Maravot world news

12.16.05 Radiation alert at Chechen plant

December 16 – Prosecutors in Chechnya have opened a criminal investigation after finding "catastrophic" levels of radioactivity at a chemical factory. Investigators say the radiation – in one place reportedly 58,000 times the usual level – poses a danger to people in the region's capital, Grozny. The case has also raised fears militants could take radioactive waste to use in a so-called "dirty bomb." The plant has reportedly not been secured since Russia bombed it in 1999. For years, rebels in Chechnya have been fighting a separatist struggle against Russian forces. [More.>bbc.co.uk]

12.16.05 Bush lets US spy on callers without courts

WASHINGTON, December 15 – Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials. Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications. [More>>nytimes.com]

12.15.05 Sunnis join big Iraq election turnout

BAGHDAD (Reuters) December 16 – Minority Sunni Arabs swelled the turnout in Iraq's largely peaceful election on Thursday, reversing a previous poll boycott that only increased their loss of power after the fall of Saddam Hussein. With nationalist insurgents supporting the poll and even vowing to protect Sunni Arab voters, there was only sporadic violence, well below normal Iraqi levels. Turnout in 10 hours of voting was at least 10 million, or 67 percent, the head of Iraq's Electoral Commission told Reuters, much higher than the 58 percent who voted in the previous election on Jan. 30, when most Sunni Arabs boycotted.

In Saddam Hussein's home province more than 80 percent of voters turned out, a local official said. Polling stations in parts of Iraq were kept open an extra hour to let those waiting in line cast ballots. In Sunni Falluja turnout was 70 percent, officials said, and in Kurdish regions and the Shi'ite south it was also high. [More>>thestar.com.my]

12.15.05 Bush defends US right to launch pre-emptive attacks

December 15 – President George W. Bush said he would preemptively attack another country if he deemed it necessary hoping that Thursday's parliamentary election in Iraq would put pressure on the governments of Iran and Syria. Bush's comments came as quiet fell across most of Iraq as a draconian security lockdown and an informal cease-fire by many Sunni Arab rebels stifled all but sporadic violence. Bush, who embraced preemptive war as US strategy after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, did not identify any potential targets but said the Iraqi vote would put pressure on the governments of Iran and Syria.

"We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom," he said. Iraq "will be a model for the Middle East. Freedom in Iraq will inspire reformers from Damascus to Tehran," Bush said in the last in a series of four speeches in two weeks laying out his Iraq strategy. Bush again accepted responsibility for faulty intelligence pointing to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that he used as the foundation for his decision to go to war in 2003. [More>>dailystar.com.lb]

12.15.05 France hid extent of Chernobyl contamination: report

PARIS, December 15 – French authorities deliberately suppressed information about the spread of radioactive fallout from the May 1986 Chernobyl disaster over France, according to details of an experts' report leaked Thursday. Two independent physicists say in the report that the state-run Central Service for Protection against Radioactive Rays (SCPRI) knew of high levels of contamination in Corsica and southeastern France but kept the details under wraps. The study was commissioned by magistrate Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy, who since 2001 has been examining allegations that the atomic cloud from Chernobyl caused a surge in cases of thyroid cancer in parts of France. [More>>jang.com.pk]

Update, 12.15.05 US vaccine manufacturer mulling possibility of producing bird flu

JAKARTA (AP) December 15 – US drug manufacturer Baxter Healthcare Corp. is considering working with Indonesia to try to produce a human vaccine for bird flu, a senior company executive said Thursday. Kim C. Bush, Baxter's president for vaccine production, made the comments after meeting with Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari – who said she hoped a deal could be signed before January. "We will cooperate as long as Baxter agrees to make a vaccine for the Indonesian strain (of the H5N1 bird flu virus)," Siti Fadilah said. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 71 people in Asia since 2003 – nine of them in Indonesia. [More>>thejakartapost.com ; See related story (Reuters), thestar.com, "Romania sees bird flu spreading to Bulgaria." : Romania confirmed cases of deadly avian flu in birds in five more villages in and around the Danube delta on Thursday and warned migratory flocks could carry the virus south to neighbouring Bulgaria ; and chinabroadcast.cn, "China confirms one more human case of bird flu."]

