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DAILY Prophecy News at a Glance
Read about the ANTI Christ BIBLE Here
The EU Religious Leaders are PROMOTING IT!
August 2004 Archives
RUSSIA CONFIRMS TERRORISTS BROUGHT DOWN PLANES LAST WEEK
August 31, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “Russia authorities have confirmed that terrorists caused the crashes of two planes last week, causing the deaths of 90 people.
The Itar-Tass new agency quotes an official of the Federal Security Service, General Andrei Fetisov, as saying officials are certain that bombs brought down the aircraft.
He also said a distress signal from one of the planes may have come after the aircraft broke up, and not in response to a hijacking.
Officials say traces of the explosive hexogen were found in the wreckage.
Authorities are focusing on two Chechen women passengers - one listed on each flight - whose remains have not been claimed.
The newspaper Lizvestia says they were friends in Chechnya and were seen two days before the August 24 crashes, leaving Dagestan for an unknown destination…”
TALEBAN WARNS OF MORE ATTACKS IN KABUL
August 31, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “Afghanistan's Taleban militia has claimed responsibility for Sunday's bomb attack in Kabul, which killed at least nine people. The Taleban has promised more such attacks before the country's presidential elections. U.S. and Afghan officials are jointly investigating the attack.
Afghan and U.S. military officials have confirmed the deaths of three Americans, three Nepalese and three locals in the car bombing that was apparently aimed at the office of a U.S. security company in central Kabul.
The company, DynCorp, provides bodyguards for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and also helps train the national police.
Speaking at a news conference in the Afghan capital, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Major Scott Nelson, condemned the attack and said the death toll may rise. ‘The investigation continues on this. We do not know exactly what the death toll will be,’ he said. ‘We are deeply shocked and saddened. We find this a cowardly act.’
International workers in Kabul are being warned to keep a low profile, while the U.S. Embassy has advised its citizens to avoid crowded places.
Major Nelson says United States forces provided assistance immediately after the attack, and will assist Afghan authorities in finding those responsible for the attacks. ‘We rendered emergency medical treatment to some of the injured and assisted with transporting them to medical facilities.’
Taleban militants are claiming responsibility for the attack in Kabul, and have promised more such strikes as part of their campaign to disrupt the presidential election, which is scheduled for October 9…”
NORTH KOREA BLAMES US FOR FAILURE OF NUCLEAR TALKS
August 30, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “North Korea has warned that what it calls Washington's hostile policy toward the communist country is darkening prospects for negotiations on its nuclear program.
The North's state-run media said Monday that U.S. policy on North Korea is the main obstacle to resolving the nuclear issue.
The next round of six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions is scheduled to take place by the end of September. But the talks have been thrown into doubt since the North said this month it will not attend preparatory meetings.
The North has issued several statements in recent days that vilify President Bush and suggest the United States is trying to oust the government in Pyongyang…”
FIRST STEPS IN CLONING FROM DEAD
August 30, 2004
News.com.au reports: “A fertility expert is set to provoke international uproar this week by claiming he has taken the first step towards cloning a dead human being.
In what many will regard as a grotesque experiment, maverick American scientist Dr Panos Zavos will announce that he has taken DNA from two corpses and used it to create embryonic clones of the dead people.
Zavos says he has taken DNA from an 11-year-old girl called Cady and a 33-year-old man, both of whom died in road accidents, and implanted it into living eggs that subsequently divided in the laboratory to form embryos.
But an attempt to make a third clone, using DNA taken from a dummy and nasal extractor belonging to a baby who died, has so far failed to provide results.
The controversial experiment is certain to provoke a furious backlash from critics, who will accuse Zavos, from Lexington, Kentucky, of using gruesome Frankenstein science and of playing God.
It will also lead to accusations that he is exploiting vulnerable people by raising false hopes that they can bring their dead loved ones back.
Earlier this year Dr Zavos claimed to have implanted a cloned human embryo in a woman's womb. The announcement was greeted with derision by mainstream scientists and fertility experts, who called his work odious.
He later revealed the attempt had been unsuccessful…”
MOROCCO REPORTS HUGE INSURGENCY INCREASE
August 28, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Morocco reports a huge increase in the Al Qaida-inspired Islamic insurgency network.
Moroccan media quote a report by the kingdom's intelligence agency as citing a huge increase in Islamic insurgency activities and network. The report was quoted as saying that Morocco has as many as 3,000 insurgency operatives.
The release of the report came in wake of an assertion by a leading Spanish counter-terrorism official that northern Morocco contains 1,000 Al Qaida-inspired operatives. The official said about 40 percent of the insurgents were believed to have disappeared, with many of them fleeing to neighboring Spain and Western Europe.
The Moroccan report appears to confirm many of the details in the briefing given by Spanish counter-terrorist Judge Baltasar Garzon to a 16-member Spanish parliamentary commission on July 15. Garzon said many of the Islamic insurgency groups come from northern Morocco and their members speak perfect Spanish. The mastery of the Spanish language, he said, has enabled insurgents to easily enter Spain from Gibraltar…”
QATAR PLAYS DOWN AL QAIDA PRESENCE
August 28, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “The United States has acknowledged that Qatar has refused to pursue Al Qaida operatives.
U.S. officials said Qatar has been largely passive in the U.S.-led war against Al Qaida. They said the emirate, despite U.S. pressure, continues to allow Al Qaida operatives to remain in Qatar.
The State Department's latest report on terrorism, entitled ‘Patterns of Global Terrorism,’ cited rare U.S. criticism of Qatar. The report Qatari's security services have done little more than monitor Al Qaida insurgents and their sponsors.
‘Doha has had some success in disrupting terrorist activity, although the security services traditionally have monitored extremists passively rather than attempting to penetrate or pursue them,’ the report said. ‘Members of transnational terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism are present in Qatar. The security services' limited capabilities make it difficult for them to warn against or disrupt a terrorist attack by Al Qaida or affiliated groups.’…”
ISRAEL TARGETS SENIOR OPERATIVES
August 28, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Israel's military has targeted senior insurgency operatives in the Gaza Strip.
The operatives were deemed as leading figures in the Palestinian missile strikes from the northern Gaza Strip against Israeli civilian targets. More than a dozen people have been injured in Palestinian missile strikes on the Israeli city of Sderot over the past two weeks.
On Thursday, Palestinian sources said an Israel Air Force AH-64A Apache attack helicopter fired a missile toward the home of Shadi Abu Awamer in Gaza City. Awamer, a Fatah operative, was killed and several others were injured.
Israeli military sources refused to confirm the attack and said Awamer was killed in an explosion in his apartment. They described Awamer as a key organizer of the development and production of the Nasser-3 short-range missile. The Nasser-3 has been described as an enhanced version of the Hamas-developed Kassam…”
RUSSIA CRASHES: TRACES OF EXPLOSIVES FOUND
August 27, 2004
CNN reports: “Traces of explosives have been found in the wreckage of one of the two Russian passenger jets which crashed Tuesday, killing 89 people aboard, Russia's top intelligence agency says.
The two planes crashed within minutes of each other Tuesday night after departing Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, killing all aboard.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said the explosive traces were found in the wreckage of the Siberia Airlines Tupelov 154 -- the second plane that crashed.
A hijack alert on the aircraft had been activated before it crashed, killing all 46 on board, Siberia Airlines said on its Web site. The aircraft was bound for the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The FSB also said it had found data at the Siberia Airlines crash site that could enable them to identify suspects involved in the attack.
The FSB confirmed that a Chechen woman was on board the Siberia Airlines flight, and no friends or relatives had come forward. Her remains have not been found.
She is the only passenger on the flight that has not been inquired after.
According to Russian media reports quoting security sources and Chechnya's interior minister, a Chechen woman also boarded the first plane that crashed, a Volga-Avia Express Tupolev 134.
The Grozny resident, born in 1977, was the last passenger to board the Tu-134 and had purchased her ticket an hour before the flight departed.
No friends or relatives have inquired about her remains, which have also not been located, according to the media reports. She is also the only passenger on that flight that no one has claimed.
Through a spokesman, Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has denied any involvement in the plane crashes…”
'Ten Commandments Educator' Walks the Walk, Stands His Ground, Loses His Job
"Basically, I'm terminated. I'm out of the position."
Greg Thompson, Humansville (MO) Superintendent of SchoolsBy Jim Brown and Jody Brown
August 27, 2004
(AgapePress) - In a situation reminiscent of Judge Roy Moore, a school superintendent who posted the Ten Commandments on a school wall in Missouri last spring has cleaned out his desk and turned in his keys. Humansville superintendent Greg Thompson has also been forced to remove the Bible and cross from his office.
The posting of the Ten Commandments in a cafeteria where students eat prompted a federal lawsuit and embroiled the small Polk County district in controversy. The school district has agreed to pay the plaintiff $45,000, to refrain from displaying any religious symbols, and to stop officials from leading students in prayer.
The Springfield (MO) News-Leader says Thompson refused to resign from his position, saying he had always told students "to stand up for what's right, even if they stand alone" and that he wanted to serve as an example to them. "It can't just be talk to the children," he stated.
