Modern Debauchery

U.S. newspaper circulation plunge accelerates

2009-10-28T23:40:00.002-07:00

The plunge in U.S. newspaper circulation is accelerating, according to the latest figures released on Monday, as more people cancel their subscriptions and publishers cut distribution and sales of discounted copies.

Average weekday circulation at 379 daily newspapers fell 10.6 percent to about 30.4 million copies for the six months that ended on Sept. 30, 2009 from the same period last year, according to the U.S. Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The pace of decline more than doubled compared with last year. From September 2007 to September 2008, circulation fell 4.6 percent.

Sunday circulation, which was measured at 562 papers, fell 7.5 percent to 40 million copies. Last year's Sunday decline was 4.9 percent. None of the top 25 papers by circulation made any Sunday gains in the latest figures.

The results measure paid circulation and are a key measure for businesses deciding where to spend their advertising dollars. Newspaper publishers want advertisers to measure readership -- the number of people estimated to read a copy of the paper -- a number that is growing at most papers...

Russian military denies existence of new 'super-tank'

2009-10-28T23:40:00.001-07:00

September 13 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian military has denied the existence of a new-generation main battle tank (MBT) based on T-80 design and featuring explosive reactive armor and a box-shaped turret.

The Russian media has recently resumed discussion of the secret tank, dubbed Black Eagle, which was developed by the Omsk Transmash design bureau and whose pictures were shown in several publications and on the Internet.

"There was no such project...and those 20-year-old pictures show a mock-up of a futuristic tank which remained just a product of someone's imagination," Col. Vladimir Voitov, head of research at the Main Directorate of the Armored Troops, said in an interview with the Echo Moskvy radio on Saturday.

He added that he was aware of a prototype of an experimental tank, but insisted that 'the turret of the vehicle did not have anything inside."

According to the Russian media, an early prototype of the Black Eagle was shown at an arms exposition in Siberia, in June 1999. It appeared to be based on a lengthened T-80U hull, and to have very thick front armor and new-generation Kaktus explosive reactive armor.

However, recent reports in open sources suggest that the Black Eagle program has been halted due to the acceptance of the T-90, built by the Uralvagonzavod plant, into the Russian military in the mid-1990s.

In addition, Russia has reportedly opted for Uralvagonzavod as the developer and manufacturer of a new-generation MBT, which will most likely have a designation as T-95...

George W. Bush to become motivational speaker

2009-10-28T23:35:00.000-07:00

On Monday, the former US president - whose policies inspired millions of Americans to vote Democrat in the 2008 election- will headline at a popular Get Motivated programme, appearing at a seminar about, among other things, "How to master the art of effective leadership".

Mr Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq provoked widespread criticism, and his steering of the US economy drew censure. But he is likely to be paid around $100,000 (£61,000) for a 40-minute speech on his experiences as leader of the free world - so he may yet have the last laugh.

Touted as a "motivational mega-show [that] packs more inspirational firepower than a stick of dynamite," the seminars, aimed at businessmen and women, have become hugely successful in the US and frequently feature high-profile speakers, including other former presidents.

Mr Bush's wife, Laura, has also been booked to speak at three events, meaning between them the couple could earn $500,000 (£305,000) from their speeches.

Mr Bush will speak at an event in Fort Worth, Texas on Monday and another one in San Antonio in December.

The disclosure of Mr Bush's post-presidential role has already inspired jokes at his expense.

Professor Larry Sabato, professor of political science at the University of Virginia, said: "Maybe it will be 'I'm the model of what you shouldn't be'."...

Police officer sees aliens at crop circle

2009-10-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

The sergeant, who has not been named, was off-duty when he saw the figures standing in a field near Silbury Hill, and stopped his car to investigate.

However, as he approached the 'men' – all over 6ft tall with blond hair – he heard "the sound of static electricity" and the trio ran away ''faster than any man he had ever seen''.

The officer returned to his home in Marlborough, Wiltshire, and contacted paranormal experts and told them he had spotted a UFO.

Wiltshire Police has refused to comment on the incident, saying it is a ''personal matter'' for the officer involved.

Crop circle researcher Andrew Russell, who is investigating the bizarre sighting on behalf of the officer, described the moment his sighting was made.

He said: ''At first he thought they were forensic officers as they were dressed in white coveralls. He stopped his car and approached the field.

''The figures were all over 6ft and had blond hair. They seemed to be inspecting the crop. When he got to the edge of the field he heard what he believed to be a sound not dissimilar to static electricity.

''This crackling noise seemed to be running through the field and the crop was moving gently, close to where the noise was...

Devastating drop in job approval numbers for Obama in new Gallup survey

2009-10-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

President Obama's push for health care reform during the third quarter of 2009 has seriously damaged his public standing, according to new data from the Gallup Daily tracking poll. His job approval rating dropped nine points from the second to the third quarter, from 62 percent to 53 percent.

The nine-point second-to-third quarter drop is the highest Gallup has ever measured for an incumbent president during his first year in office, and among the highest quarter-to-quarter drops measured for any president at any point:

"Obama's 9-point slide between quarters ranks as one of the steepest for a president at any point in his first year in office. The highest is Truman's 19-point drop between his third and fourth quarters, followed by a 15-point drop for Gerald Ford between his first and second quarters. The largest for an elected president in his first year is Bill Clinton's 11-point slide between his first and second quarters," Gallup said.

Gallup also noted that Obama's average job approval rating has plummeted to among the worst since the polling organization began measuring presidential popularity and job approval...

Madoff's workplace was rife with cocaine, sex

2009-10-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

A new lawsuit alleges that convicted swindler Bernie Madoff financed a cocaine-fueled work environment and a "culture of sexual deviance," and he diverted money to his London, England, office when he believed federal authorities were closing in at home.
A new lawsuit alleges Bernie Madoff financed a sex-and-drugs workplace with investors' money.

A new lawsuit alleges Bernie Madoff financed a sex-and-drugs workplace with investors' money.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York's State Supreme Court, was brought on behalf of former investors and seeks unspecified punitive damages and compensation.

Beyond that, it offers a look at what the plaintiffs' attorneys say was once Madoff's multimillion-dollar empire and what is now his world in a federal prison in North Carolina.

Among the allegations in the 264-page lawsuit are that during the mid-1970s, Madoff began sending employees to buy drugs for company use.

The complaint alleges that some employees and investors were aware of the drug purchases, and that BMIS [Bernard Madoff Investment Services] was known by insiders as the "North Pole" in reference to the excessive amount of cocaine use in the work place.

Attorneys Joseph Cochett and Nancy Fineman filed the complaint based on an investigation, including a four-hour interview with Madoff in prison in July, that they conducted for former investors. They also allege that major financial institutions, including KPMG, the Bank of New York and JP Morgan Chase, were aware that Madoff was transferring stolen funds to his London office for personal purchases.

According to the complaint, Madoff transferred funds to London to buy extravagant personal items...

Extinct animals could be brought back to life thanks to advances in DNA technology

2009-10-28T02:48:00.000-07:00

The idea of resurrecting extinct animals moved a step closer to reality last year when scientists announced that they had decoded almost all of the genome of the woolly mammoth, from 60,000-year-old remains found frozen in Siberia.

Now New Scientist magazine has named the 10 other beasts most likely to rise again, including the Irish elk deer whose antlers measured 12 feet across, the dodo and Neanderthal man.

Animals that died out thousands of years ago could be recreated using genetic information retrieved from well-preserved specimens recovered from permafrost, dark caves or dry desserts.

There is no chance of bringing back the dinosaurs because genetic information is unlikely to survive more than a million years in any environment.

But scientists have just announced they had "resurrected" a gene from the Tasmanian tiger by implanting it in a mouse and examined its function - the first time such a feat had been achieved.

The genomes of several extinct species besides the mammoth are already being sequenced.

To revive a long-dead species scientists would have to recover enough DNA from a well-preserved specimen and find a suitable surrogate species similar to that of the extinct animal in which to grow the new baby from an embryo.

"It's hard to say that something will never ever be possible,"said Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who is sequencing the Neanderthal genome...

A particle God doesn’t want us to discover

2009-10-28T02:45:00.000-07:00

Explosions, scientists arrested for alleged terrorism, mysterious breakdowns — recently Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has begun to look like the world’s most ill-fated experiment.

Is it really nothing more than bad luck or is there something weirder at work? Such speculation generally belongs to the lunatic fringe, but serious scientists have begun to suggest that the frequency of Cern’s accidents and problems is far more than a coincidence.

The LHC, they suggest, may be sabotaging itself from the future — twisting time to generate a series of scientific setbacks that will prevent the machine fulfilling its destiny.

At first sight, this theory fits comfortably into the crackpot tradition linking the start-up of the LHC with terrible disasters. The best known is that the £3 billion particle accelerator might trigger a black hole capable of swallowing the Earth when it gets going. Scientists enjoy laughing at this one.

