |
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Smart Water
Welcome to SmartWater Technology  Someone in a comment on another blog just asked me if I knew anything about the so-called 'Smart Water', which was used on the Belfast diamond heist raiders just recently, so I googled it, and this link is what I found. It's an interesting technology. Security Solutions -------------------------- |
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7.6.05 17:06 |
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Animal Rights Gathering
INTERNATIONAL ANIMAL RIGHTS GATHERING 2005  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wednesday 20th July 2005 - 7.30 pm Comfort Inn hotel, Gt Denmark Street. Off Parnell Square, Dublin.1. A night of discussion on tactics and philosophies with leading figures from the grassroots animal liberation movement. · PROFESSOR TOM REGAN, U.S.A. Philosopher, North Carolina State University, animal rights activist and author of The Case for Animal Rights and Empty Cages, www.lib.ncsu.edu/archives/exhibits/regan · ROBIN WEBB, U.K .The Animal Liberation PRESS OFFICER, activist and spokesperson for ALF actions on his second visit to Ireland. www.alfsg.org.uk/press.html · MARY BRADY, U.K. Founder of Realfood, vegan campaigner and author of THE MOTHERCAGE and other animal rights publications. www.arcnews.org.uk/ STALLS, Merchandise, videos and other speakers from the UK movement. ADMISSION: 7 euros (5 euros unwaged) SEATS WILL BE LIMITED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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7.6.05 22:44 |
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SEX HUTS
Yahoo! UK & Ireland News **SEX HUTS? All rite! Now I've heard everything :p German city prepares "sex huts" ahead of World Cup "Men have to get used to them of course..." **(Should take all of 2 nano-seconds, I'm sure...) >>>Read it -------------------- |
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8.6.05 22:24 |
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Defense Information Systems Agency
**I was just looking at some of the hits on my political blog and 'DoD' came up so I googled it, and this is what I found. Lovely :p .mil visitor's menu United States of America Department of Defense Network Information Center  The NIC is operated by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). It provides information and services that are mission critical to the operation of the worldwide IP router Defense Information Systems Network and other DoD sponsored networks. More information about the NIC and the services it provides is restricted to the .mil community, and those deemed appropriate audiences. |
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9.6.05 02:48 |
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Give this guy a job
Guardian 'Biggest hacker' fights extradition Briton accused of breaking into 90 military computers Owen Bowcott Thursday June 9, 2005 **Weyyyy heyyyyyyy!! Is this guy good or what? ----------------- |
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9.6.05 03:28 |
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Coven, anyone?
Telegraph Now you face jail for being nasty to Satanists By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor (Filed: 10/06/2005) Extremist religious groups that advocate child abuse will be given protection under a Bill published by the Government yesterday. **Damn! Next we'll have to be nice to politicians. |
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10.6.05 02:35 |
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Ibuprofen warning
Guardian IBUPROFEN - 'Safe' drug link to heart attacks Millions face painkiller dilemma Sarah Boseley, health editor Friday June 10, 2005 The Guardian Nine million people with arthritis were yesterday left in a dilemma as ibuprofen, a painkiller which has long been considered one of the safest drugs on the market, was linked with heart attacks. The news will dismay those who depend on drugs to reduce the stiffening in joints, alleviate the pain and allow them to lead a normal life. The question mark over ibuprofen, of which Nurofen is one of the best known brands, and the other less well-known non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS) follows on the heels of the crisis over a newer class of medicines used for the same purpose. The drug company Merck took its best-selling Vioxx off the market after trials showed it, too, was linked with heart attacks. A whole class of drugs, known as the Cox2 inhibitors, is now under investigation. The biggest support group for people with arthritis made a heartfelt plea yesterday for doctors to advise them on what they should do. "Medicine is an important element in the treatment for the vast majority of people with arthritis. There is now much confusion and worry over the risks associated with many of the medicines used for arthritis," said Neil Betteridge, chief executive of Arthritis Care. "We urgently need the medical profession to take a lead in helping people with arthritis decide what treatment is right for them. Of course, any medicine that brings a benefit is likely also to carry a risk of some side effects. Indeed, doing nothing to manage your condition may also carry a risk. "However, there needs to be very clear communication of both the risks and benefits associated with each and every treatment. "Ultimately, it is the person with arthritis who will decide what to take for their condition and their decision needs to be an informed one." Confidence in ibuprofen, which as an over-the-counter painkiller had sales of over 200m in 2000, was further dented by a study published last week by researchers at the University of Southern California, who said they had identified a link to breast cancer. Today's paper, published in the British Medical Journal, comes from academics at Nottingham University, who identified 9,218 patients in England, Scotland and Wales aged from 25 to 100 who had suffered a first heart attack. They then looked to see if they had been taking NSAIDS and Cox2 inhibitors. Their results were adjusted for factors linked to heart attacks, such as age, heart disease, smoking habits and whether they were also taking aspirin, which reduces the heart attack risk. They found that the risk of a heart attack was increased in those who had taken the drugs in the three months before their heart attack. For ibuprofen, the risk rose by almost a quarter (24%) - higher if they had been on it longer - and for a similar drug called diclofenac it rose to 55%. The increased risk with the Vioxx (generic name rofecoxib) was 32% and with an other Cox2 called Celebrex (celecoxib) it was 21%. The authors were particularly concerned about older NSAIDS like ibuprofen, because many people will have switched to them after the furore over the Cox2s. For every 1,005 people over 65 taking ibuprofen, they say, one will have a heart attack. The authors, Julia Hippisley-Cox, professor of clinical epidemiology and general practice, and Carol Coupland, senior lecturer in medical statistics, call for an investigation of the heart risks of all these drugs. They say that given the high prevalence of the use of these drugs in elderly people and the increased risk of heart attack with age, there could be considerable implications for public health. In a separate editorial in the BMJ, Peter Juni, senior research fellow in clinical epidemiology at the University of Berne, and colleagues say that some of the results of the study could be explained by other factors. Large-scale clinical trials comparing the efficacy and side-effects of the drugs may be necessary to determine the best treatment for people with musculoskeletal pain, they say. |