The plaintiff, Carrie Roat, claimed the Ten Commandments plaque and prayers at school functions violated the U.S. Constitution. Apparently not satisfied with the settlement and Thompson's leaving, Roat told the News-Leader: "All I can say is good riddance. He's so strong in his conviction and he's such a devout Christian, why doesn't he go be a minister?"
Local resident Rick Carson is troubled by the settlement. He says the superintendent has high morals and values. "He has some of the best integrity I've ever seen around here," Carson states. "He's a good superintendent; he's one of the best. He's loves his kids [and] he loves his job."
Carson believes Roat filed suit for sheer monetary reasons. "The kids of this community love [Thompson]'; they respect him, they respect what he's trying to do -- so does the community as a whole."
Claiming Superintendent Thompson was a liability to the district, the Missouri United School Insurance Company notified Humansville officials it would not insure his First Amendment case. Humansville resident Lana Carson, a supporter of Thompson, says she is upset the district's insurance company would not allow the superintendent to fight the lawsuit.
"He didn't get a chance to speak out," she laments. "And with the judge in Alabama [a reference to Roy Moore], with all of that coming up, why wouldn't they give him a chance to go to court?" She says Thompson should have been given the opportunity to express that "there are people out here that believe God ought to be in the schools [and] that [He] ought to be in our community."
In April, when the controversy first erupted, former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore visited Humansville to support Thompson. The superintendent's supporters also gathered in April at Humansville High School to discuss the displaying of the Ten Commandments and the federal lawsuit.
TESTING THE FAITH Christian stripped of workplace signs
WorldNetDaily.com reports that an employee of the California Department of Social Services filed suit yesterday after state officials removed items from his cubicle they consider "political, religious or social" in nature.
Enoch Lawrence sued when his employer, the Roseville branch of the California Department of Social Services, took down from the walls of his cubicle a bumper sticker that reads "Marriage: One Man One Woman," a small sign that says "Jesus Spoken Here," various Bible verses and two published articles on current political issues.
"Nothing in this employee's workspace warrants this action," said Joshua Carden, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is assisting Lawrence with the suit. "The Constitution does not allow the department to silence his free expression rights just because they don't like the viewpoint he is expressing."
The federal civil-rights lawsuit contends the state agency unjustifiably restricted Lawrence's free speech and expression rights.
Lawrence, a disability evaluation analyst who is also a 21-year military veteran, says other employees were allowed to post personal material but he alone was targeted by government officials. He says a supervisor told him if he didn't allow the items to be removed, it would be considered insubordination.
According to a statement from Alliance Defense Fund, the department's policy states in part, "Each employee must exercise his or her own good judgement [sic] to avoid engaging in conduct that may be perceived by others as harassment and/or unprofessional, inappropriate behavior."
Said Carden: "The policy is unconstitutional. The department cannot censor Mr. Lawrence's speech because someone might 'perceive' it to be harassment. Furthermore, the policy provides virtually no guidelines for its enforcement. Officials have singled Mr. Lawrence out for discriminatory treatment by removing items from his cubicle that are clearly not disrupting the workplace.
"Mr. Lawrence's religious and politically conservative viewpoint does not make him a second-class member of the department. We intend to make sure that his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights are protected."
IRAN COULD DEVELOP BOMB IN 2005
August 26, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Iran could complete development of its first nuclear weapon in 2005.
U.S. officials and analysts said Iran has accelerated its nuclear weapons program and could achieve a breakthrough over the next year. They said Iran has determined that it could enrich a sufficient amount of uranium by late 2005.
Undersecretary of State John Bolton said Teheran has told Britain, France and Germany that Iran could enrich enough uranium for a nuclear weapon within a year. Bolton said Teheran has developed programs for the production of plutonium as well as enriched uranium. He said Iran has constructed a large underground facility meant to house up to 50,000 gas centrifuges.
‘If we permit Iran's deception to go on much longer, it will be too late,’ Bolton told the Hudson Institute on Aug. 17. ‘Iran will have nuclear weapons.’…”
PUTIN ORDERS INVESTIGATION OF SIMULTANEOUS PLANE CRASHES
August 25, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country's top security agency to investigate nearly simultaneous crashes of two passenger planes, which flew out of Moscow late Tuesday.
Emergency officials in Russia found the wreckage of the second of two airliners which crashed after taking off from the same Moscow airport, late Tuesday. The causes of the crashes are still unknown. Officials say all passengers and crew aboard the two planes - some 90 people - were killed.
Rescue teams have located the wreckage of a Tupolev-154 plane which went missing in the Rostov-on-Don region of southern Russia, with 46 people on board.
The plane was on a flight from Moscow to the Black Sea resort city, Sochi, when it disappeared from radar screens around the same time that a second aircraft was also reported missing.
The wreckage of that plane, a smaller Tupolev-134, was found in the Tula region, some 180 kilometers south of Moscow, while on its way to the city of Volgograd.
Russian news agencies report investigators so far have found no evidence of terrorism in the wreckage, but they have not ruled it out as a cause. Investigators have recovered the flight recorders from the crash sites of both planes.
Both planes had left the same airport in southern Moscow, then dropped off of radar screens within minutes of each other. One plane had reportedly activated a generic distress signal before crashing.
People living near the site of the Tula crash report hearing an explosion shortly before the Tu-134 went down.
Soon after hearing that two planes had gone missing, President Vladimir Putin ordered security tightened at all airports, across the country…”
SALAFISTS THREATEN MAJOR ALGERIAN CITIES
August 25, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Algeria's largest Islamic insurgency group has threatened to launch major attacks against the regime.
The Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call has warned Algerians to stay away from government installations in major cities. A Salafist statement said Islamic insurgents would launch a major strike against police stations.
The statement, posted on an Islamic Internet website on Aug. 21, warned Algerians to keep away from police stations and other security installations. The Salafists said they would not be responsible for passersby killed in these strikes.
‘We are innocent before Allah of the blood shed of those innocents who walk near these places,’ the Salafist statement said…”
U.S. PROVIDES C2 NETWORK FOR IRAQ
August 25, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “The United States has launched efforts to supply Iraq's military and security forces with a command and control network.
U.S. officials said the C2 network would link the Iraqi military with both the security forces as well as the U.S.-led coalition. They said the system would ensure situational awareness and real-time information to several command levels in Iraq.
The Defense Department has awarded a $7.8 million contract to MCI WorldCom Communications Inc. for what the Pentagon termed a modern, digital cellular, command and control system. The Pentagon said the C2 system would link the various new sites of the Iraqi Armed Forces and the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team.
Officials said the C2 project would be one of the most important factors in developing the capabilities of Iraq's military. They said the effort has been impaired by bureaucratic delays in the procurement of military systems for both the Iraqi military and security forces…”
HUMAN CHIPS MORE THAN SKIN-DEEP
August 24, 2004
CNET News.com reports: “There's not a lot of middle ground on the subject of implanting electronic identification chips in humans.
Advocates of technologies like radio frequency identification tags say their potentially life-saving benefits far outweigh any Orwellian concerns about privacy. RFID tags sewn into clothing or even embedded under people's skin could curb identity theft, help identify disaster victims and improve medical care, they say.
Critics, however, say such technologies would make it easier for government agencies to track a person's every movement and allow widespread invasion of privacy. Abuse could take countless other forms, including corporations surreptitiously identifying shoppers for relentless sales pitches. Critics also speculate about a day when people's possessions will be tagged--allowing nosy subway riders with the right technology to examine the contents of nearby purses and backpacks.
‘Invasion of privacy is going to be impossible to avoid,’ said Katherine Albrecht, the founder and director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, or CASPIAN, a watchdog group created to monitor the use of data collected in the so-called loyalty programs used increasingly by supermarkets. Albrecht worries about a day when ‘every physical item is registered to its owner.’
The overriding idea behind tagging people with chips--whether through implants or wearable devices such as bracelets--is to improve identification and, consequently, tighten access to restricted information or physical areas.
But on top of civil liberties and other policy issues, such technologies face visceral objections from many people who frown on the idea of being implanted with tags that can track them like migrating tuna. Complaints have led several companies to abandon plans to use RFID technologies in products, much less in human bodies…”
JORDAN WANTS SYRIA TO BOLSTER BORDER SECURITY
August 24, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Jordan has urged Syria to bolster border security as part of an effort to improve bilateral relations.
Jordanian officials said the current visit by Jordanian Prime Minister Faisal Al Fayez to Damascus has focused on security issues. They said Jordan was willing to offer economic incentives to Syria in exchange for an improvement in border security as well as cooperation against Islamic insurgency movements.
On Sunday, Al Fayez began a visit to Damascus, where he was hosted by his Syrian counterpart, Mohammed Atri. Officials said Amman has sought Syrian cooperation to end the flow of insurgents to Jordan as well as extradite those wanted by the Hashemite kingdom. Al Fayez has been accompanied by Interior Minister Samir Khabashne.