This time, however, their ridicule has been rather muted — because the time travel idea has come from two distinguished physicists who have backed it with rigorous mathematics.

What Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, are suggesting is that the Higgs boson, the particle that physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be “abhorrent to nature”...

Women evolving to be shorter and heavier, says research

2009-10-28T02:36:00.000-07:00

As medicine has allowed people who would previously have died young to live to childbearing age and beyond, many have assumed that natural selection no longer works on our species.

But Prof Stephen Stearns, the evolutionary biologist at Yale University behind the study, says: "That's just plain false."

While survival to reproductive age is no longer such a hurdle for humans, other evolutionary pressures – including sexual selection and reproductive fitness – are still working away in full force.

If the trends the research detected are representative and continue for another 10 generations, Prof Stearns says that the average woman in 2409AD will be 2cm (0.8in) shorter and 1kg (2lb 3oz) heavier, will bear her first child five months earlier, and enter the menopause 10 months later.

Prof Stearns and his team studied the medical histories of 14,000 residents of the Massachusetts town of Framingham, using medical data from a study going back to 1948 and spanning three generations.

It looked at 2,238 women past reproductive age – so that they had had all the children they were going to – and tested their height, weight, cholesterol, blood pressure, and other traits, to see if there was a correlation with the number of children they had borne.

It found that shorter, heavier women had more children than lighter, taller ones. Women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol were also more likely to have large families.

Women who gave birth early or had a late menopause were likely to have more children as well...

The Air Force's "Bugbots"

2009-10-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

(Video)

Barack Obama 'to overturn' Bush-era cannabis policy

2009-10-28T02:29:00.000-07:00

Two Justice Department officials said prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

California is unique among those for the widespread presence of dispensaries – businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services. Colorado also has several dispensaries, and Rhode Island and New Mexico are in the process of licensing providers, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that promotes the decriminalisation of marijuana use.

Eric Holder, the attorney general, said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.

A three-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The memo, the officials said, emphasises that prosecutors have wide discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, and says it is not a good use of federal manpower to prosecute those who are without a doubt in compliance with state law...

Women's prison: Sex trade

2009-10-28T02:24:00.000-07:00

Vocational plumbing instructor Anastacio "Ted" Gallardo's clandestine meeting with an inmate in a dusty storage building at the state women's prison in east Topeka was to be a simple exchange of cash for sex.

Instead, the encounter indirectly pulled back the cover of a complex black market at the Topeka Correctional Facility catering to inmates' demand for contraband -- tobacco, pharmaceuticals, illegal drugs -- and the willingness of prison employees to engage in trafficking to gratify financial or carnal appetites.

"I managed to get pretty much anything into that facility that you could think of through guards or drop-offs along the fence," said former inmate Kendra Barnes, who served nine years at TCF on aggravated burglary, theft and robbery convictions before paroled in late 2008. "Sex for drugs? Sure."

Interviews with current and former female prisoners, past and present corrections employees, lawyers, politicians and civil rights advocates as well as a review of hundreds of confidential or public documents related to activities at TCF, including a 150-page transcript of court hearings from the prosecution of Gallardo, point to a workplace culture at the state's lone prison for women that leaves the door open to misconduct.

TCF inmates and corrections officers say as many as one-third of the Topeka facility's 250 employees have at one time been involved in contraband activities with prisoners, but top administrators of the Kansas Department of Corrections say that percentage is inflated. DOC officials say a more realistic estimate is 2 percent of the 3,000 employees at the state's eight prisons...

Russia, India to jointly develop 5th-generation fighter

2009-10-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and India are set to jointly develop helicopters, infantry fighting vehicles and a fifth-generation fighter, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

Following a meeting of the Russian-Indian intergovernmental commission on military cooperation, Indian Defense Minister A. K. Antony said the two countries will sign a military cooperation agreement for 2011-2020 during the Indian prime minister's visit to Moscow in December.

The current cooperation program until 2010 comprises about 200 joint projects, including the modernization of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier (formerly the Admiral Gorshkov) for the Indian navy, the transfer of technology for the licensed assembly of T-90 tanks in India, the production of BrahMos missiles and the purchase of Smerch MLRS by India.

The participants in the meeting also expressed their interest in modernizing MiG-27 Flogger ground support aircraft, Su-30MKI fighter jets, T-72M1 and T-90S tanks and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles currently in service with the Indian Armed Forces...

Arizona sheriff conducts migrant sweeps despite curb

2009-10-28T02:12:00.000-07:00

An Arizona sheriff known for cracking down on undocumented migrants is conducting an immigration and crime sweep around Phoenix, less than a day after federal authorities curbed his powers to make immigration arrests.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio dispatched deputies on a two-day "crime suppression" operation in the western Phoenix valley on Friday, stopping and arresting at least eight people for minor offenses who could not prove that they were in Arizona legally.

Arpaio, whose sweeps have led to allegations of racial profiling, said he is carrying out the operations under Arizona state laws targeting smugglers and another federal law he says allows him to detain illegal immigrants.

"Nothing has changed," Arpaio said while overseeing the operation in a suburb northwest of Phoenix. "We're still going to be doing what we've been doing tonight and during the last two and a half years. I don't take orders from anyone."

Arpaio had carried out the sweeps in a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that gave select state and local police authority to make immigration arrests...

Jobless flock to sign up for the military

2009-10-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

The nation's armed services wrapped up a record year for recruiting as a withering job market and bigger bonuses trumped two unpopular wars.

The Department of Defense said it met or exceeded recruitment goals for all branches of the armed services for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, for the first time since 1973, when the draft ended and U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam.

"We're pleased to report that for the first time since the advent of the all-volunteer force, all of the military components, active and reserve, meet their number as well as their quality goals," said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, at a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday.

The active-duty Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy all met their goals, as measured by the number of fresh recruits, while the Army achieved 108% of its recruitment goals, the DOD said. The Reserves for each branch exceeded their goals for recruitment numbers, and the National Guard matched its goal...

Nasa: world will not end in 2012

2009-10-28T02:01:00.000-07:00

Sony Pictures set up a website for an organisation called the Institute for Human Continuity which predicts a cataclysmic denouement for Earth three years from now.

It suggests that "after two decades of rigorous research from the world's top astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, physicists, engineers, futurists, we know that in 2012 a series of cataclysmic forces will wreak havoc on our planet".

It even details how elections have begun for the leader of the post-2102 world, offers survival kits and asks people to sign up to a lottery to be saved.

In fact, the website is a vehicle for promoting 2012 - a disaster movie about the end of the world based on predictions in the Mayan calendar.

It stars John Cusack and is directed by Roland Emmerich, who was behind the blockbusters Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. The film will include scenes of a tsunami washing an aircraft carrier into the White House and Los Angeles falling into the sea.

According to the website scientists have been tracking a previously unknown Planet X which is on the edge of the solar system and on a collision course with Earth.

But the site has been so successful that hundreds of people have been convinced that something terrible is about to befall the planet.

Dr David Morrison, a senior scientist at Nasa's Astrobiology Institute, said he had received more than 1,000 inquiries from worried members of the public.

That included teenagers saying they would rather commit suicide than witness the world end. Dr Morrison said the website was "ethically wrong". But Vikki Luya, Sony's publicity director said: "It is very clear that this site is connected to a fictional movie. This can readily be seen in the logos on the site."...

Why Did 1 In 7 Girls Get Pregnant At Robeson High?

2009-10-28T01:34:00.000-07:00

It is a Chicago public school full of energy and spirit. It has about 800 girls, and 115 of them have something in common – something you might find disturbing.

CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports.

All those young ladies are moms or moms-to-be at Paul Robeson High School. It's not a school for young mothers, it's a neighborhood school. And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk.

If you want to know why, the people closest to the situation say there's no simple explanation.

Chicago Public Schools says it does not track the overall number of teen moms in the district. But Robeson Principal Gerald Morrow knows the count at his school in Englewood: 115 young ladies who are either expecting or already have had children.

To put it in perspective, their school pictures would fill roughly six pages of their high school year book.

Why is it happening at Robeson?

"It can be a lot of things that are happening in the home or not happening in the home, if you will," Morrow said. Absentee fathers are another factor, he said.

LaDonna Denson and two other Robeson students say parents not talking to teens and, in some cases, the pursuit of public assistance also factor into the pregnancies. None of them thought they'd be moms at such a young age.

They said they have support at home. But not all girls do, they said. In fact, some girls get thrown out of the home...

FDIC bank fund in the red until 2012

2009-10-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

The government insurance fund designed to protect consumer bank deposits will likely stay in the red through 2012, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chief Sheila Bair said Wednesday.

Testifying before members of the Senate Banking Committee, the nation's top commercial bank regulator stressed that her agency was taking immediate steps to replenish the dwindling fund. But she said those efforts would not put the rescue fund in the black until a little more than two years from now at the earliest.