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10.6.05 05:40 |
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Child protection disgrace
Guardian Abuser 'forced family to flee home' Police unable to stop paedophile living near his schoolgirl victim Steven Morris Friday June 10, 2005 The Guardian The family of a schoolgirl claim that they have been forced out of their home after a paedophile who was jailed for sexually assaulting the child moved back into their street after being released. **First off, the scum was only given an 8 month sentence and then was out in 5. Now this. Crimes against women and children are not seen as serious by the men who make the laws. |
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10.6.05 05:52 |
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Child sex trafficking
BBC Trapping Cambodia's child sex tourists By Andrew Harding BBC News, Phnom Penh  Cambodia is one of the world's poorest countries and notorious for child sex trafficking, making it a big destination for paedophiles and other sex tourists. Geoff is sitting on a small, hard bed in a Cambodian brothel, his heart thumping fast. He is 49 years old, a retired Australian diplomat with a wife and two grown-up children. After a long, tense wait, a grinning teenaged boy opens the door and pushes in two young girls. One says she is seven years old. The other is nine. The younger one seems as nervous as Geoff, breathing heavily, as the boy explains exactly what she will do for $60. Geoff sits back on the bed, a deliberately casual move, but it enables the top button on his shirt to point directly towards the girls' faces. Hidden within that button is a tiny video camera and microphone. 'Drugged' Authorities are warning about the dangers of child sex tourism Geoff, not his real name, is an undercover investigator wading through the depravity of Cambodia's paedophile industry. He works for an international organisation dedicated to fighting injustice. "The adrenalin is always pumping," he says, "no matter how many times you do it." More often that not, the girls are drugged. One of them described it to Geoff as feeling "like you're not really there." Some get an injection before each client. Geoff works mainly in the capital, Phnom Penh, walking along grimy, jostling streets. In the city centre there are plenty of brothels popular with so-called sex tourists. Many of the girls in them are obviously under 18, the age of consent here, but their clients either do not realise, or do not care. But out in the suburbs are places like Svay Pak. For years this narrow clutter of bars and coffee shops has hidden what many believe was the world's top destination for paedophiles. Geoff is well prepared. He has his hidden camera, a can of pepper spray, a tracking device, and at least four assistants at close hand, ready to spring him if things turn ugly. Many brothels are run by ruthless Vietnamese gangs. Some are owned or protected by senior Cambodian police officers. "The risks are real," says Geoff. "My wife was concerned to start with, but she's very supportive now." Undercover Inside the brothel, Geoff is often trapped behind up to three sets of locked doors. Only then are the children brought out and offered to him. He talks, films, then uses one of half a dozen standard excuses to leave. "I'm just going to go and get a friend, and we'll be back soon." Once he walked in on an elderly European man, raping an eight-year-old girl. "For like two seconds," he says, "I just couldn't move. "I remember seeing his clothes hanging on a peg. I guess it's lucky we're not allowed to be armed. I could have..." his voice trails off. Instead, Geoff stuck to his undercover role, and closed the door. Outside, a few minutes later, he alerted the police, but the man slipped out through a back door. Local involvement It can be frustrating, Geoff admits, but there is the compensation of knowing that as a direct result of his work, seven foreign paedophiles have been arrested in the past year-and-a-half. And today Svay Pak is pretty much closed down, although Geoff knows that the children and their handlers will simply have moved on somewhere else. Sometimes the foreign tourists are only arrested when they get back to their own countries and are confronted with Geoff's footage. But the vast majority of cases involve Cambodians. Moral dilemma In February, Geoff gave evidence at a local trial in Phnom Penh. He co-operates closely, but secretly, with the Cambodian police. The judge questioned three girls, aged 13 and 14, who had been rescued from a brothel. They told their story, then asked the judge if they could stay and hear their abuser sentenced. He got 15 years. "Not long enough," the girls told Geoff. Say he asks a pimp to provide him with lots of girls or boys, is Geoff helping to rescue victims or could he be encouraging the brothel to go out and search for new children to corrupt? Local corruption A few months ago, another foreign group working to protect children from the sex industry organised a raid on a brothel. It turned out the place was owned by a particularly powerful policeman. A huge scandal followed and now everyone is jittery. Most diplomats have privately accused the foreign group of doing more harm than good. And Geoff complains that it now takes him many days, instead of hours, to get the police to authorise new raids. But still he is busy. When I called him yesterday he sounded elated. He had just finished another raid. Three girls rescued, the youngest aged eleven. Two Vietnamese adults now in jail. Geoff comes across as the solid, unflappable type. At weekends he plays rugby. "After each operation," he says, "I need to take a couple of deep breaths. But there is no psychological damage, at least nothing now. "Someone has to do this job. I guess it might as well be me." |
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12.6.05 09:24 |
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Burroughs? Yecchhhhhh...