‘The two sides agreed to conclude an agreement in future to govern cooperation in the fields of monitoring borders, combating organized crime and drugs, regulating labors and ease procedures from and into of both countries,’ a Jordanian government communiqué said…”
NORTH KOREA LIKENS BUSH TO HITLER
August 23, 2004
BBC News reports: “North Korea has described US President George W Bush as an ‘imbecile’ and a ‘tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade’.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman was responding to comments President Bush made last week in which he described the North's Kim Jong-Il as a ‘tyrant’.
The spokesman also reiterated that North Korea will not attend a working meeting ahead of the next round of six-party talks on its nuclear program.
The working group is due to meet later this month in New York.
President Bush explained in a speech in Hudson, Wisconsin, last Wednesday, his decision to ask other countries in the region to help him persuade the North to disarm.
‘I felt it was important to bring other countries into the mix, like China and Japan and South Korea and Russia, so there's now five countries saying to the tyrant in North Korea, disarm, disarm,’ he said.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, in comments carried by state news agency KCNA, responded: ‘This clearly proves that the DPRK [North Korea] was right when it commented that he is a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality.....
HEZBULLAH 'MORE PREPARED THAN EVER'
August 23, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Hezbollah said it is better prepared than ever for a military confrontation with Israel.
The Iranian-sponsored insurgency group has built a formidable array of defenses and gathered an arsenal in southern Lebanon for an attack on Israel. Hezbollah said its forces have been trained for war with Israel along its border with Lebanon.
‘We are now highly prepared to face Israel,’ Hezbollah deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem said. ‘We are more highly prepared than at any previous time.’
In an interview with the Beirut-based Daily Star, Qassem said Hezbollah has opened a second front against Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He acknowledged that Hezbollah has provided Palestinian insurgents with financing, training and weaponry…”
IRAQI DESERTION RATE EXCEEDS 80%
August 22, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Iraq's security forces, ordered to prepare for an offensive against the Mahdi Army in Najaf, have been plagued by a desertion rate that exceeded 80 percent.
A U.S. report warned that Iraqi Interior Ministry troops remain unprepared to fight Shi'ite or Sunni insurgents and could not be deemed reliable. The report, published before the current showdown in Najaf, said the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, renamed the Iraqi National Guard, has not been trained to fight insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weapons.
‘Effective Iraqi security forces are critical for transitioning security responsibilities to Iraq,’ the Government Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the Congress, said in a report. ‘However, Iraqi security forces proved unready to take over security responsibilities from the multinational force, as demonstrated by their collapse during April 2004.’
The United States was said to have spent $1.2 billion in developing Iraq's security forces, which now number around 220,000. The Iraqi units include the military, police and Interior Ministry forces…”
SOUTH KOREA WARNS OF POSSIBLE NORTH KOREAN TERRORIST ACTS
August 21, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “South Korea recently warned of possible North Korean terrorist acts against South Koreans living abroad, following the airlifts last month of more than 400 North Korean refugees from Southeast Asia to South Korea. North Korea has engaged in terrorist acts against South Korea before. VOA's Korean Service recently spoke with the highest-ranking North Korean defector, Hwang Jang Yop, who says North Korean leaders knew about, and even helped organize, at least two terrorist acts against South Korea in the 1980s.
South Korea suffered two horrific terrorist attacks in the not so distant past. In 1983, 17 South Koreans, including several cabinet members, were killed in a bombing against a South Korean state delegation visiting Burma. The South Korean president at the time, Chun Doo Hwan, narrowly missed assassination.
Then, in 1987, an in-flight bombing of a Korean Air Lines passenger jet killed all 115 people on board. The flight, from Abu Dhabi to Seoul, crashed in the Indian Ocean.
In both cases, South Korean embassy spokesman Oh Soo Dong says Seoul believes North Korea was responsible. ‘We strongly condemn the North Korean, the terrorist acts, such as the Korean Air Lines bomb incident,’ he says. ‘No doubt about that.’…”
IS THIS THE ANSWER TO GOD, THE UNIVERSE AND ALL THAT?
August 21, 2004
The Guardian UK reports: “They call it the God particle: a mysterious sub-atomic fragment that permeates the entire universe and explains how everything is the way it is. Nobody has ever seen the God particle; some say it doesn't exist but, in the ultimate leap of faith, physicists across the world are preparing to build one of the most ambitious and expensive science experiments the world has ever seen to try to find it.
At a summit meeting in Beijing yesterday, 12 experts from countries including Britain, Japan, America and Germany announced they have agreed on a blueprint for the new experiment - a gigantic atom smashing machine called the international linear collider. Now they must convince their respective governments to meet the anticipated £3bn price tag.
Buried underground away from vibrations on the surface, the collider would accelerate particles from opposite ends of a 20-mile tunnel at near-light speeds and smash them into each other head-on. One stream of particles would be electrons; the other would be positrons, their antimatter partner.
The scientists hope the resulting cataclysmic explosion of heat, light and radiation will recreate the conditions found in first few billionths of a second after the big bang. And when that happens, they hope the God particle, otherwise known as the Higgs boson, will show itself…
f it gets built, the new machine could open the door to a shadowy new domain of physics. ‘The international linear collider will take our science into completely new areas,’ said Brian Foster at Oxford University. ‘It will hopefully reveal new and exciting physics, addressing the 21st century agenda of compelling questions about dark matter and dark energy, the existence of extra dimensions and the fundamental nature of matter, energy, space and time.’
Key to these discoveries is the Higgs boson particle, which scientists have been searching for since the British physicist Peter Higgs proposed it in the 1960s. The physicists want to find it because such a particle would plug a hole in a theory that is both their greatest triumph and their biggest headache…”
IRAN WARNS OF PREEMPTIVE STRIKE TO PREVENT ATTACK ON NUCLEAR SITES
August 20, 2004
Agency France-Presse reports: “Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.
‘We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly,’ Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.
‘America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq,’ said Shamkhani, speaking in Farsi to the Arabic-language news channel through an interpreter.
‘The US military presence (in Iraq) will not become an element of strength (for Washington) at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage’ in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.
Shamkhani, who was asked about the possibility of an American or Israeli strike against Iran's atomic power plant in Bushehr, added: ‘We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength.
‘Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two.’
A commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted in the Iranian press earlier Wednesday as saying that Tehran would strike the Israeli reactor at Dimona if Israel attacks the Islamic republic's own burgeoning nuclear facilities.
‘If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear center, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move,’ General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr warned…”
IRAQI FORCES FAIL TO ARRIVE IN NAJAF
August 20, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Iraqi military and security reinforcements have failed to arrive in Najaf for a planned military showdown with the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army.
U.S. officials said the interim government in Baghdad has withheld orders for Iraqi forces to dislodge Shi'ite loyalists of Moqtada Sadr from their strongholds in central Najaf. The officials said infighting within the Iraqi government as well as defections from the military and security forces have suspended plans to launch an offensive against Sadr.
‘There won't be any Iraqi forces and there won't be any battle,’ a U.S. officials said. ‘We're back to square one.’
The officials, in what they termed a repeat of the failure to battle Sunni insurgents in Faluja in May, reported defections of Shi'ite units of the Iraqi National Guard summoned to fight the Mahdi Army. They said an entire Iraqi brigade, based in Basra, as well as its commander has refused orders to fight Shi'ite insurgents in Najaf. Other National Guard units also failed to arrive in Najaf…”
U.S. DENIES ADVANCED HELLFIRE TO ISRAEL
August 20, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “The United States has rejected an Israeli request for an advanced airborne munition.
Israeli sources said the Bush administration has withheld approval for an Israeli request for the sale of advanced versions of the Hellfire anti-tank missile. The sources said the models were deployed on U.S. Army AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters during the war in Iraq in 2003.
The models sought by Israel are the L, M and N models of the Hellfire. Israel has been supplied with earlier versions of the missile.
The Israel Air Force has sought to procure the latest models of the Hellfire as part of preparations for the arrival of new Apache Longbow helicopters. The L, M and N models, with a millimeter wave fire-and-forget guidance system, were regarded as having performed extremely well in Iraq in urban warfare as well as anti-armor operations…”
SAUDIS MAINTAIN F-15 SQUADRON IN TABOUK
August 19, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Saudi Arabia has maintained a squadron of advanced F-15 fighter-jets in the northwestern city of Tabouk near the Israeli border.
Israeli officials said Saudi Arabia has ignored Israeli and U.S. appeals to remove the F-15S from the air force base in Tabouk. They said the deployment of the F-15S or other models of the F-15s in Tabouk marks a violation of an agreement by Riyad to the United States in 1978.
The Saudis bought the F-15 and there was a very clear agreement,’ Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shkeidy said. ‘When the Saudis bought it, it was agreed that the F-15 would not be in Tabouk. The fact is that there is a squadron of F-15s in Tabouk.’
This was the first time Israel reported the number of F-15s in Tabouk. In September 2003, U.S. officials said Saudi Arabia had transferred about 50 F-15S aircraft, or two squadrons, to Tabouk, about 150 kilometers from the southern Israeli port of Eilat…”
MIDEAST MILITARIES REMAIN POORLY TRAINED, EQUIPPED
August 19, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Despite a huge investment, Middle East militaries remain poorly trained and equipped.