The fund has come under severe strain in recent months amid the recent surge in bank failures. Ninety-eight banks have failed so far this year, which has reduced the fund's value to $10 billion from $45 billion a year ago.

Last month, the agency painted an even more dire picture, estimating that the fund is currently in the red after taking into account future bank failures it anticipates will happen.

That would not be the first time the fund has had a negative balance. During the S&L crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s, it slipped into the red...

Texas man faces execution after jurors consult Bible to decide fate

2009-10-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

Amnesty International has appealed to the state to commute the sentence on Khristian Oliver, 32, who is due to die on November 5.

He was sentenced to death in 1999 for murdering a man whose home Oliver was burgling. The victim was shot in the face and beaten with his own rifle.

It later emerged that while deciding whether he should be given the death penalty, jurors consulted the Bible. Four jury members admitted that several copies had been in the jury room and that highlighted passages were passed around.

At one point, a juror reportedly read aloud from a copy, including the passage: "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death."

Defence lawyers argued in appeals that jurors had been improperly influenced by the Bibles but the trial judge rejected the claim, a decision upheld by a Texas appeals court.

The US constitution calls for the separation of state and religion. In 2005, the state supreme court in Colorado overturned a death penalty on a convicted murderer because jurors had consulted the Bible while deliberating over his sentence.

Commuting Robert Harlan's sentence to life imprisonment without parole, the court ruled that the Bible constituted an "improper outside influence" and a reliance on what it called a "higher authority"...

Christopher Columbus writings prove he was Spanish, claims study

2009-10-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

But American researchers say the mystery over the explorer's true origins has finally been solved after a thorough investigation of his writings.

A study of the language used in the official records and letters of the Great Navigator apparently proves he hailed from the Kingdom of Aragon in northeastern Spain and his mother tongue was Catalan.

Since his death in 1506 debate has raged over the true nationality of the man credited with discovering the Americas.

It was widely believed that he was the son of a weaver born in the Italian port of Genoa, but over the centuries he has been claimed as a native son of Greece, Catalonia, Portugal, Corsica, France and even Poland.

According to one theory, he may have been Jewish and another more recent account traced his origins to Scotland.

But a linguistic professor at Georgetown University in Washington has published new findings following an exhaustive study of documents written in his hand.

Estelle Irizarry studied his language and grammar and concluded that Columbus was a Catalan speaking man from the Kingdom of Aragon, an inland region of north-eastern Spain at the foot of the Pyrenees.

The findings published this month in a new book "The DNA of the writings of Columbus" explain that although he wrote in Castilian it was clearly not his first language and his origins can be pinpointed to the Aragon region because of the grammar and the way he constructed sentences.

"He didn't express him correctly in any written language," said the professor. "His Spanish was notoriously incorrect yet at the same time efficient, poetic and eloquent."...

Russian historian arrested in clampdown on Stalin era

2009-10-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

A Russian historian investigating the fate of Germans imprisoned in the Soviet Union during the second world war has been arrested, in the latest apparent clampdown on historical research into the Stalin era by the Russian authorities.

Mikhail Suprun was detained last month by officers from Russia's security services. They searched his apartment and carried off his entire personal archive. He has now been charged with violating privacy laws and, if convicted, faces up to four years in jail.

Suprun had been researching Germans sent to Russia's Arctic gulags. A professor of history at Arkhangelsk's Pomorskiy university, his study included German prisoners of war captured by the Red Army as well as Russian-speaking ethnic Germans, many from southern Russia, deported by Stalin. Both groups ended up in Arkhangelsk camps.

"I had been planning to write two books. I need another two or three years before I can finish them," Suprun told the Guardian today. The historian – who described his arrest as "absurd" – said he had signed an agreement with local officials not to talk further about his case.

But the arrest has provoked outrage in Germany and among leading historians. It comes amid Kremlin attempts to rehabilitate Stalin and to clamp down on independent historical research – with political repression during the Soviet era and victims of the gulag system now taboo topics...

Scientists decode human genome's instruction manual

2009-10-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Almost a decade after the human genome project laid bare the building blocks of life, scientists have figured out how they work together to create a living person.

The genome project identified about 25,000 genes that are needed to make a healthy human being, but said nothing about how they combine to produce everything from hearts and minds to legs and livers.

Now researchers in California have published what is effectively the first manual to show how genes are orchestrated inside cells ‑ a milestone that promises to revolutionise scientists' understanding of human development and how it can sometimes go wrong.

Many scientists believe the work will lead to new treatments for life-threatening diseases such as cancer, and possibly mental disorders such as schizophrenia.

The work is also expected to shed light on intriguing studies that suggest how we live today can have striking repercussions for the health and behaviour of our grandchildren. In one study, scientists found that people who smoked as youngsters went on to have grandchildren who reached puberty early. In another, a person's diet appeared to affect the way their grandchildren burned food...

Threat by Bosnia Serbs alarms Europe and US

2009-10-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

The leader of the Serbian half of Bosnia today demanded the right to break up the country as part of a constitutional reform package that is being pushed by the EU and the US.

Milorad Diodik's demand to be allowed the right to secede collided with an ultimatum from Brussels for Bosnia's feuding leaders to agree on reforms to streamline the dysfuctional state or forget about their prospects of union membership. Senior European and American officials had emergency talks in Sarajevo last week with Bosnia's estranged political leaders and will return next Monday.

The US and Europe have suddenly become active in the Balkans, amid growing international fears that Bosnia could drift back into conflict if the Bosnian Serbs were to mobilise.

"We need certain constitutional changes in Bosnia-Herzegovina," said Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for enlargement, who issued ultimatum to the country's leaders.

But officials in Brussels and Sarajevo were gloomy about the chances of success. In the 14 years since the Bosnian war ended with the country divided into a Serbian half and a Muslim-Croat federation, the country has become entrenched as a partitioned international protectorate headed by a European viceroy and dominated by nationalist politicians who refuse to deal with one another...

French troops were killed after Italy hushed up ‘bribes’ to Taleban

2009-10-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.

Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.

What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.

US intelligence officials were flabbergasted when they found out through intercepted telephone conversations that the Italians had also been buying off militants, notably in Herat province in the far west. In June 2008, several weeks before the ambush, the US Ambassador in Rome made a démarche, or diplomatic protest, to the Berlusconi Government over allegations concerning the tactic...

U.S. Stocks Rally as Dow Hits 10,000 for First Time in Year

2009-10-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks rallied, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 10,000 for the first time in a year, on better-than-estimated earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Intel Corp. Oil climbed, while the Dollar Index slid to the lowest level since August 2008 and Treasuries fell.

JPMorgan added 3.3 percent as a surge in fixed-income revenue helped the bank increase profit almost sevenfold. Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, rose 1.7 percent after its sales forecast topped estimates by as much as $1 billion. Macy’s Inc. and Nordstrom Inc. gained on a government report that showed retail sales fell less than economists forecast last month.

The Dow jumped 144.8 points, or 1.5 percent, to 10,015.86 at 4:08 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index increased 1.8 percent to a one-year high of 1,092.02, with financial and technology shares leading gains. The MSCI World Index of 23 developed countries added 1.8 percent.

“Intel and JPMorgan are two major bellwethers, so if the most significant semiconductor company and the most significant bank are blowing out their numbers and guiding higher, that has a positive implication for the entire economy,” said Philip Orlando, who helps oversee $400 billion as chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors Inc. in New York...

Navy moves to put women on submarines

2009-10-14T21:39:00.002-07:00

ST. MARYS, Ga. — Submariners sleep nine to a bunk room. There are four showers and seven toilets for the roughly 140 enlisted men. The passageways on board the vessel are so narrow that crew members can barely squeeze by each other without touching.

And that's on the roomiest submarines.

The Navy is considering allowing women to serve aboard submarines for the first time, 16 years after bringing female sailors onto surface combat ships.

Some sailors and wives warn that putting men and women together in extremely close quarters underwater for weeks at a time is just asking for sexual harassment cases and wrecked marriages. But supporters of the idea say it is a matter of fairness and equal opportunity, and what worked on ships can work in subs.

"There's just a whole lot less privacy on board a submarine," said retired Navy Capt. Mike McKinnon, commanding officer of the Kings Bay sub base near St. Marys from 2004-07 and a former skipper of the submarine USS Kentucky. "But I think grown adults and professionally minded people can deal with those issues."

Over the past two weeks, top leaders at the Pentagon have said they are considering ending another in the dwindling number of military specialties reserved for men only. Officials said a decision could come soon, and women could be aboard subs by 2011.

The Navy will have to work through a host of issues first. Would men and women get separate bathrooms and sleeping quarters, as is already done aboard surface ships? Would the process of integrating subs begin with female officers, followed by enlisted women? What would happen if a woman discovered at sea that she was pregnant?...

Weapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight

2009-10-14T21:39:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war...