Guardian **Someone read this article and tell me if you find it at all disturbing. Top prize for biography of writer who won no glory John Ezard Wednesday June 15, 2005 The Guardian  'Jonathan Coe wins the Samuel Johnson Prize for his biography Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of BS Johnson. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA By the most pungent of ironies, a book about a writer who had little money and no glory in his lifetime last night reaped £30,000 plus the glory of the leading British book prize in its field, for another author. A biography of BS Johnson, the avant-garde novelist who killed himself at the age of 40 in 1973 partly out of despair at his lack of recognition, won this year's Samuel Johnson award for non-fiction, sponsored by BBC 4.' >>>Read on |
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15.6.05 12:12 |
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Child ritual sacrifice
Guardian Children trafficked into Britain for sacrifice rituals Roxanne Escobales Thursday June 16, 2005 An unknown number of children are being trafficked from Africa and then used in ritualistic abuse and sacrifice offerings in the UK, according to a leaked report from the Metropolitan police. The confidential report, leaked to the BBC, means police have discovered what has been known for years, African community activists say. Many trafficked children suffer abuse at the hands of their relatives and guardians, such as the 10-year-old girl known only as Child B, whose aunt and two other adults were convicted this month for torturing her after the girl was branded a witch by church leaders. Others, such as Victoria Climbié and the unidentified boy "Adam", whose torso was found floating in the Thames, end up dead. The BBC reported that the latest investigation by the Met into child trafficking from Africa alleges that these children are being beaten and murdered because they are believed to be possessed by evil spirits. Other alleged uses for the children include domestic slaves and for sexual purposes, including being forced to have sex with men with HIV who believe that sex with a virgin will cure their disease. The confidential report was launched in response to recommendations made after the Laming inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old girl from the Ivory Coast who died from abuse at the hands of her aunt and her aunt's partner. To gather information, two community partnership officers conducted a survey over 10 months in the London boroughs of Newham and Hackney in an effort to engage with the African and Asian communities. Workshops were held with the members of the public on topics such as female genital mutilation, physical chastisement, forced marriage and faith-related child abuse. Sections from the study included: "People who are desperate will seek out witchcraft experts to cast spells for them. Members of the workshop stated that for a spell to be powerful it required a sacrifice involving a male child unblemished by circumcision. "They allege that boy children are being trafficked into the UK for this purpose. Specific details were not forthcoming as the belief was that they would be 'dead meat' if we tell you any more." The report uncovers the influence of the church in African communities, which it describes as a "lucrative business". It reveals that church pastors identify children as witches, who then go on to be the targets of ritualistic abuse. It also highlighted concerns about church pastors identifying children as witches, who then suffer violence at the hands of their parents. It said: "A number of pastors maintain that God speaks to them and lets them know when someone is possessed ... After much debate, they acknowledged that children labelled as possessed are in danger of being beaten by their families. However, they would not accept that they played a major role in inciting such violence." A Metropolitan police spokeswoman said: "The aim of the project was to open a dialogue within these communities and encourage a debate which would help reduce the risks of harm to children. The recommendations in the report, due to be published later this month, are being carefully considered at the highest levels in the Met in conjunction with partner agencies and community groups." African community activists, however, have asked why no action has been taken sooner. Debbie Ariyo, the director of Africans Unite Against Child Abuse, told SocietyGuardian.co.uk: "The way forward is for the government to sit up and realise that something horrible is going on and do something concrete about it. We know definitely there is an increasing number of children being trafficked. Now is the right time for the government to accept there is a problem." The London Child Protection Committee said it was in the process of setting up a strategic sub-group to address these issues throughout the capital. The group will include representatives from the Commission for Social Care Inspection, the Department for Education and Skills as well as police, health services, education, social services and voluntary sector organisations. |
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16.6.05 19:36 |
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Rudolf Nureyev
BBC ON THIS DAY ** I meant to post this earlier as Nureyev is one of those larger-than-life persons from my childhood with whom I fell in love at an early age. I have always admired him for his beauty, grace, artistic expression and high spirits. I could stare at his pictures all day. I think he is gorgeous. The world truly lost an incomparable artist when he died.  Rudolf Nureyev - click to view photo by Mitchell 17 JUNE 1961 Russian dancer in freedom dash  Rudolf Nureyev Principal dancer of the Kirov Ballet, Rudolf Nureyev, has broken free from Russian embassy guards at a Paris airport and requested asylum in France. The 23-year-old Russian dancer dashed through a security barrier at Le Bourget airport shouting in English: "I want to be free." It is understood Nureyev was approached by two Russian guards as he was waiting, with the rest of his troupe, to board a BEA Vanguard plane to London. The guards informed him that he was required to return to Moscow instead of going to London, but, as he was being escorted to a waiting Russian aircraft, he made his dash for freedom. Temporary asylum He was taken into the airport police station by two French police officers, followed by the two furious Russian guards, and a heated argument ensued. He was immediately granted temporary asylum in France and his case was referred to the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons. The Leningrad Kirov Ballet troupe continued their journey to London without their principal dancer. They are due to begin a four-week season at Covent Garden next week, having just finished a three-week season in Paris. There has been widespread speculation that during his time in Paris, Rudolf Nureyev has fallen in love with 21-year-old Clara Saint, daughter of a wealthy Chilean painter based in Paris. His association with Miss Saint and other members of Paris society had caused concern to the Russian authorities and was apparently a major reason behind his summons back to Moscow. But Miss Saint said she was simply a friend of Mr Nureyev's and that here had been "nothing serious" between them. She said: "I have no idea why he asked for political asylum here. At a party last night he seemed perfectly normal and happy. "I believe it was only after two Soviet Embassy officials told him he had to go back to Moscow instead of to London that he decided to ask for French protection." Mr Nureyev is also known to have become friendly with Serge Lifar, director of the Paris Opera and star of the Diaghilev Ballet in the 1920s. And it is thought the prospect of a future career under Mr Lifar's guidance may have influenced Mr Nureyev's decision to stay in France. In Context Within a week of his defection, Rudolf Nureyev was signed up by the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Paris. Nureyev settled in the West and soon became an international star. He is regarded by many as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. Not long after he settled in the West he met leading British dancer Margot Fonteyn who brought him to the Royal Ballet in London, which formed his base for the rest of his dancing career. During the 1970s Nureyev appeared in several films and in 1983 he was appointed director of the Paris Opera Ballet. In the early years of his career Nureyev struggled to come to terms with his homosexuality. However after he settled in the West he had relationships with several well-known men, including Eric Bruhn, director of the Royal Swedish Ballet, and film star Anthony Perkins. He died on 6 January 1993 from an Aids related illness. According to his last wishes, Rudolf Nureyev was buried in the Russian cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, near Paris. |