12.15.05 French police snare Zarqawi-linked terror suspects

BAGHDAD (AP) December 15 – French counterterrorism agents on Thursday arrested three people suspected of belonging to a terror group with "indirect links" to Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a police spokeswoman said. The roundup near Paris came in connection with a similar sweep Monday near the capital and in the northern Oise region which netted 25 suspects, said national police spokeswoman Catherine Casteran. The three were believed to be part of a terror ring with "indirect links" to al-Zarqawi, she said. [More>>foxnews.com]

12.15.05 Update, 12.14.05 Kazakhstan set to open pipeline to China

December 15 – Kazakhstan is due to open the valves Thursday on a major pipeline carrying oil to fuel-hungry China, establishing the energy-rich former Soviet republic's first oil export route that bypasses Russia. For the vast Central Asian nation, which is expected to become one of the world's largest oil exporters, the 625-mile pipeline opens a huge market. It is designed to carry 140 million barrels of oil annually to China. For China, the new route is a key achievement in aggressive efforts to secure foreign energy supplies for its booming economy.

The pipeline is a 50-50 joint venture between state companies China National Petroleum Corp. and KazMunaiGaz. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to push a button at KazMunaiGaz headquarters in the capital, Astana, to open the flow from the pipeline that starts in the central town of Atasu, 174 miles to the south. Kamal Burkhanov, director of the China and Russia Institute in Almaty, said it was "hard to overestimate" the importance of the new pipeline. [More>>chinabroadcast.cn ; December 15 update; See related story, chinabroadcast.cn, "China confirms major natural gas find."]

12.14.05 Snipe hunting season has opened!

December 14 – (Maravot News) Bob Fertik of ImpeachPAC, an organization that seeks to impeach George W. Bush, filed an interesting article complaining about the negative influence Practical Political Consulting has on his support of Tony Trupiano who is running for Michigan's 11th District, near Detroit. Fertik writes this comment concerning the affair:

"Mark Grebner, a Michigan Democratic political consultant whose company, Practical Political Consulting, has a bipartisan clientele, said he was not familiar with Trupiano. But when told that the candidate was endorsed by Impeach PAC, he said, 'that would be one of our abducted by aliens types' who sometimes run in uncompetitive districts as 'placeholders.'"

"Abducted by alien types"???

Editorial note: That the American democratic arena has fallen to alien concepts on democracy is somewhat revolting. We invited Grebner to comment on this story and will post his comment if it arrives in time for this edition. This may be problematic of the bloody election to come.

Mel Copeland

12.14.05 Enemies of the State?

December 15 – Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent, independent.co.uk, reports : Four men deprived of their liberty for four years on suspicion of being international terrorists disclose today that they have not once been questioned by police or security services since being arrested. The four, who were among 16 suspects detained without trial under post-11 September terror legislation, later overturned by the law lords, give harrowing accounts of the treatment they have suffered. All are now under virtual house arrest. Although three face deportation, The Independent has learnt that there is no prospect of the men ever being questioned over the offences they are alleged to have committed. In interviews with Amnesty International, the four - three Algerians and a Palestinian - say their detentions have harmed their physical and mental health. They also complain that their treatment has had a devastating impact on their wives and families. [More>>independent.co.uk]

Editorial note: It may be that this type of story will be a signet of the "Bush era" : an era that may well be remembered as a blight on the concept of human rights. Terrorism spawned under the banner of Islam may well have created an alter ego called :Bush Democracy."

12.14.05 Bush defends Iraq strategy on eve of parliamentary elections

WASHINGTON, December 14 – A day before Iraq's first parliamentary elections, President Bush said today that Americans would have to remain patient and should expect more bloodshed as Iraqis struggled toward stability and democracy. In the last of four speeches laying out his strategy for winning the war and bringing American troops home, Mr. Bush struck a tone of realism and acknowledged more directly than he had before that his decision to invade Iraq was based in part on faulty intelligence.

But he gave no ground to critics who say the war was a mistake, pointing out that Iraq stands on the eve of electing what he said would be the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world. [More>>nytimes.com ; See also thestar.com.my (Reuters), "Bush takes blame for Iraq war on bad intelligence." and Maravot News11.17.05, "The man who sold the war." and "We were wrong about Iraq: US security advisor."]

12.14.05 Iran's Ahmadinejad's Holocaust remarks stir fresh uproar

BERLIN (Reuters) December 14 – Remarks by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust was a myth stirred fresh uproar on Wednesday, and European countries said they could undermine efforts to end a row over Teheran�s nuclear programme. Ahmadinejad, who said last week that he doubted the killing of six million Jews by the Nazis, strengthened his comments on Wednesday.

"They have fabricated a legend under the name 'Massacre of the Jews,' and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves," he told a crowd in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Ahmadinejad�s remarks were "shocking and unacceptable."