Boy, 13, kills 41 in Taliban suicide bombing in Pakistan

2009-10-14T21:37:00.001-07:00

The blast, which was the fourth militant attack in just over a week, was reported to have targeted a convoy of military vehicles as it passed close to a crowded market in Alpuri, Shangla district, not far from the town of Mingora.

At least 41 people were killed, including six members of the armed forces.

"It was a suicide blast. The attacker was on foot," said Major Mushtaq Khan, a spokesman at the army-run Swat Media Centre.

The bomber targeted the convoy as it passed through a security checkpost near a crowded bazaar, hitting both a military target and maximising civilian casualties.

The Taliban have used children to carry bombs, often unwittingly, in neighbouring Afghanistan. It has so far been a rare method of executing attacks in Pakistan.

The attack is just the latest in a string of Taliban blasts in recent weeks that have left dozens of civilians dead.

It followed air strikes against Taliban camps in the previous 24 hours which were a response to the storming and 22-hour siege of the Pakistan army's headquarters in Rawalpindi at the weekend.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack on Monday.

The attacks have come in advance of a promised government offensive in the militant stronghold of South Waziristan.

Eagle is grounded over Turks’ Gaza snub

2009-10-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

The US has cancelled its biggest air-defence exercise with Israel after Turkey refused to allow Israeli aircraft to participate in the war games, due to begin out of Turkish air bases today.

Israeli officials said that Turkey’s stance over the 11-day manoeuvres, codenamed Operation Anatolian Eagle, was the result of lingering anger at Israel’s devastating onslaught on the Gaza Strip last winter.

Secular Turkey is Israel’s main military ally in the Muslim world, and has long enjoyed military co-operation with the Jewish state. Israeli bombers are believed to have passed through Turkish airspace when they attacked a suspected nuclear facility under construction in Syria in 2007.

The cancellation of the large aerial war games caused anger in Israel, coming only two weeks after Iran held its own military exercises in which it launched missiles capable of hitting Israel. Last week an official from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatened that Tehran would “blow up the heart of Israel” if a US or Israeli strike was made on the country’s controversial nuclear facilities.

Anatolian Eagle, which would have involved the forces of several Nato countries, was to have included aerial attacks in Turkish airspace near the borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The Israeli military said in a statement: “The exercise has been postponed as a result of Turkey’s decision to change the list of participating countries, thus excluding Israel. This decision came several days before the start of the exercise.”...

Google's vision of the future of journalism

2009-10-13T22:59:00.001-07:00

Google's search algorithm works on a simple principle: on the web, sites link to other authoritative sources, and the more sites link to something the more authoritative they think it is. That's great if you're dealing with sites that actually follow that rule – as the vast majority do.

But what do you do to make your search engine useful when you have a class of websites that produce almost identical content but which barely ever link to each other? What does Google do about news websites?

They generate new content all the time, sometimes using (or copying) each others' work without acknowledgement – particularly without those links to each others' sites that Google's standard algorithm relies on to measure authority. What do you do with a chunk of the web that doesn't really behave like the rest of the web?

That's the problem facing Josh Cohen, senior business product manager for Google News. He can't win. Since Google News arrived in April 2002, and in its more current form that September, publishers have had a love-hate relationship with it. They complain that it is "stealing" readers by providing a product similar to their own but without producing any content, yet desire prominent placement so that people will come and read their stories by clicking through from it...

Robert Fisk: Genocide forgotten: Armenians horrified by treaty with Turkey

2009-10-13T22:55:00.002-07:00

In the autumn of 1915, an Austrian engineer called Litzmayer, who was helping build the Constantinople-Baghdad railway, saw what he thought was a large Turkish army heading for Mesopotamia. But as the crowd came closer, he realised it was a huge caravan of women, moving forward under the supervision of soldiers.

The 40,000 or so women were all Armenians, separated from their men – most of whom had already had their throats cut by Turkish gendarmerie – and deported on a genocidal death march during which up to 1.5 million Armenians died.

Subjected to constant rape and beatings, some had already swallowed poison on their way from their homes in Erzerum, Serena, Sivas, Bitlis and other cities in Turkish western Armenia. "Some of them," Bishop Grigoris Balakian, one of Litzmayer's contemporaries, recorded, "had been driven to such a state that they were mere skeletons enveloped in rags, with skin that had turned leathery, burned from the sun, cold, and wind. Many pregnant women, having become numb, had left their newborns on the side of the road as a protest against mankind and God." Every year, new evidence emerges about this mass ethnic cleansing, the first holocaust of the last century; and every year, Turkey denies that it ever committed genocide. Yet on Saturday – to the horror of millions of descendants of Armenian survivors – the President of Armenia, Serg Sarkissian, plans to agree to a protocol with Turkey to re-open diplomatic relations, which should allow for new trade concessions and oil interests. And he proposes to do this without honouring his most important promise to Armenians abroad – to demand that Turkey admit it carried out the Armenian genocide in 1915...

10,000 apply for 90 factory jobs

2009-10-13T22:55:00.001-07:00

In the latest sign of weakness in Louisville-area employment, about 10,000 people applied over three days for 90 jobs building washing machines at General Electric for about $27,000 per year and hefty benefits.
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The jobs dangle medical, eye care, prescription and dental benefit packages, as well as pension, disability, tuition assistance and more, said GE spokeswoman Kim Freeman. And despite the recession, no union workers have been laid off from Appliance Park since the company negotiated lower wages with workers in 2005.

“There are no jobs out there paying these kinds of wages that also offer these kind of benefits,” said Jerry Carney, president of IUE-CWA Local 761 at Appliance Park.

Just four years ago, the same jobs paid $19 per hour. But that was before Local 761 approved wage cuts for new workers aimed at preventing the closure of Appliance Park...

2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist

2009-10-13T22:48:00.002-07:00

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."

It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"...

Ukraine fears for its future as Moscow muscles in on Crimea

2009-10-13T22:48:00.001-07:00

From the terrace there are views of the Crimean peninsula, with fir trees, dark green cypresses and a shimmering bay. Inside – through a pleasant Italian courtyard – is the room where Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt sat together around a wooden table and divided up postwar Europe.

But almost 65 years after the "big three" met in the Crimean seaside resort of Yalta – now in Ukraine – the question of zones of influence has come back to haunt Europe. Russia has made it clear that it sees Ukraine as crucial to its bold claim that it is entitled to a zone of influence in its post-Soviet backyard.

Last month, a group of east European leaders and intellectuals gathered in the Livadia Palace, where Britain, the US and the Soviet Union held the Yalta conference in February 1945. The idea was to discuss Ukraine's strategic future. But the discussion was overshadowed by one question: will there be a war between Russia and Ukraine?

The scenario is not as daft as it seems. In August, Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, gave his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko, an unprecedented diplomatic mugging. In a seething letter, and subsequent video message, Medvedev reprimanded Yushchenko for his "anti-Russian" stance. He told him that, as far as Russia was concerned, the pro-western Yushchenko was now a non-person...

Gunmen attack Pakistani army HQ

2009-10-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

Militants were holding several security officers hostage inside Pakistan's army headquarters today after they and others attacked the complex in an audacious assault on the country's most powerful institution.

The attack, which left at least 10 people dead, was the third major militant strike in Pakistan in a week and came as the government was planning an imminent offensive against Islamist militants in their strongholds in the rugged mountains along the border with Afghanistan.

It showed that the militants retain the ability to strike at the very heart of Pakistan's security apparatus despite recent military operations against their forces and the killing of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a CIA drone attack in August.

An army statement said more than two terrorists were holding several officers hostage in a "security office building" inside the heavily fortified complex in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

The whereabouts of military chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was not known. Separate army statements said he had attended meetings at the headquarters and at the president's office in nearby Islamabad during the day...

Amanpour Adviser: At least 25,000 more troops needed

2009-10-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

An influential adviser to the U.S. commander in Afghanistan declared Friday that anything less than 25,000 extra international troops in the country would not be enough to win.
A bomb exploded in Kabul on the corner of Passport Lane and the Indian Embassy Thursday.

A bomb exploded in Kabul on the corner of Passport Lane and the Indian Embassy Thursday.

David Kilcullen, who also advised U.S. commanders in Iraq, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour the window of opportunity to turn around the war is closing.

Kilcullen's comments came as President Barack Obama, only hours after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, again met with his top advisers to discuss strategy and troop levels in Afghanistan.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is reportedly asking for up to 40,000 extra troops. Some reports say there is an option on the table to send 60,000 additional troops, almost doubling the U.S. force now in the country.

Kilcullen, who has just come back from Afghanistan -- said the Obama administration needs to finish the strategy review as soon as possible. While the war is not as bad as some say, "it's worse than any other time in the past," he said.

He identified three critical problems in Afghanistan: the lack of legitimacy for the government, the existence of safe havens for terrorists across the border in Pakistan, and the lack of military resources.