A report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said the militaries of Iran and the Arab world continue to fall behind that of their Western counterparts. The report, authored by senior fellow and former Pentagon official Anthony Cordesman, said virtually all of the militaries in the Middle East have failed to properly train their soldiers and keep apace of the revolution in military affairs.
‘Most Arab land force reserve manpower has little training, second- or third-rate equipment, and little capability in maneuver and demanding combined arms warfare,’ the report, Middle East Military Balance of 2004, said. ‘Modern military forces are so expensive that Middle Eastern states cannot afford to use much of their total manpower pool because they cannot fund suitable equipment, training, and sustainability.’
The report said Israel has been the only military in the Middle East that has largely kept up with advancements in defense technology and doctrine. The other militaries in the region have largely failed to exploit the advanced platforms and systems obtained from the United States and other suppliers…”
IRAN WARNS ISRAEL ON NUCLEAR FACILITIES
August 18, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “A senior Iranian military commander says Iran would destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor, if the Jewish state were to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iran's first nuclear power station, at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf coast, is scheduled to begin operating next year.
Israel has not directly threatened to attack the facility. But the United States says it suspects Iran is secretly building nuclear weapons, and Israel says it will not allow Tehran to have a nuclear bomb.
Iran insists its nuclear program is for generating electricity and other peaceful uses.
Israel has never confirmed or denied having a nuclear arsenal. But its reactor at Dimona is widely believed to be the source of plutonium used to build as many as 200 nuclear warheads…”
DIVIDED IRAQI GOVT. DECIDES TO CALL IN TROOPS
August 17, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Iraq's interim government, divided over the U.S.-led military campaign against Shi'ite insurgents, has decided to deploy elite security forces to dislodge the Mahdi Army from its strongholds in Najaf.
Iraqi officials said elite Iraqi military and security units have been transported from bases throughout the country for Najaf. The officials said the forces have prepared to launch an offensive against Iranian-backed Shi'ite insurgents in an operation supported by U.S.-led coalition units.
The offensive was expected to begin upon the conclusion of a three-day Iraqi national conference, scheduled to end on Tuesday. On Sunday, fighting resumed between U.S. forces, accompanied by Iraqi troops, and Mahdi insurgents and two U.S. soldiers were killed.
‘We shall give the peaceful way a chance,’ Iraqi State Minister Wael Abdul Latif said. ‘After that, we shall take another position.’…”
NORTH KOREA SAYS IT WILL NOT JOIN NUCLEAR TALKS
August 17, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “North Korea says it will not attend working-level talks on its nuclear-weapons programs because of what it calls U.S. hostility.
North Korea says ‘hostile acts’ by the United States have made it impossible for Pyongyang to attend the next round of preparatory meetings in Beijing aimed at resolving the stalemate over its nuclear weapons programs.
In a statement carried by the North Korean official news agency (KCNA), a foreign ministry official said these acts, which were not specified, prevent North Korea from freezing its nuclear facilities.
Analysts like Lee Myon-woo of Seoul's Sejong Institute have been expecting North Korea to delay the next round of talks until after the U.S. elections in November, in case President Bush is defeated and his successor is friendlier to Pyongyang.
‘Their basic question has not been changed,’ he says. ‘They are kind of postponing until the end of this election.’
The six nations that are party to the talks were to send working-level delegations to Beijing this week to prepare for a fourth round of negotiations.
Three rounds hosted by China have so far yielded little toward ending the dispute between Pyongyang, its neighbors and Washington.
North Korea has admitted to operating a plutonium-based nuclear-weapons program. Washington says the North also has a secret uranium-based project, which Pyongyang denies. Both programs would be in violation of international agreements signed by the North…”
EU TO BUILD WALL AFTER BLASTING ISRAEL'S
August 17, 2004
WorldNetDaily.com reports: “Just one month after the U.N. and EU launched a furious campaign against Israel's security fence, culminating in the International Court of Justice ruling that the fence is illegal, the EU announced it's planning to build a separation fence of its own, and invited Israel to participate in the construction.
The fence is being built to separate recently added EU members Poland and Hungary from their new neighbors – Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The EU said the fence is necessary to ‘prevent the free movement of migrants seeking to enter’ EU territory.
Israeli companies that specialize in the construction of fences and security systems will participate in tenders to build hundreds of miles of fences along the EU's new eastern border.
‘It's incredible the EU has no problem building a fence just to keep illegal immigrants out, but when the Jewish State builds a security fence as a last resort for the purpose of keeping terrorists out and saving Israeli lives, we are blasted by them and the U.N.,’ a spokesman for Ariel Sharon told WorldNetDaily. ‘Makes you think, doesn't it?’…”
IRAN: WE CAN HIT ANYWHERE IN ISRAEL
August 16, 2004
WorldNetDaily.com reports: “A senior Iranian military official told reporters yesterday Israel and the United States would not dare attack Iran since it could strike back anywhere in Israel and against U.S. military installations in the Middle East with its latest missiles.
‘The entire Zionist territory, including its nuclear facilities and atomic arsenal, are currently within range of Iran's advanced missiles,’ the ISNA students news agency quoted Yadollah Javani, head of the Revolutionary Guards political bureau, as saying.
‘Therefore, neither the Zionist regime nor America will carry out its threats’ against Iran, he said. An attack on Iran ‘could only be carried out by angry or stupid people. For that reason, officials of the Islamic Republic must always be prepared to counter possible military threats,’ Javani said in a statement, ISNA reported.
Iranian officials have made a point of highlighting the Islamic state's military capabilities in recent weeks in response to some media reports that Israeli or U.S. warplanes could try to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities in air strikes.
Iran last week said it carried out a successful test firing of an upgraded version of its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile. Military experts said the unmodified Shahab-3 was already capable of striking Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf…”
ITALY GETS NEW THREATS FROM ALLY OF AL QAEDA
August 16, 2004
The International Herald Tribune reports: “A militant group linked to Al Qaeda on Sunday issued fresh threats against Italy as the country's interior minister said the government would not be intimidated and assured Italians that ‘high levels of security’ had been put into place.
The minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, said that Italians had reacted calmly to a series of threats, but added that he could not rule out the possibility of an attack.
Pisanu was speaking at a press conference in Rome on the day the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades had set as a deadline for ‘a blood bath’ unless Italy withdrew its troops from Iraq. ‘There's no place in the world that can be considered safe today,’ he said.
On Sunday morning, Masri Brigades, a group that claims links with Al Qaeda and has taken responsibility for a series of attacks, including the bombing in Madrid on March 11, issued an Internet statement calling for its cells to hit all possible targets because Italy had not heeded previous calls to pull its troops, numbering 3,000, from Iraq.
‘The earth will be shaken under the feet of every Italian,’ the group wrote in Arabic on an Islamic Web site that The Associated Press described as a clearinghouse for militant-related material.
The text said that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was a target.
Pisanu said that the statement was in line with several others issued by the group. ‘It is similar with preceding threats,’ he said. ‘We won't underestimate it, but neither will we allow ourselves to be frightened.’
Italians, he added, had not changed their plans because of the deadline, Aug. 15, known in Italy as Ferragosto, an important religious holiday.
Last week, the national security commission beefed up security measures on more than 13,000 potential targets, and police chiefs in several cities revoked holiday time off for law officers. Hospitals and municipal fire departments were also put on alert…”
ID CARDS ARE UNSAFE, WATCHDOG WARNS
August 16, 2004
The London Daily Telegraph reports: “Labour's plans to introduce identity cards and a population register could result in Britain ‘sleepwalking into a surveillance society’, the information watchdog has warned.
Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said he had strong concerns about the identity card scheme proposed by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary.
He also warned that a separate population register planned by the Office of National Statistics and a plans to hold details on every child until they are 18 were dangerous.
Mr. Thomas said: ‘My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society where much more information is collected about people, accessible to far more people shared across many more boundaries than British society would feel comfortable with.’
Asked if he thought that there was a risk of that occurring because of the Government's plans, Mr. Thomas told the Times: ‘I think there is a danger, yes.’
Mr. Thomas said he did not want to ‘start talking paranoia language’, but suggested that some of the plans could be likened to controls imposed by police states.
‘Some of my counterparts in eastern Europe, in Spain, have experienced in the last century what can happen when government gets too powerful and has too much information on citizens,’ he said.
Mr. Thomas said although he does not oppose identity cards, he has concerns about the Government's failure to give details about their exact purpose.
‘The Government has changed its line over the last two or three years as to what the card is intended for. You have to have clarity.
‘Is it for the fight against terrorism? Is it to promote immigration control? Is it to provide access to public benefits and services?’
Mr. Thomas's other concerns include the ONS's Citizens Information Project, which would create a population database for use by public services…”
SYRIAN LAUNCHES CRACKDOWN ON BROTHERHOOD
August 16, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Syria has launched a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
At least 25 suspected Brotherhood members have been arrested in the northern city of Hama, a human rights group said. The detainees included four Muslim preachers.
The Human Rights Association of Syria said in a statement on Aug. 10 that Syrian authorities also confiscated computers, files and books from Islamic activists in Hama. It was the first reported raid against the Brotherhood by the regime of President Bashar Assad, who succeeded his late father in 2000.