"I cannot deny that they may weigh on our bilateral relations and naturally also on the chances for the negotiations on (Iran�s) so-called nuclear dossier," he told reporters. "Such interventions will do nothing to rebuild confidence in Iran�s intentions," European Commission spokeswoman Emma Udwin said, describing Ahmadinejad�s comments on the Holocaust as "completely unacceptable." [More>>khaleejtimes.com]

Editorial note: Various newspapers today carried a story, "Bush : Iran still a threat.." and this follows an earlier story regarding Israel's planned attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, one group of articles claiming an attack has been planned and another group of articles coming out of Israel stating that there was no truth in the story (See Maravot News archives).

12.13.05 Trying to communicate with the Lord of the Flies

December 13 (Maravot News) – ABC News broadcasted this evening the dearth of electricity and sewage disposal for the citizens of Baghdad since the fall of Saddam Hussein, as they head towards the polls. One poignant clip showed children playing in a narrow walkway around the three sides of their school courtyard. The courtyard itself was flooded with sewage. Vignettes of the study showed children complaining about infections from the sewage. Other scenes of Baghdad showed streets flowing with sewage.

It may be that George W. Bush's legacy with respect to the entire illegal invasion of Iraq and his governing of his new property will be remembered as an issue of extraordinary killing and unnecessary deaths and the production of the breeding grounds and cesspools where flies breed. History has shown that you can't conquer a nation without assuming a responsibility to govern that nation. That George W. Bush claimed victory three weeks after launching his personal assault on Iraq shows his lack of understanding of the consequences of his oil-stained hands. We all know that oil is a pollutant, yet a source of energy. But destroying a nation to control oil and leaving its children playing in cesspools three years after the invasion seems to show George W. Bush for what he really is and should be recorded: the Lord of the Flies. In the Old Testament this character was known as Beezelbub. That America could be identified with this character is puzzling. He is called the devil (Satan) incarnate. In postbiblical Judaism and in Christianity, however, Satan became known as the "prince of devils" and assumed various names: Beelzebub ("Lord of Flies") in Matthew 12:24–27, often cited as Beelzebul ("Lord of Dung"), and Lucifer (the fallen angel of Light). See also Matthew 10:25, Mark 3:22; Luke 11.15. It is apparent, in view of three years of dung produced by the Bush administration, that it is impossible to communicate over the cloaca he created. Dante described it long ago in "Il Purgatorio," for those who take a scholastic look at the problem.

In a nutshell George W. Bush's concept of liberty apparently involves the right to vote whilst wading through sewers whilst the Bush potentates pander to their patron saint and others in their pantheon of waste. We wrote about this problem in 1994, in our two-year discussion with Wm. F. Buckley Jr. in "Quest for Human Dignity."
Mel Copeland

12.12.05 New Mehlis report implicates Syria

December 12 – New evidence has reinforced investigators' belief that the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were probably involved in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, a UN inquiry says in its latest report. The 25-page report from the team of Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor, again accused Syria of trying to obstruct his inquiry when it demanded that he revise his findings after a key witness recanted his testimony. The report was delivered on the same day that a car bomb killed a prominent Lebanese journalist and lawmaker, Gibran Tueni. It was the latest in a string of assassinations of anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon, and many quickly accused Damascus of the slaying. [More>>aljazeera.net : See related report, timesonline.co.uk, "Syria blamed as another critic is murdered in car bombing."]

12.12.05 US rejects Al-Qaeda claim that bin Laden still leading

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) December 12 – The US ambassador to Pakistan said on Monday he did not believe Osama bin Laden was still in operational control of Al Qaeda and the militant network was in "serious trouble." Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, Ryan Crocker contradicted comments in a video interview posted on an Islamist Web site last week in which Al Qaeda�s deputy leader, Ayman Al Zawahri, said bin Laden was still leading the group�s war on the West.

"I think that Osama bin Laden is no longer the operational head of Al Qaeda, because he is hiding deep inside the mountains and he doesn�t have contact with the Al Qaeda people," Crocker said. Referring to Al Zawahri, he added: "I don�t know if Zawahri is heading Al Qaeda or not; what I do know is that Al Qaeda is in serious trouble these days."