He said it will not be possible to protect the Afghan population -- the key to any counterinsurgency strategy -- without a substantial input of additional resources...

Iran activist sentenced to death for election protests

2009-10-13T22:25:00.000-07:00

The first death sentence has been passed against a defendant accused of involvement in the mass protests in Iran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election, prompting fears of a wave of executions against opposition activists.

A revolutionary court in Tehran handed the penalty to Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani, 37, after convicting him of muhabereh – taking up arms against Iran's Islamic system.

The sentence was imposed after he confessed to working for a little-known exile group, the Iran Monarchy Committee, which Iranian officials describe as a terrorist organisation. Prosecutors alleged that he plotted political assassinations with US military officials in Iraq before returning to Iran "aiming at causing disruption during and after the election".

Ali-Zamani admitted guilt during a series of public mass trials that began in August in which scores of senior pro-reformist politicians confessed to fomenting the unrest that followed Ahmadinejad's victory. Opposition leaders condemned the events as "show trials" and say defendants were tortured to force them to confess. Human rights campaigners today challenged Ali-Zamani's conviction and warned that it paved the way for further politically driven executions.

"It's not a good omen," said Hadi Ghaemi, of the International Committee for Human Rights in Iran. "If this is the trend of sentencing then it spells really bad news that we should expect more political executions along these lines. That's why this verdict has to be protested right now both inside and outside Iran."...

Whodunit? Sneak attack on U.S. dollar

2009-10-13T22:19:00.002-07:00

It’s the biggest mystery in global finance right now: Who conducted a sneak attack on the U.S. dollar this week?

It began with a thinly sourced but highly explosive report Monday in a British newspaper: Arab oil sheiks are conspiring with the Russians and Chinese to quit using the dollar to set the value of oil trades — a direct threat to the global supremacy of the greenback.

Is it true? Everyone from the head of the Saudi central bank to U.S. officials scrambled to undercut the story, but no matter.

With the U.S. economy on the ropes and America by far the world’s biggest debtor, investors aren’t feeling as secure about the dollar as they used to. And the notion of second-tier economies ganging up on Uncle Sam didn’t sound so far-fetched.

For American officials, the possibility of the dollar losing its long-term dominance in global commerce is a nightmare scenario because it would likely mean sharply higher interest rates at home and a declining ability to finance the U.S. debt. No one believes it could really happen right now, but stories like the British report this week make it seem incrementally more likely.

So the piece by Robert Fisk of the Independent shocked currency traders around the world and almost instantly sent the value of the U.S. dollar spiraling downward and the price of gold skyrocketing to an all-time high, as a hedge against a weakened dollar...

Japan threatens to kick out US troops

2009-10-13T22:19:00.001-07:00

The new government is reviewing an agreement with Washington on US military facilities following through on a campaign pledge to islanders who have borne the brunt of the American presence for more than 60 years.

Around 50,000 American troops are based in Japan, around two-thirds of the total are in Okinawa. Resentment against their presence has grown in recent years due to a series of crimes committed by service personnel.

Many of the crimes are relatively trivial, but other cases have brought tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets. In February 2008, a case against a marine accused of raping a girl aged 14 was dropped after she withdrew the accusation, apparently to avoid the ordeal of a trial.

The case revived bitter memories of the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl in 1995 by three US servicemen.

Katsuya Okada, the foreign minister, said he wants the American military to remain in Japan but that the concentration on Japan's most southerly islands needed to be reduced.

"The only way this presence can be sustained in the long term is to make sure that the burden on the Okinawans is decreased in some way," he said. "Only by accomplishing these goals will we be able to ensure that the US-Japan alliance will be sustainable."...

Internet Storm Center: a global safety net in hands of volunteers

2009-10-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

The Internet Storm Centre is an international group of computer experts and analysts who provide a first-alert system to tell the world when a cyber attack has been launched and what to do about it.

Johannes Ullrich patrols the front line from his computer at his home in Jacksonville, Florida. He is one of 36 volunteers worldwide who take it in turns to do 24-hour shifts. The Storm Centre logs millions of security entries every day from sensors covering more than 500,000 internet addresses in more than 50 countries.

The handlers post analysis and thoughts on the Storm Centre website, which is read by tens of thousands of cyber-security professionals. The group was set up in 2001 under the aegis of the SANS institute, an online security education and training body, when analysts got together to fight off the Li0n computer worm. Their action proved that a volunteer first- alert organisation was needed. Since then it has helped to deal with thousands of threats and played a crucial role in tracking the Conficker virus last year.

Almost all the handlers have day jobs. Some carry out their duties anonymously, including the one Briton in the group, who works for a big bank in London...

Taking the pill for past 40 years 'has put women off masculine men'

2009-10-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

It ushered in the 1960s sexual revolution and gave women control over their own fertility.

But the Pill may also have changed women's taste in men, according to a study.

Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. Although the change occurs for just a few days each month, it may have been highly influential since use of the Pill began more than 40 years ago.

If the theory is right, it could partly explain the shifting in tastes from macho 1950s and 1960s stars such as Kirk Douglas and Sean Connery to the more wimpy, androgynous stars of today, such as Johnny Depp and Russell Brand.

Dr Alexandra Alvergne, of the University of Sheffield, says the Pill could also be altering the way women pick their mates and could have long-term implications for society.

'There are many obvious benefits of the Pill for women, but there is also the possibility that the Pill has psychological side-effects that we are only just discovering,' she said. 'We need further studies to find out what these are.'

The links between the Pill and sexual preferences are highlighted in a paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Scientists have long known that a woman's taste in men changes over her menstrual cycle.

During the few days each month when women are fertile - around the time of ovulation - they tend to prefer masculine features and men who are more assertive.

Good Lord, Latvian Hookers Signal No Recovery for Economy

2009-10-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

(Bloomberg) -- When the economy starts to lift itself out of this recession, what will be the leading indicator that tells us we have turned the corner?

Some people track the price of shipping to gauge the health of global trade. Others look at the supply of freshly minted money pouring out of central banks. A few will say that signs of life in the housing markets are evidence of a recovery.

Forget them all. The one lesson we can draw from the global credit crisis is that all the traditional ways of measuring the state of the economy are about as useful as a bottle of suntan lotion in a snowstorm.

So here are two benchmarks we should all be monitoring more closely: extramarital affairs and the price of Latvian hookers. Both are telling us that there is still plenty of trouble ahead.

These two measures were proposed recently as reliable economic barometers, and they warrant consideration. Economists often say “animal spirits” play a role in keeping the wheels of the business cycle turning. They have given little advice on how we should measure those spirits. Now we may have the answer.

In the U.K., a Web site called www.illicitencounters.co.uk allows married people who are planning to play a few matches away from home to meet up with each other. It has at least 300,000 members, indicating that the British have more on their minds than just the work expenses of politicians and the threat of unemployment...

Parents given jail terms for relying on prayers to save dying daughter

2009-10-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

A central Wisconsin couple who prayed rather than seeking medical care for their 11-year-old dying daughter were sentenced to six months in jail and 10 years probation in the girl's death.

Dale and Leilani Neumann could have received up to 25 years in prison for second-degree homicide over the death in March 2008 of Madeline Neumann, who died of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes.

Marathon county circuit court Judge Vincent Howard told the Neumanns they were "very good people, raising their family who made a bad decision, a reckless decision".

"God probably works through other people," he told the parents, "some of them doctors."

The case was believed to be the first of its kind in Wisconsin involving faith healing in which someone died and another person was charged with a homicide.

Prosecutors claimed that the Neumanns recklessly killed their youngest of four children by ignoring obvious symptoms of severe illness as she became too weak to speak, eat, drink or walk. They said the couple had a legal duty to take their daughter to a doctor but relied totally on prayer for healing...

White House aims to halt general's public remarks on Afghanistan

2009-10-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration has moved to stop Nato's top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, from publicly challenging policy after he described as "shortsighted" proposals to greatly reduce the number of US troops fighting the Taliban.

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, cautioned military leaders against public statements on policy in comments aimed at McChrystal, who is pressing for the deployment of tens of thousands more soldiers to Afghanistan.

President Obama has resisted pressure from McChrystal to make a quick decision, saying that a new strategy to win the war must first be decided.

An administration official said last night that Obama met with Democrat and Republican representatives at the White House yesterday and told them that he will be rigorous and deliberate in his review of Afghanistan but that he understands the urgency of righting the flagging war.

He also said he wants the discussion about the United States' next moves in Afghanistan to be honest and the debate should not be based on false choices between big troop increases or leaving the country.

McChrystal has frustrated administration officials, including Gates, with public statements on the issue.

"In this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately," Gates said in a speech to the Association of the US Army...

Abused Asian men's lives 'living hell'

2009-10-08T23:35:00.000-07:00

More South Asian men married to British women are becoming the victims of domestic violence, it has been revealed.