The association said it did not know the reason for the raid. Over the last two years, the Assad regime has relayed its intention to reconcile with the Brotherhood, banned by Damascus for more than 20 years…”
UN: PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY REFORMS MERELY COSMETIC
August 15, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “The United Nations has determined that the Palestinian Authority failed to implement meaningful reforms.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council, a senior official said the PA has not responded to appeals from the international community to institute security or civilian reforms. The official said the PA has announced reforms, but largely failed to implement them.
‘Implementation of reform continues to be slow, and mostly cosmetic,’ Kieran Prendergast, UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, told the Security Council. ‘This cannot be explained other than by a lack of political will to advance along that road.’
Prendergast reviewed recent developments in the PA in his Aug. 11 briefing. The UN officials, a U.S. national, said PA Chairman Yasser Arafat agreed in late July to grant Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei authority over security agencies that had been under Interior Ministry control…”
U.S. OUTLINES JANJAWEED ROLE IN DARFOUR WAR
August 15, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “The United States has outlined the role of Sudan's state-supported Janjaweed militia in the war in the Darfour province.
U.S. officials said Janjaweed has become the land-based strike arm of Sudan's military. They said the regime of President Omar Bashir has used Janjaweed to destroy black African villages and attack rebels amid his loss of trust in the army.
The Arab-dominated Janjaweed militia has been accused of killing 30,000 people in and expelling 1.2 million others from Darfour over the last 18 months. The United States has demanded the dismantling of Janjaweed and prosecution of its leaders for war crimes. In response, Sudan has offered to incorporate the Janjaweed into the police and security forces.
Officials said the Bashir regime began to use Janjaweed in 2003 when the Sudanese Army proved unreliable. They said 40 percent of the army comes from Darfour and many soldiers have identified with the demands of the black African rebels for equal rights…”
AL QAEDA SHOWING NEW LIFE
August 14, 2004
The Washington Post reports: “In the more than two years since U.S. forces destroyed al Qaeda's haven and much of its leadership in Afghanistan, many U.S. intelligence officials and terrorism experts had come to believe that other Islamist extremist groups now posed the gravest threat.
From Istanbul to Madrid, local jihadists mounted daring and deadly attacks with little apparent support from Osama bin Laden's crippled network. President Bush and other U.S. officials boasted that two-thirds of al Qaeda's senior leadership had been captured or killed and that those who remained, including bin Laden, were desperate and on the run.
But the wave of arrests and intelligence discoveries in Pakistan in recent weeks that led to a new terrorism alert in the United States caught many U.S. officials and outside experts by surprise. It revealed a network of operatives connected to past al Qaeda operations and aligned with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the imprisoned mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The new evidence suggests that al Qaeda is battered but not beaten, and that a motley collection of old hands and recent recruits has formed a nucleus in Pakistan that is pushing forward with plans for attacks in the United States, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
The key questions, according to intelligence officials and experts from both nations, are whether the new guard is capable of coordinating significant terrorist attacks and whether any coherent leadership has emerged to take the place of Mohammed and other senior al Qaeda leaders now in U.S. custody…”
CHRISTIANS FACE THREAT PUSHING BIBLE BELIEFS
August 14, 2004
WorldNetDaily.com reports: “While an American pastor is the subject of federal investigations for delivering a pro-George Bush sermon on July 4, Christian churches in Canada are now facing the loss of their tax-exempt status should they become involved in partisan politics.
The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency has met with legal representatives of both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada to warn them of the action in connection with this year's campaign.
According to LifeSiteNews, churches are not only admonished against recommending certain candidates or political parties, but they also face crackdowns for speaking out on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.
‘The best thing for a charity to do, especially during an election, is to stay away from those issues,’ Dawna Lynn Labonté, a spokeswoman for the minister of national revenue, told the news agency. ‘There are certain issues, especially during election times, that are very political.’
The gag order on religions is said to cover all moral issues, even poverty.
‘Taking out a full page ad before Christmas on homelessness might not be considered political, but doing the same thing the week of an election might be considered political,’ Labonté said.
The policy is being blasted the group Concerned Christians Canada which says the government is subverting democracy, abrogating basic religious freedom and attacking the nation's Christians…”
UNPRECEDENTED SECURITY MEASURES IN PLACE AHEAD OF OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY
August 13, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “The 2004 Olympic Games that officially open Friday in Athens have been surrounded by unprecedented security measures. The cost of security has reached $1.5 billion, four times that of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. The massive operation involves a huge police and military presence and sophisticated technology aimed at warding off any terrorist attack.
The reason for such a large security operation is that these are the first Summer Olympics to be held since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States. Greek officials say those attacks motivated them to change their planning and double the original security budget.
Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyannis says that, despite international concern about possible terrorist attacks during the games, there has so far been no intelligence indicating that such attacks will occur.
‘Greece and Athens have never been threatened,’ she stressed. ‘The Olympic Games have never been threatened, but they are still the biggest international endeavor which takes place in this new, unstable world.’
Even though Greece has traditionally close ties to the Palestinians and Arab states, there are fears that Islamic militants might try to attack the teams of countries involved in the occupation of Iraq.
So, Greece has mobilized 70,000 police and military personnel, one half of its security forces, to provide protection for the Olympics. It has set up an air defense shield around Athens that has been boosted by the presence of NATO surveillance aircraft, which can monitor up to 500 kilometers of Greek airspace and pass information on any threat to a command and control center on the ground. Patriot missiles are in place near the Olympic village to shoot down any hijacked passenger jets like the ones that carried out the September 11 attacks…”
IRAN TESTS MISSILE CAPABLE OF HITTING ISRAEL
August 12, 2004
Reuters reports: “Iran's defense ministry said on Wednesday it had carried out a field test of the latest version of its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile which defense experts say can reach Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf.
Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said last week Iran was working on improvements to the range and accuracy of the Shahab-3 in response to Israel's moves to boost its anti-missile capability.
A defense ministry spokesman confirmed a state television report that the test was carried out ‘to assess the latest developments implemented on this missile.’ He declined to give any further details.
Iran says its missile program is purely for deterrent purposes. Tehran also denies U.S. and Israeli accusations that it is seeking to develop nuclear warheads which could be delivered by the Shahab-3.
Based on the North Korean Nodong-1 and modified with Russian technology, the Shahab-3 is thought to have a range of 810 miles which would allow it to strike anywhere in Israel. Shahab means meteor in Persian.
Amid media speculation that Israel may try to halt Iran's nuclear program by carrying out air strikes on some atomic facilities in Iran, Iranian officials have said Tehran would retaliate promptly and strongly to any such attack…”
SCIENTISTS GIVEN CLONING GO-AHEAD
August 12, 2004
BBC News reports: “British scientists have been given permission to perform therapeutic cloning using human embryos for the first time.
The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority granted the license to experts at the University of Newcastle.
They are investigating new treatments for conditions including diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.
The controversial decision could open a new era of research by scientists looking for remedies for diseases.
The research will take place at the International Centre for Life in Newcastle, involving experts from the Institute of Human Genetics at Newcastle University, and the Newcastle Fertility Centre.
Scientists there believe this is the first time such a license has been granted in any European country.
They warn it will be at least five years - if not many more - before patients could receive stem cell treatments based on their work.
But the ProLife Party has said it is considering mounting a legal challenge against the HFEA's decision to allow the research to go ahead…”
BIN LADEN HINTS MAJOR ASSASSINATION
August 11, 2004
The Washington Times reports: “U.S. intelligence officials say a high-profile political assassination, triggered by the public release of a new message from Osama bin Laden, will lead off the next major al Qaeda terrorist attack, The Washington Times has learned.
The assassination plan is among new details of al Qaeda plots disclosed by U.S. Officials familiar with intelligence reports who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the killing could be carried out against a U.S. or foreign leader either in the United States or abroad.
The officials mentioned Saudi Arabia and Yemen, two nations that are working with the United States in the battle against al Qaeda, as likely locales for the opening assassination.
The planning for the attacks to follow involves ‘multiple targets in multiple venues’ across the United States, one official said.
The new details of al Qaeda's plans were found on a laptop computer belonging to arrested al Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan of Pakistan.
‘We're talking about planning at the screwdriver level,’ one official said. ‘It is very detailed.’
Khan was arrested July 13 in Lahore, Pakistan, along with Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who was indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa and was on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists.
U.S. and allied counterterrorism officials are pursuing leads on other terrorists based on the data from Khan's seized laptop. At least one arrest in Britain has been made so far, and others are expected, the officials said…”
IRAN SAID TO BE ARMING MAHDI ARMY
August 11, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Iraq has accused Iran of arming the Shi'ite insurgency.
The interim government in Baghdad said Teheran has been sending a range of weapons to the Mahdi Army, headed by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr. Officials said Iran has ignored numerous Iraqi appeals to halt the weapons flow to Shi'ite insurgents.
‘There are Iranian-made weapons that have been found in the hands of criminals in Najaf who received these weapons from across the Iranian border,’ Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan said. ‘From far and near, the facts that we have say that what has happened to the Iraqi people is done by the one regarded as the chief enemy.’