Asked about Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf�s announcement that a senior Al Qaeda figure, Abu Hamza Rabia, was killed in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan this month, Crocker echoed comments by other US officials by saying: "I don�t know what happened, but if President Musharraf is saying he is dead, we must trust what President Musharraf is saying." [[More>>khalejtimes.com]

12.11.05 On the trail of the CIA – America's secret war

December 10 – Since Sept. 11, the CIA has played a vital role in the war on terror. But what role is it? Operating in the shadows, American secret services have been given wide-ranging powers by the Bush Administration. And they include murder, abduction and torture. It's Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001, four days after the terror attacks in New York and Washington. US President George W. Bush withdraws with his closest advisors to Camp David in order to escape the chaos of the week and to develop the first plans to confront the new and unprecedented challenge facing the United States.

In the afternoon, then CIA head George Tenet distributes a file to all participants of the crisis summit. It's called "Going to War." Inside are the first rough outlines of the coming war against terrorism. In the upper left corner of the file's cover, there is a red circle inside of which is a portrait of Osama bin Laden with a black line drawn through it.

Tenet wants to finally go on the offensive. And his list of priorities is ambitious. Goal number one: Destroy al-Qaida and close off the terror group's zones of safety wherever they might be. While the most powerful army in the world has become ever-more an occupying power in Iraq and, by it's mere presence, has attracted a whole new generation of mujahedeen, Bush's secret services have fought their part of the battle under the apparent motto, "The end justifies all means."

America's agents, whose worldwide presence and disdain for international legal norms right up through the 1970s gained them a reputation for being ugly Americans, are back on the international political stage. Not everybody is happy to see them. [Full story>>spiegel.de]

12.11.05 Encroaching seas test ingenuity of lowlands

VENICE, Italy, December 11 – Robert Lee Hotz, Times Staff Writer, provides a comparative report: Venetians let the tide wash through their city while the Dutch strong-arm the ocean. Strategies for New Orleans can be seen in these watery battle fronts. The warning siren howls in the dark. As always, the flood arrives on the tide. Water slops over the rim of the city's canals, bubbles up through drains and, as the morning hours progress, surges into the ground-floor vestibules of palaces along the Grand Canal. It leaves stripes on sills, green and brown with a sticky scum of sewage.

The wind-driven high water — acqua alta — is a staple of Venetian life, like an espresso and a croissant con marmellata at a stand-up coffee bar. Porters in knee-high waders set out elevated walkways. Shopkeepers slide cofferdams across doorways. Gondoliers duck their heads as they pass under bridges arched over swollen canals. Brackish high tides swamp the city about 100 days a year — twice as often as 50 years ago. After a thousand years of adaptation to the water, Venice is foundering.

...As planners and engineers calculate the cost of resurrecting New Orleans from the damage of Hurricane Katrina, the sobering lessons of Venice and the Netherlands figure prominently. The Louisiana Recovery Authority estimates that it could cost $20 billion over the next decade to rebuild and strengthen the 350 miles of levees encircling the city.

It is only a fraction of what Venice and the Netherlands have spent in centuries of struggle with the sea — and must continue to spend for as long as their ingenuity can keep nature caged.

In the century to come, global warming is expected to raise sea level between 4 inches and 3 feet. Already, the destructive power of North Atlantic storms has doubled since the 1970s. Unchecked development in the coastal lowlands compounds the growing natural hazard. [Full story>>latimes.com via ktla.trb.com]

12.11.05 Germany warns of fallout over Iranian leader's anti-Israel remarks

BERLIN (AFP) December 11 – Germany will push for �political consequences� in the United Nations and the European Union over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad�s verbal attacks on Israel, Vice Chancellor Franz Muentefering said on Sunday. "Whatever is said will one day be desired to be done," the employment and social welfare minister said after a meeting in Berlin with Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Muentefering was referring to the Iranian leader on Thursday calling on Germany and Austria to host a state of Israel on their soil if they felt responsible for massacring Jews during World War II. Ahmadinejad, who in October said Israel should be �wiped off the map�, also described the Jewish state as a "tumour." Spiegel has described the comments as the worst anti-Semitic attack by a statesman since Adolf Hitler and called on Germany to sever diplomatic ties with Iran. [More>>khaleejtimes.com]

12.11.05 Defense Minister official: No plan to attack Iran 'at the moment'

December 11 – The senior Defense Ministry official for diplomatic policy refrained Sunday from ruling out a future Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites, saying that "at the moment" the emphasis was on international diplomatic pressure, and that the details in a British newspaper report saying plans were being prepared for such an operation appeared "more imaginary than real."