The National Men's Advice Line found 9% of calls for help to its service last year were made by men originally from countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Pakistani Mahmood Muhammad (not his real name) married a British-born Asian woman four years ago. Her family promised him that he could finish his degree in Pakistan before joining her to live permanently in West Yorkshire.

His mother thought his future in-laws were an honourable family, so also decided to let his sister marry his wife's brother in the UK.

After marrying, Mahmood, who is in his 30s, travelled to visit his wife in the UK for a two-week holiday. He planned to return to Pakistan to finish studying. But hours after stepping off the plane his passport was confiscated by his wife's family and he was told he would not be going back...

Amanpour Clinton, Gates: U.S. in Afghanistan for long haul

2009-10-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a rare joint interview, said Monday that the United States is committed to a regional strategy to build long-standing relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Speaking at George Washington University for a program to be broadcast Tuesday on CNN, the two members of President Obama's Cabinet insisted that the president's deliberate approach to set the right objectives and policies for Afghanistan was necessary and proper.

The Taliban insurgency currently has the momentum in Afghanistan, Gates said, adding that a Taliban takeover of the country would empower the al Qaeda terrorist network.

"Because of our inability and the inability, frankly, of our allies to put enough troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban do have the momentum right now," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno in the panel discussion that included Clinton...

America's memo to bloggers: don't lie, or we'll fine you

2009-10-08T23:27:00.000-07:00

The long-running debate over freedom of speech on the internet took a new twist yesterday, when America's most important regulators - the Federal Trade Commission - decided to approve new rules to stop independent bloggers from hiding their links to advertisers.

More accurately, the FTC has put forward a new series of guidelines designed to encourage fair and transparent product reviews online - including an attempt to regulate "payola" on websites and blogs. The possible consequence of breaking those rules? A fine of up to $11,000 (more than £6,800 in real money).

Payola schemes - where web users are offered money or gifts to write about certain services or products - have increased in recent years, as marketers realise that there's a lot of hay to be made by using freebies and cash incentives to encourage bloggers, web users and forum contributors to produce reviews or testimonials. At its worst, it is a form of astroturfing, the pernicious practice of trying to trick people into thinking that has widespread support from ordinary members of the public.

However, the FTC's guidelines - which are detailed in this press release - could also stretch to sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to this CNet report. It says that FTC bigwig Richard Cleland said he "plans to keep tabs on social networks as well as blogs"...

GOP Senators want US to attack Iran for Israel

2009-10-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

Two Senior GOP senators, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Saxby Chamblis of Georgia have stated that the US, not Israel, should attack Iran to prevent Iran from developing Nukes. Both Senators support an all out war against Iran, rather than a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Yesterday Senator Graham told Chris Wallace on his show on Fox New, "I think an Israeli attack on Iran is a nightmare for the world, because it will rally the Arab world around Iran and they're not aligned now. It's too much pressure to put on Israel." He added "If the sanctions fail, and Iran's going down the road to get a nuclear weapon, any Sunni Arab state that could, would want a nuclear weapon. Israel will be more imperiled. The world will change dramatically for the worst. Military action should be the last resort anyone looks at, and I would rather our allies and us take military action if it's necessary."

His colleague Saxby Chamblis, who was also a guest on Wallace's show added, "the problem with military action also is that you're probably not going to be able to stop the production of uranium by just a simple air strike, Lindsey's right. It's an all or nothing deal. And is it worth that at this point in time, when we know they have the capability? We can slow them down, but a full-out military strike is what it would take,"...

Guns bought this year could outfit 2 armies

2009-10-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

Guns purchased legally in the United States this year could outfit two armies – and not just any armies, the armies of China and India, according to new government reports cited by a website for sport-shooting enthusiasts.

The federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System database statistics show there were more than 3.7 million background checks during the first three months of this year, compared to about 8 million annually not even a decade ago, according to the documentation assembled by Ammoland.com.

That's not individual guns, that's background checks, the organization pointed out. If a purchaser obtains two, three or even four guns at a time, often there is only one background check...

Ex-Ala. judge accused of trading sex for leniency

2009-10-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Herman Thomas was a rising star in Alabama politics with an enviable track record at the polls: a black Democrat who kept getting elected in a county overwhelmingly white and increasingly Republican. He seemed to have it all. Respect as a circuit judge and at one time the Democratic Party's choice to be the first black federal judge in south Alabama.

Then his career on the bench collapsed—first under allegations that he was bringing inmates into his office and spanking them with a paddle, then with an indictment that accuses him of having sex with male inmates in exchange for leniency. The trial—on charges of sodomy, kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion, assault and ethics violations that involved oral and anal sex, as well as the spankings—is set to start Monday...

Russia to help Cuba modernize weaponry, train military

2009-10-08T23:16:00.000-07:00

HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday.

Gen. Nikolai Makarov arrived on a working visit to Cuba on Monday, met with Cuban President Raul Castro and the country's military leadership, and visited a number of military installations.

"During the Soviet era we delivered a large number of military equipment to Cuba, and after all these years most of this weaponry has become obsolete and needs repairs," Makarov said.

"We inspected the condition of this equipment, and outlined the measures to be taken to maintain the defense capability of this country...I think a lot of work needs to be done in this respect, and I hope we will be able to accomplish this task," the general said.

Makarov said the Cuban request for assistance with training of military personnel will also be fully satisfied.

Although the Cuban leadership has repeatedly said it has no intention of resuming military cooperation with Russia after the surprise closure of the Russian electronic listening post in Lourdes in 2001, bilateral military ties seem to have been improving following the visit of Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to Cuba in July last year.

A group of Russian warships, led by the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer visited Cuba in December last year during a Caribbean tour...

Russia to showcase advanced weaponry at airshow in Libya

2009-10-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

TRIPOLI (Libya), October 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said on Monday it will exhibit a wide range of aircraft, air defense systems and high-precision guided missiles at an airshow in Libya.

The 4th Arab-African Aviation Exhibition and Conference LAVEX-2009 will be held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, on October 5-8.

"Rosoboronexport will showcase in Tripoli a wide range of Russian aircraft, air defense systems and other advanced weaponry due to their high popularity in the Middle East and North Africa," a company's official told RIA Novosti.

According to the official, the countries in the region expressed a high interest in the Russian Su-35 Flanker-E multi-role heavy fighter.

The Su-35 fighter, powered by two 117S engines with thrust vectoring, combines high maneuverability and the capability to effectively engage several air targets simultaneously using both guided and unguided missiles and weapon systems.

The aircraft also features the new Irbis-E radar with a phased antenna array, which allows the pilot to detect and track up to 30 air targets, while simultaneously engaging up to eight targets.

It is equipped with a 30-mm cannon with 150 rounds, and can carry up to eight metric tons of combat payload on 12 external mounts.

Russia plans to export at least 160 Su-35 fighters to several countries, including Algeria...

Sharp rise in Chinese arrests at U.S. border

2009-10-07T00:51:00.001-07:00

Reporting from Nogales, Ariz. - Amid an overall drop in arrests of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S-Mexico border, an intriguing anomaly has cast a new light on human smuggling: Authorities report an almost tenfold spike in the number of Chinese people caught in the southern Arizona desert, the busiest smuggling corridor on the international line.

The Border Patrol in the Tucson sector has arrested at least 261 Chinese border-crossers this year, compared with an annual average of 32 during the last four years, officials said.

"They are the main [non-Mexicans] we catch," said field operations supervisor Juventino Pacheco of the patrol's international liaison unit in Nogales. "Lately we have been catching more Chinese than Central Americans."

When agents find Chinese migrants -- hiding in gulches, perhaps, or huddled in smugglers' vehicles -- they often request help from Dean Delap, the sector's only Mandarin-speaking agent. He taught and studied in China, but had not expected that to prove valuable in Nogales...

White House angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan

2009-10-07T00:37:00.000-07:00

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

In an apparent rebuke to the commander, Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, said: "It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately."

When asked on CNN about the commander's public lobbying for more troops, Gen Jim Jones, national security adviser, said:

“Ideally, it's better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.”

Asked if the president had told the general to tone down his remarks, he told CBS: "I wasn't there so I can't answer that question. But it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other a little bit better. I am sure they exchanged direct views."

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."...

Israel gets two more German submarines

2009-10-07T00:22:00.000-07:00

JERUSALEM — Israel has taken delivery of two German submarines ordered four years ago, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.

"We have received two Dolphin-class submarines built in Germany," he said, on condition of anonymity.

The submarines, called U212s, can launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads, although when it confirmed the sale in 2006 the German government said the two vessels were not equipped to carry nuclear weapons.

The subs were ordered in 2005 and delivery was initially expected in 2010.

Including the two new ones, Israel has five German submarines -- the most expensive weapon platforms in Israel's arsenal.

Germany, which believes it has a historic responsibility to help Israel because of the mass murder of Jews in World War II, donated the first two submarines after the 1991 Gulf War.