Shaalan's remarks, made during an interview with the Dubai-based Al Arabiya satellite channel, was the latest in a litany of accusations by Baghdad against Teheran. Iraqi officials said Teheran has also sent thousands of operatives to Iraq to foment unrest and support the Shi'ite and Sunni insurgency…”
'TUBE FLOOD PLAN' TO KILL THOUSANDS
August 10, 2004
This Is London reports: “A terror plot to detonate a bomb inside a Tube tunnel beneath the Thames has been uncovered by MI5 chiefs, it was reported yesterday.
The explosion would pierce the bed of the river, leaving tens of thousands of rush- hour commuters to be drowned or trampled underfoot in the panic as people tried to flee.
Blueprints for an attack on the Underground and maps of the tunnels were reported to have been discovered a t an al- Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, a Sunday newspaper reported. It is the latest in a series of terror scares.
Last week, reports suggested Heathrow airport was a target of Islamic fundamentalists.
Security has been stepped up at the entrances to the hundreds of miles of Tube tunnels stretching underneath London. Anti-terror chiefs recently highlighted that the radio systems of some emergency services do not work in the deepest Tube stations.
Richard Barnes, deputy chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said: 'Radio incompatibility could be a matter of life and death.'
Transport for London, which is responsible for the Tube, said it was working closely with the police to ensure security systems were up to date. Its spokesman added: 'Our radios and the British Transport Police's radios do work in the deepest tunnels…”
IRAN'S BUSHEHR IS 90% READY
August 10, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Russia has completed more than 90 percent of the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran.
Russian officials said Moscow has accelerated work on the Bushehr power reactor. They said 1,500 Russian nationals and personnel from the former Soviet Union were sent to Iran to complete the $1 billion nuclear project.
So far, officials said, Russia has completed procurement for Bushehr. They said the remaining work includes the assembly of the equipment, systems integration and preparing for operations.
‘By now, the first power unit of the Bushehr nuclear station is 90 percent ready,’ a Russian Atomic Agency official told the Moscow-based Tass news agency. ‘All heavy equipment, including the reactor, has been brought and assembled at the station building.’…”
RFID GETS SKIN-DEEP ALTERNATIVE
August 9, 2004
Silicon.com reports: “One German start-up has created an alternative to RFID that is likely to get under consumers' skin.
Ident Technologies has dreamt up Skinplex - which could be used in all the same ways as RFID and Bluetooth - but uses a different transmitter: human skin.
Like RFID, Skinplex works by reading a unique identifier remotely using an electromagnetic signal, normally between a microchip and a reader. Unlike RFID, however, Skinplex uses the skin to transmit the signal and an identifier carried on a person. The signal is transmitted when the carrier touches the receiver.
The Skinplex system can also be worked from a distance of 50cm, transmitting through the ether.
One possible use for the technology the company is touting is for unlocking car doors remotely. With the car owner carrying his own unique code, the idea is Skinplex becomes an anti-theft device, with only the car owner being able to get in the car without setting off an alarm.
With RFID set to become a billion-dollar market by 2010, the idea of keeping the costs down might tempt some the way of Skinplex.
Some hospitals are even talking about implanting staff and patients with RFID technology, potentially opening up a huge market for humans to carry RFID chips or Skinplex identifiers…”
BIBLE BANNED FROM TOWN COUNCIL MEETING;
LABELED AS "HATE SPEECH"August 8th, 2004
Summary: Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America, faces up to 15 months in jail and a $2,800 fine for reading from the Bible at his local borough council meeting. He is a resident of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, which is the first community in Delaware County to have an open homosexual in public office. Michael attended the July 21st borough council meeting to share from the Bible his opposition to the council's agenda of attracting more homosexuals to Lansdowne. During the public comment/question period, Michael was ordered not to read from the Bible by the president of the council, who stated that God's Word is "hate speech." Michael was then physically removed from the room and ordered out of the building. Prior to this, he was struck by one of the council members, and further assaulted by the Lansdowne police chief. After being told he is not being charged with any crime, Michael was telephoned the next day by the police chief and informed that he is being charged with "disrupting a public meeting" and "disorderly conduct." - Read More....
TERRORIST GROUP RENEWS THREATS AGAINST ITALY
August 8, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “A group claiming links to the al-Qaida terrorism network has renewed its threats to attack Italy if that country does not withdraw its troops from Iraq by August 15.
The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade Saturday posted a message on an Islamic website saying its cells in Rome and throughout Italy are prepared to carry out their mission. It warned any place could be a target.
On August 1, the group sent a statement to a London-based Arabic newspaper saying it would, in the words of the message, ‘shake and burn Italy’ if the country did not withdraw its Iraq contingent within 15 days.
The group also made two other public threats against Italy in the last month
Officials have been unable to authenticate any of the warnings…”
PROBE SET TO TEST EINSTEIN THEORY
August 7, 2004
Wired.com reports: “NASA's Gravity Probe B spacecraft could begin testing Einstein's general theory of relativity as early as this week, according to mission controllers at Stanford University.
The probe, said to be one of the most precise scientific instruments ever assembled, was initially scheduled to begin taking measurements within 45 to 60 days of its April 20 launch into Earth orbit. But mission controllers were forced to delay operations time and again after discovering minor malfunctions in the spacecraft's microthrusters and observing unexpected behavior from its four gyroscopes…
Though many of the theory's underlying concepts have been tested and proven in the 89 years since Einstein first published them, the proof for two concepts has remained elusive.
The first concept suggests that Earth -- and almost any body in space -- creates a dimple in the universe's so-called space-time fabric. The second suggests that the rotation of the Earth twists that fabric.
Gravity Probe B will attempt to measure those effects by aligning itself with a distant star and then measuring tiny changes in the direction of its four spinning gyroscopes with respect to the line of the star. If Einstein was right, the twist in the space-time fabric should push the spinning spheres at the center of the gyroscopes ever so slightly off their axes. According to project scientists, the angle of that shift would be so small that if the spheres' axes were a kilometer long, the ends would only move by the width of a human hair.
To make measurements this small, Gravity Probe B engineers had to ensure that the spheres in each of the spacecraft's four gyroscopes would not wobble enough to ruin the measurements. To do this, they designed and developed some of the most perfect spheres ever created by humans. Composed of fused quartz, the objects the size of a Ping-Pong ball have no imperfections greater than 40 atomic layers in height. In other words, if the spheres were the size of the Earth, there would be no hills or valleys taller or deeper than 12 feet…”
MAHDI ARMY RENEWS INSURGENCY AGAINST U.S.
August 7, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “The Iranian-backed Mahdi Army has renewed its military campaign against the United States.
After a lull of two months, the Mahdi Army loyal to Iranian-backed Moqtada Sadr has launched operations against U.S. and Iraqi security forces in the central city of Najaf. The U.S. military said Sadr's forces opened with an attack on a police station in the city on Thursday in fighting that continued over the weekend.
‘Iraqi national guardsmen quickly reinforced Iraqi police, and the two units successfully defended the station from the attackers,’ the U.S. military statement said. ‘Upon arrival of the marines, Mahdi Army members withdrew into the city's exclusion zone. The attack is an overt violation of the ceasefire agreement reached in June between coalition forces and Moqtada Sadr.’
Mahdi insurgents shot down a U.S. UH-1 Huey helicopter during the fighting and several crew members were injured. The insurgents were said to have deployed rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, automatic weapons and light arms in the attack…”
US EMBASSY CLOSED IN INDIA DUE TO SECURITY CONCERNS
August 6, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “The U.S. Embassy in the Indian capital New Delhi has shut three of its offices because of security concerns. Officials are not commenting on local media reports that link the closure to terrorist threats.
U.S. officials would only say that a ‘security concern’ prompted the partial closure of the U.S. embassy, affecting the immigration office, the consular section and the library. Press officer David Kennedy refused to disclose the precise cause of the concern.
‘In light of a security concern, there was just a feeling it was better to limit the public access,’ he announced.
Local news media have reported that two suspected al-Qaida militants arrested in Pakistan last month supplied information that the terror group was threatening the embassy.
U.S. consular offices in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta remain open. Embassy officials say they will announce later Thursday whether the embassy offices in New Delhi will reopen on Friday.
Bombings and terrorist attacks have taken place in India - most often in the border region of Kashmir, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan. Muslim militants have fought a violent 15-year campaign to join the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir to Pakistan, or to make it independent…”
SOUTHEAST ASIAN TERROR GROUP PLANNING NEW ATTACKS , EXPERTS WARN
August 6, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “A year after the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah exploded a car bomb outside the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, terror experts across the region are warning that the militants, although weakened by arrests and disagreement, are planning new attacks.
A year ago Thursday, suicide bomber Asmar Latin Sani drove a car packed with a fertilizer bomb into the forecourt of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital, and detonated his charge. Twelve people died, 11 of them Indonesians.
That was the last major attack by Jemaah Islamiyah, the al Qaida-affiliated militant organization that was also responsible for the Bali bombing in 2002, and has been implicated in several bombings in the Philippines. Analysts say JI is a much weaker group than before: it has been decimated by arrests in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, and there was a split over tactics within the group after the Marriott bombing.