Army Radio, meanwhile, quoted officials of the Prime Ministers Office and the Defense Ministry as denying the report by the Sunday Times, which wrote that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told military officials to prepare for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear targets to take place at the end of March. [More>>haaretzdaily.com ; See related story, timesonline.co.uk, "Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran."]

12.11.05 Four more US soldiers killed as Iraq edges nervously towards election day

BAGHDAD, December 11 – Hamlet is not usually quoted in the mosques of Baghdad but on Friday, Imam Abdullah in the al-Mohsinin mosque in the Yarmouk district, paused dramatically in his address before telling worshippers that "the question for the Sunni people is to be, or not to be." He was urging them to vote in Thursday's election for the National Assembly. He said the Sunni had committed "a very great error when they did not vote in the January election." Their enemies had taken over the government. The Prime Minister permitted death squads to operate against the Sunni community.

The difference from the election in January is that this time Iraq's five million Sunni will vote. Most of those supporting the armed resistance go to the polls in all but a few militant strongholds. Umm Nadam, a middle-aged housewife shopping in the Karada district of Baghdad, said: "This is the last chance for the Sunni and we should not lose it." [More>>independent.co.uk ; See related story, washingtonpost.com, "Five US soldiers killed in Iraq."]

12.11.05 Iran approves Russian participation in gas pipeline project

TEHRAN (RIA Novosti) December 11 – Iran agrees to Russia's participation in a transnational project to build a pipeline transporting Iranian natural gas to Pakistan and India, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry said Sunday. Hamid Reza Asefi said, "Russia is a powerful state with advanced technologies. We agree to Russia's participation in the project to construct the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline." He expressed his hope that India and Pakistan would not object to Russia's involvement in the project. In late November 2005, Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said that Russia was interested taking part in the pipeline construction, and that Russian energy giant Gazprom was prepared to take on a share of the project risk. The estimated cost of the 2,500 kilometer (1550 mile) pipeline is $4.5 billion. [rian.ru]

12.10.05 It's called Apophis. It's 390 m wide. And it could hit Earth in 31 years times

December 07 – In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness. A fitting name, astronomers reasoned, for a menace now hurtling towards Earth from outer space. Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390-metre wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it. Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.

And, scientists insist, there is actually very little time left to decide. At a recent meeting of experts in near-Earth objects (NEOs) in London, scientists said it could take decades to design, test and build the required technology to deflect the asteroid. Monica Grady, an expert in meteorites at the Open University, said: "It's a question of when, not if, a near Earth object collides with Earth. Many of the smaller objects break up when they reach the Earth's atmosphere and have no impact. However, a NEO larger than 1km [wide] will collide with Earth every few hundred thousand years and a NEO larger than 6km, which could cause mass extinction, will collide with Earth every hundred million years. We are overdue for a big one." [More>>guardian.co.uk]

12.04.05 Many Iraqi voters want Americans to go home

BAGHDAD (Reuters) December 04 – Anti-Western feeling is running high ahead of Iraq�s election this month and many voters think sending US troops home should be the priority of the next government, an informal survey by Reuters indicated. Campaigning for the Dec. 15 parliamentary election has not focused much on the US-led occupation, but one finding of a survey of dozens of voters by Reuters was the desire for foreign troops to leave the country. In the campaign, it has been some Sunni Arab minority parties who, in common with rebel groups from the once-dominant Sunni community, have made foreign troop withdrawal a prime demand. Other politicians, however, know they need US soldiers to stop the Sunni-led insurgency tipping Iraq into civil war, but many of their constituents think the troops make matters worse. [More>>khaleejtimes.com]

12.04.05 Crowd pelts Allawi at shrine

December 04 – A crowd hurling shoes, stones and tomatoes has prompted Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, to cut short a visit to Iraq's holiest Shia shrine during a campaign trip to the city of Najaf. A spokeswoman for Allawi, a secular Shia, said she had no information on the incident but confirmed that Allawi, who is challenging the ruling Shia Islamist Alliance bloc at next week's parliamentary election, had been in Najaf on Sunday. A police captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a large crowd of worshippers at the Imam Ali mosque hurled sandals and shoes at Allawi – a grave insult in the Iraqi culture. A second police officer said some of Allawi's bodyguards fired in the air to disperse the crowd that threw stones, sticks, tomatoes and other projectiles at him. Police intervened to break up the disturbance, he said. [More>>aljazeera.net]