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18.6.05 23:20 |
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FBI very Bush-like
Yahoo! News **Appropriately enough, on YAHOO News. The FBI - still FOF... Terror Expertise Not Priority at FBI By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 19, 1:11 PM ET WASHINGTON - In sworn testimony that contrasts with their promises to the public, the FBI managers who crafted the post-Sept. 11 fight against terrorism say expertise about the Mideast or terrorism was not important in choosing the agents they promoted to top jobs. And they still do not believe such experience is necessary today even as terrorist acts occur across the globe. "A bombing case is a bombing case," said Dale Watson, the FBI's terrorism chief in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001. "A crime scene in a bank robbery case is the same as a crime scene, you know, across the board." The FBI's current terror-fighting chief, Executive Assistant Director Gary Bald, said his first terrorism training came "on the job" when he moved to headquarters to oversee anti-terrorism strategy two years ago. Asked about his grasp of Middle Eastern culture and history, Bald responded: "I wish that I had it. It would be nice." "You need leadership. You don't need subject matter expertise," Bald testified in an ongoing FBI employment case. "It is certainly not what I look for in selecting an official for a position in a counterterrorism position." In a development that has escaped public attention, FBI agent Bassem Youssef has questioned under oath many of the FBI's top leaders, including Director Robert Mueller and his predecessor, Louis Freeh, in an effort to show he was passed over for top terrorism jobs despite his expertise. Testimony from his lawsuit was recently sent to Congress. Those who have held the bureau's top terrorism-fighting jobs since Sept. 11 often said in their testimony that they — and many they have promoted since — had no significant terrorism or Middle East experience. Some could not even explain the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, the two primary groups of Muslims. "Probably the strongest leader I know in counterterrorism has no counterterrorism in his background," Bald insisted. The hundreds of pages of testimony obtained by The Associated Press contrast with assurances Mueller repeatedly has given Congress that he was building a new FBI, from top to bottom, with experts able to stop terrorist attacks before they occurred, not solve them afterward. "The FBI's shift toward terrorism prevention necessitates the building of a national level expertise and body of knowledge," Mueller told Congress a year after the suicide hijackings, as lawmakers approved billions of new dollars to fight terrorism. Despite the testimony of its managers, the FBI said it has fundamentally reshaped itself to ensure the field agents on the ground who work the cases have the necessary skills, training and background for fighting terrorism. It noted it hired or redeployed more than 1,000 agents to counterterrorism and hired an additional 1,200 intelligence analysts and linguists. "We fundamentally changed the criteria for hiring special agents and intelligence analysts to ensure that we get the critical skills, knowledge and experience we need to address today's threats," Assistant Director Cassandra Chandler told the AP. "New agents receive personalized training from Muslim leaders. Street agents and managers in every field office have gotten to know the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities in their territories and regularly attend training sessions sponsored by community leaders," she said. Daniel Byman, a national security expert who worked on both congressional and presidential investigations of terrorism and intelligence failures, reviewed the Youssef case for the court. Byman concluded the spurned agent is one of the government's most-skilled terrorism fighters and that the FBI overall remains weak in expertise on the Middle East, terrorism and intelligence liaison. "Many of its officers — including those quite skilled in other aspects of the bureau's work, lack the skills to work with foreign governments or even their U.S. counterparts," Byman concluded. "Knowing about counterterrorism would help a supervisor ensure a proper investigation and avoid missing important aspects of the case," he said. Watson, who oversaw the first two years of transformation, testified he could not recall a single meeting in the aftermath of Sept. 11 in which FBI leaders discussed the type of skills or training needed for counterterrorism. Youssef's lawyer, Steve Kohn, pressed further. "What skill sets would they need to better identify, penetrate and/or prevent a future Osama bin Laden-style terrorist attack?" Kohn asked. Watson answered: "They would need to understand the attorney general guidelines for counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigation." "Anything else?" the lawyer inquired. "No," Watson answered. John Pikus, who held a key supervisory job during the reallocation of agents from traditional crime-fighting to terrorism, testified that the FBI did not create new screening standards to promote terrorism experts to its upper ranks. "Strengthening up the criteria for selection," Pikus answered when asked where the FBI was deficient in its terrorism hiring. Pat D'Amuro, one of the FBI's most-experienced senior managers in terrorism, testified that when he was brought to Washington to oversee the Sept. 11 investigation, eventually promoted to executive assistant director, he brought lots of agents with him from New York who had terrorism backgrounds. But rather than conducting a systematic search for the bureau's most talented Middle Eastern and terrorism agents worldwide, D'Amuro testified, he brought to Washington the agents he personally knew had worked successfully on al-Qaida and other terrorism cases. He said that in later promotions, Middle East and terrorism experience was helpful but not mandatory, noting the FBI also must deal with terrorism from domestic sources and the Irish Republican Army. "It could be a benefit. When you look for managers, you're looking for people that can lead people, manage people, knows how to conduct an investigation, knows how to collect certain intelligence or information, you know," he testified. When asked if he had any formal terrorism training that justified his appointment as the No. 3 FBI official, Bald said, "It would have been on-the-job in the counterterrorism division." Bald entered the counterterrorism division in 2003 after leading the FBI's Baltimore office during the Washington sniper case. The assistant Bald brought