Experts on JI say some members were upset by the number of Indonesian casualties in Jakarta and want to pursue a more peaceful plan, while hard-liners accepted the deaths as an unavoidable consequence of war and have vowed to continue their campaign of violence.
Despite the arrests and disagreements, experts around the region are warning that the group can be expected to strike again. Singapore's Home Affairs Minister, Wong Kan Seng, said Thursday that JI is starting to recover from the blows inflicted by law enforcement over the past several years…”
EGYPT NEWSPAPER: HOLOCAUST A LIE
August 4, 2004
WorldNetDaily.com reports: “Egypt's leading newspaper has published a series of articles that deny the Holocaust, and claim Jews invented ‘lies of genocide’ to extort the West and make possible the establishment of the Jewish state, prompting some Israeli lawmakers to express reservations about allowing Egypt to control security in Gaza after Sharon's withdrawal plan is implemented next year.
Dr. Rif'at Sayyed Ahmad, director of the Jaffa Research Center in Cairo and columnist for Al-Liwaa Al-Islami, Egypt's state-controlled newspaper, published a two-part article, 'The Lie About The Burning of the Jews,' which claims the Holocaust was a Jewish invention.
‘The Zionist enterprise on the land of Palestine succeeded by means of lies and myths, from the myth of the 'Chosen People' and the 'Promised Land' to the lie about the burning of the Jews in the Nazi gas chambers during World War II,’ wrote Ahmad according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.
‘What interests us here is that this lie [about] the burning of the Jews in the Nazi crematoria has been disseminated throughout the world until our time in order to extort the West and make it easier for the Jews of Europe to hunt [sic] Palestine and establish a state on it, in disregard of the most basic principles of international law and the right of peoples to independent life without occupation. [This lie] was raised [also] so that [the Jews] would receive financial, technological, and economic aid from the West. ...”
AL QAIDA RESUMES KILLINGS IN SAUDI
August 5, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Al Qaida has resumed attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi officials said a suspected Al Qaida gunman entered a Saudi company in Riyad on Tuesday evening and shot dead an Irish national. They said gunman was not stopped by the guard at the entrance to the office building and that the Irish national was shot by a pistol with a silencer.
The name of the victim was not disclosed, but Saudi sources on Wednesday identified him as Anthony Higgins, a 63-year-old civil engineer of a Saudi-owned construction company, Rocky. The company has both Western and Asian employees.
‘A resident holding Irish citizenship was found killed in his office in the premises of a commercial enterprise in Riyad,’ the official Saudi Press Agency said…”
NORTH KOREAN MISSILES MAY HAVE U.S. IN RANGE
August 4, 2004
The International Herald Tribune reports: “North Korea is deploying new land- and sea-based ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads and may have sufficient range to hit the continental United States, according to the authoritative Jane's Defense Weekly.
The land-based model has an estimated range of 2,500 to 4,000 kilometers (1,550 to 2,500 miles), Jane's said, bringing into range all of East Asia, as well as Hawaii and U.S. military bases on the Pacific islands of Okinawa and Guam.
The sea-launched model could be fired at least 2,500 kilometers from any point in the ocean, said the article, which was due to appear Wednesday.
Jane's said the two new systems appeared to be based on a decommissioned Soviet missile, the R-27, launched from a submarine.
It said North Korea had acquired the ability during the 1990s from Russian missile specialists and by buying 12 former Soviet submarines that had been sold for scrap metal but retained key elements of their missile launch systems.
Jane's, which did not specify its sources, said the sea-based missile was potentially the more threatening of the two new weapons systems.
‘It would fundamentally alter the missile threat posed by the DPRK,’ the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, ‘and could finally provide its leadership with something that it has long sought to obtain - the ability to directly threaten the continental U.S.,’ the weekly said.
Apart from aiming at the United States, South Korea or Japan, cash-strapped North Korea might seek to sell the technology to countries that have bought its missiles in the past, with Iran a prime candidate, the article added.
Information about North Korea's military capabilities is invariably sketchy given the ultra-secretive nature of its hard-line Communist regime.
However, the country is known to possess ballistic missile technology…”
ISRAEL EXPANDS GAZA OPERATION TO STOP PALESTINIAN ROCKET ATTACKS
August 4, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “Israeli forces moved toward the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza Wednesday in a operation the army says is aimed at preventing Palestinian militants from firing rockets into southern Israel.
Palestinian witnesses say soldiers did not enter the densely populated camp, but took over several nearby buildings and set up positions on rooftops. They say an Israeli helicopter also fired a missile into an area near the town of Beit Hanoun.
The French news agency cited local medical sources as saying three people were wounded. But there was no immediate official confirmation of the report.
Earlier this week, Hamas militants threatened daily rocket attacks on the Israeli town of Sderot, unless Israeli forces withdraw from Beit Hanoun…”
HAMAS VIDEO THREATENS ROCKET ATTACK ON SDEROT
August 3, 2004
Ha’aretz reports: “The Palestinian militant group Hamas issued a video on Tuesday threatening daily rocket attacks on the southern town of Sderot.
The video, aired on the pan-Arab television station Al-Arabiya, featured three masked men surrounded by weapons and standing before a green flag emblazoned with the Muslim credo: ‘There is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet.’
One of the men read a statement threatening to rain rockets on the town of Sderot in the Negev. He identified his group as ‘the Brigades of the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam,’ Hamas's military wing.
Hamas, a terrorist organization which has taken responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings, has not issued such video threats in the past.
The video resembled those produced by the al-Qaida terror network and by militant groups fighting U.S. forces in Iraq, illustrating how extremist groups influence each other.
Such groups have embraced modern forms of communication, sending videos to Arab TV stations with wide viewerships or putting them on the Internet to rally sympathizers, spread their ideology and increase their profile.
‘We will continue to shell you every day to see what your defeated army will do for you,’ the Hamas threat said. ‘Oh residents of Sderot, stop your army from carrying out their crimes and get them out of Beit Hanoun otherwise you will pay the price.’
In June, a Hamas rocket killed two Israelis, including a four-year-old boy, for the first time in nearly four years of fighting. In response, the Israeli army launched a broad operation in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, which sits on the border with Israel…”
GREECE TO OBTAIN AMRAAM MISSILES
August 3, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “The United States has agreed to supply additional advanced air-to-air missiles to Greece.
The Defense Department has awarded a $52.6 million contract to Raytheon for the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile and related equipment. The award represents an option of a previous missile supply contract with Greece.
The Pentagon said the award called for 106 AIM-120C5 AMRAAMs to Greece and Sweden. The contract also called on Raytheon, based in Tucson, Ariz., to supply two test missiles and other equipment for the program.
The equipment includes two lots of missiles, offset administration, one lot of software configuration management, one lot of spares and two non-developments item-airborne instrumentation units…”
ZARQAWI IS ALONG IRAQ-IRAN BORDER
August 3, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, regarding as the leading foreign insurgent in Iraq, was believed to be shuttling between Iran and Iraq.
Western intelligence sources said the United States has quietly determined that Al Zarqawi has not been in Iraq for more than a month. The sources said Al Zarqawi left the Sunni Triangle for the Iran-Iraq border and has been moving in an arc from Iran in the east to Syria in the west as he continued to relay orders, plan operations and relay funding.
‘Much of the time he is in Iran, where he has been given safe haven,’ an intelligence source said. ‘The United States won't cross the Iranian border to get him.’
The sources said Al Zarqawi was last seen in the Iraqi town of Dour in the area of Baghdad on June 18, where he held a meeting with a senior aide to deposed President Saddam Hussein, Izzat Ibrahim Douri. Douri, regarded as a major financier of the Sunni insurgency, was said to have provided the Al Qaida-aligned insurgent with a large amount of weapons and equipment. From Al Dour, Al Zarqawi traveled to Iran and was said to have been in Marivan in northern Iran through late July…”
IRAN RESUMES BUILDING NUCLEAR CENTRIFUGES
August 2, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “Iran says it has resumed building centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
But Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Saturday, that Iran is still committed to the suspension of uranium enrichment.
He said the decision to resume building the centrifuges came after Britain, France and Germany supported an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution last month criticizing Iran's lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear agency.
Last October, in a deal with the three European nations, Iran agreed to halt certain aspects of its nuclear program as an international confidence-building measure.
The United States has accused the Islamic Republic of secretly trying to build nuclear weapons, and has threatened to take the matter before the U.N. Security Council, where Iran could face sanctions.
Iran denies the charges…”
UK TERRORISM THREAT 'SERIOUS'
August 2, 2004
The London Daily Telegraph reports: “The Home Office is monitoring the ‘real and serious’ threat of terrorism in Britain after American issued a new al-Qa'eda terror warning.
‘We keep our own threat levels under constant review and if a specific threat arises we would review the level accordingly,’ said a spokesman.
‘We still say the threat remains real and serious. We do not discuss the threat level. If a specific threat arises we would inform the public.’
The US warned of possible terrorist attacks against ‘iconic’ financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, New Jersey.
It said intelligence over the weekend pointed to a car or truck bomb. Specifically, the government named as potential targets the Citigroup building and the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington and the Prudential building in Newark.