12.03.05 Woman with a new face looked in the mirror and said 'Merci'

December 03 – The woman who received the world�s first partial face transplant this week is eating, drinking and talking and is happy with her new features, her surgeons said yesterday. When Isabelle Dinoire woke up 24 hours after the pioneering operation, she touched the skin that had been grafted around her nose, mouth and chin, looked at herself in a mirror and said: �Merci�, according to Bernard Devauchelle, who led the medical team. Professor Devauchelle, head of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery at Amiens University Hospital in northern France, told a press conference that the results had exceeded his expectations. �She does not look as though she had a graft,� he said. �She just looks as though she has a wound.� Matching the skin colour and texture of the donor and recipient had also �surpassed our hopes�, the surgeon added. [More>>timesonline.co.uk]

12.03.05 Mass grave found in Lebanon

December 03 – Lebanese forces have unearthed at least 20 decomposed corpses in a grave in a town that was once the headquarters of Syrian intelligence, security sources say. Witnesses and security sources said on Saturday that the bodies, most now only skeletons in scraps of underwear, were found on an old onion farm in Anjar, a town in the east of the country used by Syrian intelligence as a jail and interrogation centre. They said the bodies had lain in the shallow grave for more than 12 years but it was not immediately clear who they were and how they had died. Security forces were using a bulldozer to dig for more bodies. It is the first such find directly linked to the Syrian presence, which ended in April after nearly 30 years. [More>>aljazeera.net]

12.03.05 Bird flu virus in Ukraine: report

KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) December 03 – Bird flu cases of the H5 variety have been discovered in Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula according to preliminary test results, the Interfax news agency reported today. The H5 virus strain was found among domestic chickens and geese in the Sovetskyi and Nizhnegorsky regions of the Crimea, agricultural ministry officials told the agency. [More>>theaustralian.news.com.au ; See also related story, thejakartapost.com, "Indonesia confirms eighth death from bird flu."]

12.03.05 One of al-Qaida's top five leaders killed

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) December 03 – One of al-Qaida's top five leaders, a key associate of Ayman al-Zawahri, was tracked down with U.S. help and killed by Pakistani security forces in a rocket attack near the Afghan border, officials said Saturday. Hamza Rabia, believed to have become al-Qaida's operational commander after the arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi in northwestern Pakistan in May, ranks somewhere between third and fifth in the terror network's hierarchy, officials said. He was among five people who died in an explosion Thursday in the North Waziristan tribal area. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Rabia's remains were identified via a DNA test. [More>>abcnews.go.com]

12.03.05 Taipei skyscraper may have triggered quakes

December O3 – Taipei 101 is a building with a lot to boast about. Standing 508 metres high, it is the world's tallest. And at 700,000 tons, it must be among the heaviest. But the sheer size of the Taiwan skyscraper has raised unexpected concerns that may have far-reaching implications for the construction of other buildings and man-made megastructures. Taipei 101 is thought to have triggered two recent earthquakes because of the stress that it exerts on the ground beneath it.

According to the geologist Cheng Horng Lin, from the National Taiwan Normal University, the stress from the skyscraper may have reopened an ancient earthquake fault. And it is not just skyscrapers that are a problem. Dams and underground waste deposits may also cause rumblings if they become too large. [More>>chinadaily.com.cn]

12.03.05 Ambush kills 15 Iraqi troops north of Baghdad

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) December 03 – Insurgents ambushed an Iraqi army patrol north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 15 soldiers in a well-planned attack, a day after the Pentagon announced 10 US Marines were killed by a bomb west of the capital. The Iraqi soldiers were travelling in a five-vehicle patrol near Baquba, 60 km (40 miles) from Baghdad, when they were hit by a roadside bomb. Immediately afterwards, gunmen opened fire in what police described as a well-planned assault. Hospital officials in Baquba said 15 soldiers were killed and that they were all from southern Iraq where the population is largely Shia Muslim, potentially adding a sectarian element to the attack. [More>>khaleejtimes.com]

(2) The name, Allah, in Arabic is an expression of surprise. It is not unusual for the God of the Bible to be known by many names. Jewish Midrash quotes passages in the Old Testament (Torah) that cite as many as seventy names of God (and more). But they can all be reduced down to one name.
(5) The Law of the Locrians: "In the legislation of the Locrians, the proposer of a new law, with a halter round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did not, on hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition." [Mill, On Liberty, 2.475].

Copyright © 1981-2005 Maravot. All rights reserved
Copyright © 1981-2005 Mel Copeland. All rights reserved
Painting of Apple by Mel Copeland, early 70's
Background: tile from Cicero's villa (Marcus Tullius Cicero 106 B.C. - 43 B.C.)

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