in to run the division last year gave a similar account. "It's a tremendous learning experience, the seat that I'm sitting in. You learn every single day about this," Deputy Assistant Director John Lewis testified. When asked whether he, as the FBI's former counterterrorism chief, could describe the differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Watson answered, "Not technically, no." He also said that his assertion a few years ago that bin Laden had been killed — a declaration that conflicted with CIA assessments and fresh video evidence — was not based on fact. "It's my gut instinct," he answered. Youssef, the agent suing the bureau, was credited with improving relations with Saudi Arabia during the late 1990s as bin Laden's threat grew and the bureau struggled to solve the case of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. He received a special award from the intelligence community for meritorious work and was singled out by his managers for "continuous creativity and perseverance" in terrorism cases. Saudi officials said they regarded Youssef as the most skilled U.S. agent in conducting lie detector tests on Arabic-speaking suspects. But after Sept. 11, Youssef repeatedly was passed over for top-level headquarters jobs in terrorism. Instead, he was offered same-rank positions in budgeting or exploiting intelligence from terrorism documents. Freeh, the former FBI director who left that job three months before the terrorist attacks, testified that he believed Youssef should have gotten an important terror-fighting job in the post-Sept. 11 era "I think, you know, given his experience, certainly his language, you know, domestically he would probably have a much more required role and be of greater help back at headquarters," Freeh said. One FBI supervisor, just-retired Agent Paul Vick, testified that Youssef had the "many skills that were badly needed" after Sept. 11 and the FBI's failure to utilize him was "inappropriate and a waste of a very important human resource." ___ |
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19.6.05 22:59 |
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Rudi redux
I made a post about Nureyev (farther down), and red_queen, your comment was much appreciated! Clara was not the brightest bulb in the pack--that's for sure, but I am not far behind her, missing the part about Nureyev not ever seeing Russia again. (stoopid beeb!!) I will have to go back and correct that. Maybe I will also write to the BBC. Thank u for setting the record straight. And oh, wasn't Margot Fonteyn beautiful? I used to spend endless hours fantasising I was her and twirling around being gorgeous and graceful and near to him...lol. If truth be told, I still do, except there are so many books and crap scattered all over my room that there isn't much space to do those high running leaps, etc. There's enough space for this though ;-)  **ps Sheesh, I looked up the spelling of 'fantasising' on google, and u would not believe the kinds of stuff I saw! **pss Now I feel like looking up some stuff on Margot. Isn't the net wonderful? |
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19.6.05 23:42 |
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UK in on Uzbek slaughter
The Scotsman **Now The Scotsman is also requiring registration. UK helped train massacre army JAMES KIRKUP POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT Key points • British soldiers helped train the Uzbekistan army last year • Army of the central Asian republic then killed 173 civilian demontrators • Raises questions over UK support of Uzbek president, Islam Karimov Key quote "Our limited activities in Uzbekistan are designed to sow the seeds of democratic management and accountability of the military. The Uzbek defence minister is very forward-leaning in his desire to modernise and increase professionalism in the armed forces." - MOD STATEMENT Story in full BRITISH soldiers helped to train the army of Uzbekistan, which last month slaughtered hundreds of pro-democracy protesters, The Scotsman can reveal. The government of the central Asian republic has admitted that its troops killed 173 civilian demonstrators on 12 and 13 May in the city of Andizhan - and the true toll is believed to have been much higher. Human rights groups have condemned the massacre. Last year, about 150 British Army veterans of the Iraq war travelled to Uzbekistan to train with the army responsible for the killings. According to one independent witness, the British soldiers "shared tactics" with the Uzbeks. The revelations will raise fresh questions about the UK government's support for the autocratic regime of Islam Karimov, the Uzbek president. Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who has been critical of UK policy towards Mr Karimov, was outraged that British troops had worked so closely with Uzbek forces. "One of the most chilling things about the massacre was that it was not a spur-of-the-moment thing," he said yesterday. "The morning after, the soldiers searched the square, methodically killing the wounded with bullets to the head. "The idea that British Army soldiers were training alongside people who do that is simply appalling." Last autumn, 150 officers and men of the Royal Regiment of Wales travelled to Uzbekistan to take part in a major army training operation that apparently included combat operations. The Uzbeks codenamed the operation Timur Express, a reference to the 14th-century warlord known in the West as Tamburlaine. The exercise took place at the Farish training camp, 200 miles south-west of the capital, Tashkent. Pictures of the operation obtained by The Scotsman appear to show British and Uzbek troops firing a machine-gun and engaging in combat simulations. The Welsh soldiers are members of the Territorial Army and most of them had served at least one tour in Iraq, "The soldiers were able to use their experience gained in Iraq and other operations to train the Uzbeks using British tactics," said one person who observed the Farish training operation. Previously, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence have admitted offering only support and training to selected Uzbek army officers, hoping to encourage democratic reform and Uzbekistan's participation in international peacekeeping missions. The government has been reluctant to admit providing operational support to the Uzbek army. The last time the MoD told parliament about military support, in February 2004, ministers said Britain had provided training and advice ... focused on assisting the Uzbekistan ministry of defence with its defence reform efforts". The United States has also faced questions about its military support for Uzbekistan, seen as a key ally in the war on terrorism. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the Uzbek army units involved in the Andizhan killings had benefited from US military training. In a statement last night, the MoD said: "Our limited activities in Uzbekistan are designed to sow the seeds of democratic management and accountability of the military. "The Uzbek defence minister is very forward-leaning in his desire to modernise and increase professionalism in the armed forces." The MoD described the Welsh troops' presence in Uzbekistan as an "annual peacekeeping exercise". A spokesman was unable to say whether there would be another such exercise this year. |
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20.6.05 04:31 |
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Geek browser stuff