It split the cost of the third with the Jewish state.

According to Jane's Defence Weekly, the U212s are designed for a crew of 35, have a range of 4,500 kilometres (2,810 miles) and can launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads...

Ireland votes yes to Lisbon treaty

2009-10-07T00:21:00.000-07:00

In a dramatic political U-turn, Ireland has voted decisively in favour of the Lisbon treaty just 16 months after it first rejected the European Union reform plan.

With counting continuing this evening it was expected that 64% of those who voted in Friday's referendum would have backed the treaty.

The outcome was lauded by the Irish taoiseach, Brian Cowen, who said it pointed the way towards rapid improvement in the European Union's effectiveness and Ireland's economic recovery.

"Today the Irish people have spoken with a clear and resounding voice. It's a good day for Ireland and a good day for Europe," Cowen declared.

He said the treaty would deliver "a stronger, fairer and better Europe".

He has thanked EU chiefs for offering Ireland generous assurances, with the EU president, José Manuel Barroso, describing the result as "a great day for Europe, a great day for Ireland".

Overall the yes vote was up by around 20% across the Republic. In June 2008 only 10 out of Ireland's 43 parliamentary constituencies voted in favour of Lisbon. By contrast in this referendum 41 constituencies have voted to endorse Lisbon.

Irish opponents of Lisbon challenged David Cameron to give the British people a referendum on the EU's future if his party takes power next year...

'You don't know who you're messing with': Vatican priest caught in red light district after police chase

2009-10-07T00:12:00.000-07:00

A Vatican priest led police on a high speed car chase leaving three officers injured after being caught in a red light zone, a court has heard.

Father Cesare Burgazzi, 51, said he 'floored' his Ford Focus car after he mistook the plain clothes officers who tried to flag him down during a spot check as robbers.

During the twenty minute early hours chase - which was described in court as "like something from a Hollywood movie" two police cars crashed and three police left injured.

The court in Rome heard that Father Burgazzi was a priest who worked at the Vatican's State Department and was also a master of ceremonies at St Peter's Basilica.

Officers gave chase after Father Burgazzi was spotted driving slowly in the Valle Giulia, an area of Rome well known for prostitution and transsexuals, and flagged down but instead drove off at high speed...

Wi-Fi signals used to see through walls

2009-10-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

The researchers say that the variation of radio signals in a wireless network can reveal the movements of people behind closed doors or even a wall.

Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari, from the University of Utah, have used the principle of variance-based radio tomographic imaging. The system works by measuring interference between the nodes of wireless devices. If someone passes through that field, the device registers a change in the levels of resistance, and feeds that information back to a computer.

The system can currently only see about three feet through a wall, and is so far only capable of sensing motion. At this stage, it is not sophisticated enough to generate an actual image of what lies beyond the wall, but the research team is confident that this feature could be developed in time.

The researchers said the technology could be used in search and rescue operations, with emergency teams using the same radio technology used by Wi-Fi networks to build a web of sensors around a disaster site, revealing the location of victims and survivors.

"We envision a building imaging scenario similar to the following. Emergency responders, military forces, or police arrive at a scene where entry into a building is potentially dangerous. They deploy radio sensors around (and potentially on top of) the building area, either by throwing or launching them, or dropping them while moving around the building," wrote Wilson and Patwari on the arXiv science forum...

Willingham capital case haunts Texas governor as state launches inquiry

2009-10-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

The scene in Corsicana, Texas, on the morning of 23 December 1991, was one of pure horror. According to eyewitnesses, Cameron Willingham stood in front of his wood-framed home as it was engulfed in flames pleading for someone to call 911 and screaming: "My babies are burning up!"

When fire fighters arrived, they found him dressed only in trousers and with hair on his chest, eyelids and head singed. They had to handcuff him to a truck to prevent him from trying to break into the three-bedroom bungalow to rescue the infants. One officer received a black eye in the scuffling.

All three of his children - Amber aged two, and one-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron - died. When Willingham gave permission for authorities to search his home after the event he told them: "I'd just like to know why my babies were taken from me."

That desire set in train a series of events that were to lead, 13 years later, to his own death at the hands of the state of Texas. Local fire investigators inspected the charred house to determine the cause of the blaze, and ended up concluding that Willingham, an unemployed car mechanic, had started it with lighter fuel in a deliberate act of arson.

He was convicted of homicide in 1992, at the end of a two-day trial in which only one defence witness was presented, and sentenced to death...

Palestinians cry 'blackmail' over Israel phone service threat

2009-10-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

Israel is threatening to kill off a crucial West Bank economic project unless the Palestinian Authority withdraws a request to the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged Israeli crimes during last winter’s Gaza war.

Shalom Kital, an aide to defence minister Ehud Barak, said today that Israel will not release a share of the radio spectrum that has long been sought by the Palestinian Authority to enable the launch of a second mobile telecommunications company unless the PA drops its efforts to put Israeli soldiers and officers in the dock over the Israeli operation.

“It’s a condition. We are saying to the Palestinians that ‘if you want a normal life and are trying to embark on a new way, you must stop your incitement,” Mr. Kital said. “We are helping the Palestinian economy but one thing we ask them is to stop with these embarrassing charges.”

As long as the Wataniya Mobile company is unable to begin its operations, communications costs are likely to remain inordinately high for Palestinian businesses and individuals. But thwarting the company benefits four unauthorized Israeli operators who make sizeable profits in the Palestinian market using infrastructure they have set up in the illegal Israeli settlements across the West Bank.

The Qatari-owned Wataniya had begun making what was planned as the second largest private investment in West Bank history - to total seven hundred million dollars. But amid frustration at more than two years of Israeli foot-dragging over the frequencies it is now warning that if forced to miss its launch date of 15 October it may close down West Bank operations and seek the return from the Palestinian Authority of its $140m licensing fee and other damages. Mr Kital said the possibility of Wataniya closing “is something the PA will have to take into consideration.”...

Russia to buy warship from France in first Nato arms deal since Cold War

2009-10-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Russia is close to buying a warship from France in its first deal to import military technology from a Nato state since the end of the Cold War.

Bernard Kouchner, France’s Foreign Minister, and Hervé Morin, the Defence Minister, made it clear that they supported the sale of a Mistral assault ship to Russia during talks in Moscow yesterday.

The move is likely to alarm other Nato states after Russia indicated that it was seeking a bigger deal to upgrade its armed forces with advanced Western technology. It could also raise tensions in the Black Sea, where Russia has threatened to act against Georgian naval vessels if they block ships from travelling to the separatist region of Abkhazia.

The Mistral can deploy four landing barges, 16 helicopters and up to 70 vehicles, including 13 tanks. It can also carry 450 soldiers and is equipped with a 69-bed hospital. The ship is likely to cost £350 million.

After a meeting of the Russian-French Security Cooperation Council Mr Morin said: “France is open to arms cooperation, including the possible sale of a helicopter ship to Russia.”

Mr Kouchner said that the two countries would have to reach a political agreement first but added: “If a political accord is reached I believe you will be able to buy this ship.”

General Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, has said that Moscow wants to buy up to four more ships of the same class to be jointly built in Russia...

Population atlas shows world in a new light

2009-10-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

Researchers from the University of Sheffield created the online atlas of 200 maps using distribution data to demonstrate population distribution and density.

The map of Britain is marked by a swollen mass in London and the south east, while Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Cornwall are drastically reduced in size.

The maps also show the true land mass underneath the modified images to illustrate how different the two are.

The new world guides also break with the 500-year tradition of conventional cartography, which shows compass directions as straight lines.

They were created as part of a Leverhulme Trust project to remap the world and extend the Worldmapper project.

Benjamin Hennig, a postgraduate researcher at the University's Department of Geography, was part of the team that created the maps using the gridded population of the world database of the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project.

Mr Hennig said the new projections give an "interesting insight into different countries".

He added: "The map of Afghanistan, for example, shows a country dominated by Kabul and a few other urban centres.

"The UK on this new global projection is a tale of London and the other cities.

"The United States, on the other hand, has much more variety to its human geography, while the new projection of China shows a sea of humanity bubbled up into a thousand cities in the Eastern part of the country."...

Oldest human skeleton offers new clues to evolution

2009-10-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- The oldest-known hominid skeleton was a 4-foot-tall female who walked upright more than 4 million years ago and offers new clues to how humans may have evolved, scientists say.

Scientists believe that the fossilized remains, which were discovered in 1994 in Ethiopia and studied for years by an international team of researchers, support beliefs that humans and chimpanzees evolved separately from a common ancestor.

"This is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be," said project co-director Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed "Ardi," is a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Aramis, Ethiopia. That makes Ardi more than a million years older than the celebrated Lucy, the partial ape-human skeleton found in Africa in 1974.