‘The preferred means of attack would be car or truck bombs,’ Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, said in a briefing with journalists. ‘That would be a primary means of attack.’
The American government said the new intelligence indicated the meticulous planning of al-Qa'eda…”
TWO BOMB BLASTS ROCK IRAQI CHRISTIAN CHURCH
August 1, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “Two car bombs have exploded in central Baghdad, targeting two Christian churches where services were under way. Early reports say at least two people are dead, with many others wounded.
Witnesses say the second blast occurred as Iraqi police, responding to the first explosion, moved to cordon off the area. The churches in the Karada neighborhood are about 200 meters from each other.
A short while later, authorities say a third car bomb exploded at a site in southeastern Baghdad, and a fourth blast was reported outside a Christian church in the northern city of Mosul. No further details were immediately available.
The bombings are the first coordinated attacks on Iraq's Christian minority since Saddam Hussein was ousted 15 months ago. In a separate Mosul bombing, the U.S. military says five Iraqis, including two police officers, were killed and more than 40 others wounded.
Earlier today, U.S. authorities said a U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded 100 kilometers north of Baghdad, when their patrol was hit by a remote-controlled roadside bomb in Samarra.
Elsewhere, police in Baghdad say a man and a woman were killed today in a roadside bomb explosion. Two other people were hurt.
West of the capital, doctors say at least 10 insurgents have been killed and dozens more wounded in clashes with coalition forces in Fallujah…”
ISRAEL CAN'T STOP MISSILE STRIKES
August 1, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Israel has failed to stop the launching of Palestinian missiles into the Jewish state.
Israeli officials said that over the last month Palestinian gunners have fired nearly 60 Kassam-class short-range missiles into Israel. They said a military operation that began on June 29 to stop the Kassam launches from the northern Gaza Strip has not succeeded.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met senior Israeli commanders over the weekend and was said to have ordered additional measures to stop Kassam attacks. Officials said Mofaz provided a green light to the military to take whatever measures were required to end the missile strikes.
On late Saturday, Israeli attack helicopters fired missiles toward a suspected bomb factory in the Gaza Strip. Israeli military sources said the factory manufactured and supplied explosives to Hamas…”
OFFICIAL: U.S. TO RAISE TERROR THREAT LEVEL FOR WASHINGTON
August 1, 2004
CNN reports: “U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge will announce Sunday that the threat level in the nation's capital will be raised from yellow (elevated) to orange (high), a government official told CNN…
A Homeland Security official said that Ridge planned to discuss ‘recent threat reports and update Americans about protective measures that are being put in place in response to these reports.’
News of the level increase followed reports of new information indicating that terrorists plan attacks on corporate and financial institutions in New York and Washington, officials said Sunday.
The nation's threat level is at category yellow. But New York has remained at orange since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
A federal law enforcement official said the information, released late last week, suggests ‘there is a new plan in the works’ targeting New York, while a Homeland Security Department official said the nation's capital was also mentioned as a target, although from a different source.
Washington Mayor Tony Williams and several other key officials have been briefed about the threat to international monetary organizations and other financial institutions, according to Tony Bullock, the mayor's director of communications.
‘We are activating additional surveillance in specific parts of the city -- keeping a close eye on anything out of the ordinary,’ Bullock said. ‘DHS is just sharing what information there is.’
Authorities said that they are not aware of any specific attack time frames.
A New York City official said Saturday there have been weekend meetings of police and Joint Terrorism Task Force members, which include federal agency representatives. The official said city agencies are on high alert.
On Friday, the FBI issued a threat advisory to law enforcement officials in New York. The New York Police Department says commercial and financial institutions and some international organizations were possible targets.
‘The New York City Police Department has deployed its resources accordingly,’ the department said in a statement issued Saturday…”
NATIONAL ID CARDS APPROVED IN BRITAIN
July 30, 2004
Voice of America News reports: “A parliamentary committee has given the British government approval to start issuing national identity cards.
The Home Office wants to introduce high-tech ID cards holding biometric data such as electronic fingerprints or iris scans to help tackle terrorism.
The House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said in a report published Friday it accepts that ID cards will help in the struggle against illegal activities.
But the panel of lawmakers said it was ‘extremely concerned’ about plans to give Britain's intelligence agencies (MI5 and MI6) what it called ‘nearly unfettered access’ to a planned national identity database.
The government plans to introduce the cards on a voluntary basis in 2007. A decision about whether to make them compulsory is expected about five years later…”
DISSIDENTS CONTINUE TO ATTACK PA
July 30, 2004
The Middle East Newsline reports: “Fatah dissidents have ignored an agreement between Palestinian leaders and continued to attack Palestinian Authority installations and ministers.
Dissidents said they would not end their protests against the PA in wake of the reconciliation between PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei. Qurei agreed to withdraw his resignation after Arafat pledged to cede some of his security authority to the prime minister.
‘Qurei and his Cabinet have lost the confidence of the majority of Palestinians,’ Fatah dissident and former security commander Samir Mashrawi said. ‘What we need is a new Cabinet that would tackle the serious issues and challenges facing the Palestinians.’
On Wednesday, hundreds of Palestinians, many of them with weapons, gathered to block the vehicle of two PA Cabinet ministers that entered the northern Gaza Strip from Israel. The Palestinians forced Social Welfare Intissar Al Wazir and Higher Education Minister Naim Abul Houmous to return to the Erez terminal facility. The ministers later arrived in Gaza City through a different route…”
CHINA WARNS OF MILITARY CLASH WITH TAIWAN BY 2008
July 30, 2004
Reuters reports: “Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian risks war with China if he pushes for a new constitution by 2008, but can guarantee security if he recognizes the island as part of China, the China Daily on Friday quoted a top official as saying.
The island's security lies not in building up an arsenal of missiles and submarines but in offering assurances that Taiwan is not planning to declare independence, Vice Minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office Wang Zaixi told the newspaper.
Across the Taiwan Strait, the independence-leaning Chen for the first time commented on a proposed ‘reunification law’ the mainland government is considering that could provide the legal basis for attack, saying he was very concerned.
The volleys were the latest in the war of words between China and the democratic island it claims as a breakaway province to be recovered by force if necessary. Tensions have simmered since Chen's election in March to a second four-year term.
Beijing sees Chen's goal of adopting a new constitution by the end of his term in 2008 as a drive toward a formal declaration of independence, and has been preparing for a possible military showdown.
‘New tensions and even a serious crisis in the cross-Straits situation may arise if Chen obstinately pursues his timetable,’ Wang told the China Daily.
The Taiwan leader took part in a rare submarine dive on Thursday to boost military morale days after arch-rival China completed a mock invasion of the island and to assure Washington of Taiwan's commitment to buying U.S. weaponry.
The drill, following China's war games off the island, was intended to boost public support for a huge arms purchase deal with the United States that includes eight diesel-engine submarines, analysts said.
Tension between China and the United States over Taiwan has been rising recently.
U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice visited Beijing this month and Chinese officials focused on Taiwan in talks. Days after her visit China expressed grave concern that U.S. support for Taiwan was undermining its one-China policy…”
THREATS FROM IRAN AND LEBANON
July 29, 2004
Arutz Sheva reports: “Iran has threatened to ‘wipe Israel off the globe’ if Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear program. Defense Minister Mofaz calls for international pressure on Iran.
Iran threatened on Monday to ‘wipe Israel off the globe’ if Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear program. It is not clear if the Arrow can also intercept Iran's Shihab-3 missiles, which are not only faster than Scuds, but could also be armed with chemical or nuclear warheads. Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz said that Teheran had ‘broken all the rules’ when it reneged on its commitment to suspend production of nuclear centrifuge equipment, used in the production of enriched uranium - a prime ingredient for an atomic bomb. He said that international pressure against Iran's nuclear ambitions could obviate the need for a military operation…”
UNDER-THE-SKIN ID CHIPS MOVE TOWARD U.S. HOSPITALS
July 29, 2004
CNET News.com reports: “VeriChip, the company that makes radio frequency identification--RFID--tags for humans, has moved one step closer to getting its technology into hospitals.
The Federal Drug Administration issued a ruling Tuesday that essentially begins a final review process that will determine whether hospitals can use RFID systems from the Palm Beach, Fla.-based company to identify patients and/or permit relevant hospital staff to access medical records, said Angela Fulcher, vice president of marketing and sales at VeriChip.
VeriChip sells 11-millimeter RFID tags that get implanted in the fatty tissue below the right tricep. When near one of Verichip's scanners, the chip wakes up and radios an ID number to the scanner. If the number matches an ID number in a database, a person with the chip under his or her skin can enter a secured room or complete a financial transaction.
‘It is used instead of other biometric applications,’ such as fingerprints, Fulcher said.
The approval process does not center on health risks or implications, Fulcher said. VeriChip can already sell implantable RFID chips in the United States for standard security applications and the financial market. The company's basic technology has also been used in animals for years.
Instead, the FDA may mostly examine privacy issues, Fulcher indicated. In other words, the agency will look at whether the technology will lead to situations where confidential information can get improperly disclosed…”
Some News Snippets Driven by JVI Prophecy News - Jack Van Impe Ministries
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