K-Meleon  K-Meleon 0.8.2 (but not the latest version) is my browser of choice because it runs rings around Firefox, standard Mozilla browsers, Opera and IE--and that's even with a fast connection. If you are on dial-up, it is indispensable. My one complaint was that I didn't know how to block those annoying flash ads which stall your navigation and sometimes cripple you entirely if you are on a slow connection. Finally I found a page on the K-Meleon wiki which explains how to modify your settings files in order to block that trash flash. It's easy to do and works wonderfully well. Now, unless I actually WANT to see the flash (you just click on the logo), all I see is this:  Ahhhhhh, bliss!! Click >>>here to learn how. |
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21.6.05 02:16 |
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ZIMBABWE TRAGEDY
PEOPLE ARE DYING  CNN story Zimbabwe extends demolitions to rural areas --------------------------- Sunday Herald Mugabe takes revenge  Tyrant’s destruction of urban slums is yet another atrocity Western leaders are likely to ignore, reports Fred Bridgland in Cape Town IN raids reminiscent of Kristallnacht in Germany and of Pol Pot’s Return to Year Zero in Cambodia in the late 1970s, Robert Mugabe’s police and soldiers have in the past three weeks torched, bulldozed and sledgehammered the homes of two million of Zimbabwe’s poorest of the poor. Officially heralded as a clean-up of Zimbabwe’s teeming urban slums, ordinary black Zimbabweans have been turned into roofless internal refugees in the middle of southern Africa’s short winter when night temperatures dip below zero. Amid the smoke from smouldering homes, the poor are dying from exposure and starvation and there are reports of suicides among broken people driven beyond despair. Moving thousands from the cities to the countryside means only more poverty, hunger and unemployment. President Mugabe says the blitz on the very people he says he fought to liberate is necessary “to restore sanity” to the cities, although many people are questioning the 81-year-old leader’s own mental health. Out of the earshot of agents of the much-feared Central Intelligence Organisation the name “Mad Bob” has been whispered. They say this is Mugabe’s revenge on urban dwellers for voting for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in parliamentary elections last March. As well as the mass destruction of housing and the small roadside businesses of the poor, more than 30,000 have been arrested in Mugabe’s continuing Operation Murambatsvina, which translates as “operation drive out the rubbish”. Entire families are sleeping in the open. Others are battling to find scarce transport to take them to relatives’ rural homes. Many are burning furniture and their few surviving possessions before they depart. “I believe only the survivors of South Africa’s apartheid-engineered forced Bantu removals would be able to appreciate the scale and ferocity of this operation,” said Vincent Kahiya, editor of the weekly Independent newspaper. “The police are going about the rapine with gusto, destroying everything deemed illegal, never mind that the officers carry no papers from any recognised court of law. There can be no worse lawlessness than this callous operation.” Tendai, aged 10, and his four-year-old brother Chipo may be among the dead in Mugabe’s onslaught. They were among many Aids orphans being looked after by Zimbabwean and Irish Dominican nuns in the Harare suburb of Hatcliffe. For the past decade, the Catholic sisters had distributed anti-retroviral drugs there to HIV-positive women while running a crèche for 180 orphans in an entirely legal brick building. Sister Patricia Walsh, one of the senior nuns, got word that police bulldozers had moved into the township and that police were destroying the homes of the poor, pouring petrol on the debris and setting it ablaze. She dashed to Hatcliffe and was initially lost for words when she saw that bulldozers had demolished the Dominican clinic. Surveying the wrecked building, Walsh said: “I wept. Sister Carina was with me. She wept. The people tried to console us. They were all outside in the midst of their broken houses, furniture and goods all over the place, children screaming, sick people in agony. “How does the government say that Tendai and Chipo are illegal? We provided them with a wooden hut when their mother was dying of Aids. She has since died and these two little people had their little home destroyed in the middle of the night. When we got there, they were sitting crying in the rubbish that was their home. What do we do with them?” “How can the little ones of the world be brutalised in this way? Their only crime is that they are poor, they are helpless and they happen to live in the wrong part of town and in a country that does not have oil and is not very important to the West. We stand in shock and cry with the people, but we also have to try to keep them alive. When will sanity prevail? Where is the outside world?” Yesterday, unconfirmed reports suggested that Tendai and Chipo had died in the assaults by Mugabe’s stormtroopers. With Zimbabwe’s new Chinese warplanes and Alouette helicopters, newly provided with spares by South Africa, sweeping overhead, police demolition squads turned Mbare into a battleground, completely demolishing houses and shelters in street after street. Families with remaining possessions on their heads, wooden planks, tin sheets, pots wrapped in blankets and plastic – or in makeshift carts are on the march, like refugees in some terrible war, after the mass demolition of their homes. It is a scene of desolation and despair, being repeated right across the country in the attempt to drive hundreds of thousands of people back to the rural areas. Miloon Kothari, the United Nations special representative on housing for the poor, told reporters in Geneva he feared Mugabe planned to drive between two and three million Zimbabweans in a population of 11.5m into the countryside in Operation Murambatsvina. “We have a very grave crisis on our hands,” said Kothari. “This is a gross violation of human rights. People are desperate. They have nowhere to go.” But Zimbabwe’s local government minister, Ignatius Chombo, said: “This is the dawn of a new era. To set up something nice you first have to remove the litter, and that is why the police are acting in this way.” The weekly Standard newspaper responded editorially: “Chombo’s explanation is nonsensical and an insult to the intelligence of the people of this country. The government should not delight in the suffering of people when it does not have a ready-made alternative for them.” Brian Raftopoulos, Professor of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe told the Sunday Herald: “It may well be that Mugabe is looking to remove ‘surplus’ elements of the urban population ahead of the next presidential election by drawing them into more controllable rural political relations. “The long-term implications of this process do not bode well for democratic politics.” Simon Phiri and his wife Tsitsi are victims in the chaos as well. They rescued the essentials from their Mbare township shack before a state bulldozer razed it. Simon, 39, and Tsitsi, 32, who have four children, saw their home of 12 years crushed to pieces. Close to tears, Simon, who until early this month sold second-hand clothes at Mbare’s colourful but now burnt out Mupedzanhamo market, looked at the wrecked remains of his shack and said: “This is the only home I know but government and the city council have just destroyed it.” 12 June 2005 --------------------------- Belfast Telegraph Demolition of Zimbabwean homes kills two children By Elizabeth Davies 24 June 2005 Two Zimbabwean children were crushed to death during the demolition of illegal houses this month in a government crackdown that has made tens of thousands of impoverished city dwellers homeless and prompted an unprecedented international outcry. Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper reported yesterday that a one-and-a-half year-old child died after being buried beneath the rubble of bulldozed buildings in Harare's Chitungwiza township on Sunday. Another baby died earlier this month in similar circumstances. "If the reports are simply half true... this is a situation of serious international concern, and no government that subscribes to human rights and democracy should allow this kind of thing to go on effectively under their noses," the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told journalists. The news of the deaths emerged as the United Nations and the African Union came under mounting pressure to take urgent action against the Zimbabwe government's Operation Murambatsvina, or "Restore Order". An unprecedented coalition of more than 200 African and international NGOs urged the organisations to intervene to save thousands more from destitution. They called President Mugabe's mass evictions "a grave violation of international human rights law and a disturbing affront to human dignity". The groups, including Amnesty International and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, released smuggled video footage showing hundreds of thousands of people on the move from shanty towns after police torched and bulldozed their homes. Condemning the evictions, in which more than 300,000 people have lost their homes, the NGOs urged Nigerian President Obasanjo, as chair of the AU, to put the crisis on the agenda of the AU Assembly in July. "The AU and UN simply cannot ignore such an unprecedented, wide-ranging appeal on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, particularly from African civil society," the coalition said in a joint statement. "African solidarity should be with the people of Africa not their repressive leaders." The appointment of a UN special envoy to investigate the destruction was welcomed by the groups. But they called for the UN to publicly condemn the evictions and to take immediate action to prevent them. |
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24.6.05 19:33 |
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Virtually yours
 How many people fall in love with other people--on the net? How many people fantasise about other people whom they do not even really know? Is this kind of 'love' really love? Is it just your imagination? Is there any substance to it or is it all a figment of your imagination? Could it be that this kind of feeling is preferable to having to put up with the failings of a real person in real life? Is there such a thing as real life as opposed to virtual life? Could a person actually forego living a real life in preference to living, so to speak, a virtual life? I think about these questions from time to time and wonder if I am the only one to do so. I also wonder sometimes about the personalities I know from this virtual life and what they are like in real life. I will never know, of course, because I haven't the time or means to travel all over the world and back in an effort to find out. The people I know all live in different locales, yet at the same time, they are all right down my virtual street and at my very fingertips as they tap the keyboard. I actually much prefer these people because since they are virtual, I can to a certain extent, control them. I do not have to let them bother me or infringe on my privacy if they would do so. I can interact with them to the extent I choose to do so and WHEN I choose to do so. In many ways, their very attributes exist because I imagine them to exist. They might possible not be there at all if I were to actually meet them face to face. The net is like one big gift. It's a mansion you can walk into at any time of the day or night and experience many different pleasures. One room might be a library. One room might be an art gallery. One room might be a hide-away room where you and your lover can be together in harmony and beauty and joy. One room might be an auditorium where you can view a play, a ballet or a movie or a music performance. One room might have interesting lectures going on. I think you get the idea. Jesus' comment that 'In my father's house are many mansions' comes to my mind. That is what the net is to me. In fact, one of the rooms in my net mansion would of course be a cathedral with beautiful music and lovely statues and lighted candles where I could sit and pray or attend Mass. These are all things you can experience on the net. These and more. For humans all over the world, the net offers 'the world'. Many people will never step actual foot out of their village, yet can travel all over the world and the galaxy and meet many different people. But that reminds me that one thing I think about concerning the use of the net is how people who are not sighted cannot experience all these things because as far as my experience is concerned, the net is a visual medium. I have heard of programmes where you can speak and have the words translated to keyboard strokes, and also where the printed page is translated to an audio cache, but I worry sometimes about not being able to see. I'm sure there are plot twists I've forgotten, but I saw a show once about a man whose sole pleasure in life was reading. He was so nearly blind, however, that he had to have his glasses in order to see. There was a nuclear attack, and he was left with only his extensive library in his bomb shelter, but that didn't bother him any--except that his glasses, somehow got broken, so therefore, his life was over. That makes me wonder sometimes why science could not hook up some kind of electrical connection between your computer and your brain which would translate the programmes directly to your physical self so that even blind people could shut their eyes and 'see' the images and words without actually having real sight--they would have virtual sight. Anyway, those are my thoughts. |
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26.6.05 02:24 |
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Article rebuttal
Guardian **One of the comments I recently received on another site pointed me toward the following article, so I felt it only fair to post it as a rebuttal to this post. How media whipped up a racist witch-hunt Despite the lurid headlines, police dismiss claims of child sacrifice Ian Cobain and Vikram Dodd Saturday June 25, 2005 The Guardian The front-page headline leaping from the newsstands could not have been more clear: "Children sacrificed in London churches, say police". At the same moment, the BBC was reporting that detectives trying to investigate the ritual murder of children accused of witchcraft were facing a "wall of silence". Lord Stevens, the recently retired commissioner of the Metropolitan police, was weighing in to damn African churches, which he said were "obsessed by witchcraft, exorcism and evil spirits". Article continues "We must", Lord Stevens railed in a Sunday newspaper column, "stop this madness costing children's lives." It looked, at a casual glance, like an open-and-shut case: Scotland Yard must have investigated the ritual abuse of African children, found that significant numbers of them had endured violent exorcisms, and uncovered evidence of children being trafficked into this country to be slaughtered. Nothing is further from the truth. The police had conducted no such investigation, have scant evidence of ritual abuse of African children and - with the important exception of the young boy known as Adam, whose torso was found floating in the Thames four years ago - have seen nothing to suggest that any child has been sacrificed. Media fascination with the "exorcism scandal" continued last week, however, reaching an almost hysterical pitch and leaving one police officer feeling he was "in the middle of a medieval witch-hunt". Others wondered whether they were edging towards "another Orkneys" - an alleged child abuse scandal on the islands that never was. The tumult was triggered by a leak to the BBC of a report examining attitudes towards child abuse among ethnic minorities in east London. The report had been commissioned by Scotland Yard after the official inquiry into the death five years ago of Victoria Climbié. Back then, the Yard hailed the research project as "an exciting and ground-breaking" attempt to discover more about the way in which cultural and religious values influence opinions about abuse. "It was intended to open a dialogue, to give us a list of perceptions," a senior officer said last week. "It was not an investigation." After 10 months of research, Perdeep Gill, a social worker, and Mor Dioum, a Senegal-born civil rights worker, delivered their 85-page report earlier this month. During a meeting with members of an African community, the researchers had learned of a belief that children were being abused during exorcism rituals at Pentecostal churches. Many such churches have sprung up in Britain's inner cities in recent years, some taking over shops or small factories, others simply gathering in churchgoers' living rooms. Some pastors, according to people interviewed, were denouncing children in the congregation as witches, or declaring them to be possessed by demons, then forcing them into exorcisms in which they were starved and beaten, or had objects forced down their throats. At least one person is said to have told the researchers he had heard about children being smuggled into Britain to be sacrificed. No evidence was offered to support these claims, and none was needed: Ms Gill and Mr Dioum had been asked to gauge beliefs, not establish facts, and the Yard believes there is no spate of ritual murders to investigate. Shortly after the leak, however, came a flurry of media accounts of "a shocking Scotland Yard report" which was said to detail the way in which young African boys, "unblemished by circumcision", were being smuggled through ports and airports to be slaughtered during the concoction of "powerful spells". One BBC reporter described the report as "absolutely chilling". The corporation says it stands fully behind its reporting. Many newspapers, meanwhile, were reminding their readers that Scotland Yard had disclosed a few weeks earlier that 299 African boys had vanished from London school rolls. Few mentioned that the police also said they were highlighting an administrative problem, and had no reason to believe any missing child, other than "Adam", had come to any harm. African church ministers and their congregations were outraged. "There is a lot of anger - we are taking a hit for something we are not engaged in," said the Rev Nims Obunge, the minister of an evangelical church in north London. Backlash Lee Jasper, an adviser to London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, turned his fire on the police, accusing them of being responsible for "a very dangerous report" which was resulting in "a racist witch-hunt of African communities". Amid this backlash, senior officers decided not to publish the report, fearing that to do so would unleash more lurid reporting and burn more bridges to African communities. Nevertheless, many at the Yard remain convinced that it was a worthwhile research project. Indeed, the evidence of a degree of superstition among some Africans in Britain is obvious to anyone who reads the Voice, the national black newspaper. Each week the paper carries up to two pages of display advertisements for self-styled marabouts and psychics, men like "Professor Ki Kee", who offers help with "voodoo and witchcraft" from his council flat in Peckham, or "Professor Baraka", who offers to assist "victims of black magic" from his house in Nottingham. Nor is there any doubt that there has been a rapid growth in belief in child witches in some parts of Africa. Aid workers in Congo, in particular, say they are alarmed by the number of children accused of being witches who have been cast into the streets after denunciation by fundamentalist Protestant pastors. Save the Children saw little evidence of this when it first established a large presence in Kinshasa, the capital, in 1994. But by 1999 it was so concerned that it conducted a survey, which showed that between 30% and 40% of the estimated 70,000 street children in just one area of the city had been abandoned by their families after being accused of witchcraft. The charity believes the phenomenon has grown steadily since. "At the root of this problem is poverty, pure and simple," a spokesman said. "This is a country that has been deeply traumatised by war, disease and corruption, and where many people cannot afford to look after all of their children. One of the few growth industries is Pentecostal churches, which are offering salvation after years of bloodshed." Too many pastors, he added, were encouraging a belief in child witches, and too many desperate parents were seizing upon a reason to have one less mouth to feed. To date, however, just two "witchcraft" abuse cases have come before the British courts. Victoria Climbié, who was brought to London from the Ivory Coast by her aunt, suffered terrible abuse before being taken to a church in south London where the pastor decided that she was possessed. The beatings continued and she died soon afterwards. Three people are awaiting sentence after being convicted this month of the abuse of an eight-year-old Angolan orphan. They starved the child, who can be identified only as Child B, struck and cut her, and rubbed chilli in her eyes in an attempt to drive out the "devil" within. Richard Hoskins, an African religions specialist at King's College London, who advises the police, said he was aware of seven other recent cases where social workers had intervened: five in London, one in the south-west of England and one in the north-west. All involved people from Congo, he said. There is also the deeply disturbing case of Adam, whose torso was dragged from the water near Tower Bridge in London in September 2001. He was aged between four and seven when he died, probably when his throat was cut, and forensic scientists have pinpointed the area of Nigeria where he was raised. Nobody has yet been charged with his murder, but detectives are convinced he was the victim of a ritualistic killing. Commander David Johnston, head of child protection at Scotland Yard, said the police were well aware that "African communities do not tolerate the abuse of children any more than any other community". The Yard, he said, needed to know more about occasions when "issues of faith and culture, which are perfectly acceptable, may cross a boundary into becoming criminal abuse of children". He also said that "like in any other community, there are some people who are intent on harming children". A seven-strong team of detectives under his command, in an operation named Project Violet, has been examining past child abuse cases to see whether any signs of ritualistic violence emerge from the files. While police say that ritual abuse, like all other forms of child abuse, is probably under-reported, Commander Johnston is convinced that such cases are "very rare". Exactly how rare may be demonstrated by the child abuse figures from just one London borough. Over the last two years, social workers in Haringey have come across two children suffering ritual abuse, including Child B. Over the same period they have been alerted to about 6,000 cases of children in need, of whom about 650 were children in high need of protection, many of them suffering serious physical or sexual abuse. Mr Obunge said it was this that most angered his congregation - a huge amount of attention being paid to allegations, largely unproven, of a relatively small amount of abuse by African people. "And it isn't gullible people who are to blame," he said. "It's a gullible press." |
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26.6.05 17:45 |
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