Ardi's 125-piece skeleton includes the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet bones. Scientists say the data collected from Ardi's bone fragments over the past 17 years push back the story of human evolution further than previously believed...

7-Year-Old Girl Attacked By 6-Foot Iguana

2009-10-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

A 7-year-old South Florida girl is recovering after a 6-foot iguana bit her foot and tore away tendons.

Authorities say Madison Wells was dropping strawberries on the ground for the iguana Wednesday when the animal struck. The girl said she thought the iguana would lick her feet.

The iguana clamped its jaws around Madison's right foot. The damage required 23 stitches and is keeping her from wiggling four of her toes. She is scheduled to have surgery soon to repair her tendons.

Wildlife officials said iguana's are not prone to attacking humans and are not typically aggressive. They say it's likely the iguana thought Madison's foot was one of the strawberries on the ground...

China shows off military might at 60th anniversary parade

2009-10-05T02:15:00.000-07:00

Nuclear missile carriers and rocket launchers rumbled past Beijing's Forbidden City today as the Chinese Communist party celebrated 60 years in power with its biggest display of military hardware and a weather-modification package.

With elements of both the cold war and the new economy, the spectacular parade was intended to showcase how China has modernised and opened up since Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.
Tania Branigan reports on the festivities Link to this audio

But few of the people of Beijing were allowed anywhere near the event. While about 30,000 guests were invited, local residents were told to stay indoors and watch the two mile procession on television.

The parade was a mix of old-fashioned communist-realist kitsch and newfangled weaponry. From the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the politburo reviewed an array of unmanned drones, Long Sword cruise missiles and other modern weaponry, most of which was developed in China and being shown to the public for the first time...

McDonald's map reveals 'McFarthest Point' in America

2009-10-05T02:13:00.001-07:00

Just as in London it is claimed you are never more than five metres from a rat, it seems that in the United States of America you are never much more than that from a Big Mac and fries, according to weathersealed.com.

That’s not quite true. While there are more than 13,000 branches in the States, some benighted areas of its vast hinterland are not blessed with ready access to 710-calories salads or a quarter-gallon vat of Coca Cola.

Predictably, the densely populated eastern seaboard has the highest numbers of the fast-food outlets – as represented by the thick galaxy of McDonald’s lights to the right of the map - closely followed by the west coast.

But between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, double cheeseburgers get harder to find.

South-east Oregon, central Nevada and Idaho are all borderline French-fry deserts – “McSparse”, as Steven von Worley, the map’s creator, puts it.

According to von Worley, the “McFarthest Spot” in America – or at least the 48 contiguous states – lies in the grasslands of South Dakota, between two tiny hamlets called Meadow and Glad Valley...

Women in underwear queue for free outfit offer

2009-10-05T02:11:00.000-07:00

Clothes chain Joy offered free outfits to the first 25 customers to turn up at their new branch dressed only in their underwear.

The offer meant Upper Street in Islington, north London, where the store is based became a sea of bras, boxer shorts and bikinis.

Many young shoppers had queued since 9am in blazing sunshine ahead of the midday opening.

However, police failed to see the funny side as five officers dashed to the scene to tackle the semi-naked punters.

Aiden Dowers, 27, said: "They say it may offend people. "It's freedom of rights.

"There are places I can parade myself on view in my underwear - it's the same as being at the beach.

"Why does it take all these cops to deal with middle class people that aren~t causing a problem to anybody?"

Tamara Hunt-Farrell, 20, a singer, said: "I'm furious that you can't get your kit off.

"No one was flashing, who's offended by us getting semi-naked? It's only a bit of fun."

A policewoman told the girls they were guilty of "public indecency" and ordered a shop assistant to cover up a raunchy picture in the window display.

Chloe Zumeris, 25, of Highbury, said: "It's no big deal. That David Beckham advert is worse. That's more revealing - especially the sock situation."...

Iran says will not discuss second nuclear plant

2009-10-05T02:07:00.000-07:00

TEHRAN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran said on Tuesday it would not discuss a previously secret nuclear plant at international talks this week but Washington vowed to bring it up and demanded Tehran prove it is not developing an atomic weapon.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, asked about Iran's insistence it would not discuss the facility in the Geneva talks, declared: "They may not, but we will."

Iranian officials and representatives of six major powers, including the United States, China and Russia, will hold talks on Tehran's nuclear ambitions in Geneva on Thursday. It is the first such encounter since U.S. President Barack Obama took office early this year promising more active U.S. diplomacy.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, made clear that Iran feels the newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant is off-limits for discussion...

Riyadh 'offers airspace' for Israel attack on Iran

2009-10-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

Israeli fighter jets have been allowed to use Saudi airspace to launch go-it-alone air strikes on Iranian nuclear installations, says a recent report.

The issue has been discussed in a closed-door meeting in London, where British Intelligence Chief Sir John Scarlett, his Israeli counterpart, Meir Dagan, and Saudi official have been present, Daily Express reported.

According to the report, Scarlett has been told that Saudi airspace would be at Israel's disposal should Tel Aviv decide to move forward with his military plans against Iran.

The British daily added the likelihood of an Israeli attack against Iran has increased significantly after the country announced plans to launch its second enrichment facility in the central city of Qom.

Press TV contacted the Saudi Embassy in Tehran for information on the report. The embassy, however, was reluctant to elaborate...

US 'to loosen' grip on internet

2009-10-05T02:02:00.001-07:00

The US government is expected to relax control over how the internet is run when it signs an accord with net regulator Icann on Wednesday.

The "affirmation of commitments" will reportedly give Icann autonomy to run its own affairs for the first time.

Previous agreements gave the US close oversight of Icann - drawing criticism from other countries.

Earlier this year, the EU called on the US to relinquish its control and Icann to become "universally accountable".

"The US government is the only body to have had formal oversight of Icann's policies and activities since its inception in 1998," it said.

"The Commission believes that Icann should become universally accountable, not just to one government but to the global internet community.

"This is particularly relevant given that the next billion of internet users will mainly come from the developing world."

The current agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) and the US Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration is due to expire on Thursday...

Guns allowed in Arizona bars starting Wednesday

2009-10-05T01:56:00.000-07:00

PHOENIX — Bartender Randy Shields was serving British brews and Arizona ambers as usual at Shady's bar in east Phoenix when he saw a customer walk in with a hunting knife strapped to his hip.

A disturbing image flashed through his mind — "that knife sliding between my ribs."

The customer willingly turned over the knife while he was in the bar, but Shields still worries about a new Arizona law that goes into effect Wednesday that will allow guns into Arizona bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Under the law, backed by the National Rifle Association, the 138,350 people with concealed-weapons permits in Arizona will be allowed to bring their guns into bars and restaurants that haven't posted signs banning them.

Those carrying the weapons aren't allowed to drink alcohol.

The new law has Shields and other bar owners and workers wondering: What's going to happen when guns are allowed in an atmosphere filled with booze and people with impaired judgment?

"Somebody can pull the trigger, then a bullet comes out, and people get hurt and killed," said Brad Henrich, owner of Shady's, a popular neighborhood bar that sees occasional minor scuffles. "The idea of anyone coming in with guns in a place that serves alcohol just seems ludicrous."

An 8 1/2-by-11-inch sign that says "No Firearms Allowed" and shows a red slash over a gun now hangs next to Henrich's liquor license. If a bar owner does not post such a state-approved sign, people with concealed weapons are allowed in with their guns...

Workers' Porn Surfing Rampant at Federal Agency

2009-10-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.

The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive they swamped the agency's inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.

"To manage this dramatic increase without an increase in staff required us to significantly reduce our efforts to investigate grant fraud," the inspector general recently told Congress in a budget request. "We anticipate a significant decline in investigative recoveries and prosecutions in coming years as a direct result...

2009-10-05T01:39:00.000-07:00

Health Care Overhaul and Mandatory Coverage Stir States’ Rights Claims

2009-10-05T01:05:00.000-07:00

ST. PAUL — In more than a dozen statehouses across the country, a small but growing group of lawmakers is pressing for state constitutional amendments that would outlaw a crucial element of the health care plans under discussion in Washington: the requirement that nearly everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty.

Efforts are underway in Arizona to bring about state constitutional amendments to block the possibility of insurance mandates and government-run health care.

Approval of the measures, the lawmakers suggest, would set off a legal battle over the rights of states versus the reach of federal power — an issue that is, for some, central to the current health care debate but also one that has tentacles stretching into many other matters, including education and drug policy.

Opponents of the measures and some constitutional scholars say the proposals are mostly symbolic, intended to send a message of political protest, and have little chance of succeeding in court over the long run. But they acknowledge that the measures could create legal collisions that would be both expensive and cause delays to health care changes, and could be a rallying point for opponents in the increasingly tense debate...

Secret Service Probing Obama Assassination Poll on Facebook

2009-10-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

Whoever made this poll is a fucking Retard! ...imho

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a "poll" posted on Facebook that asked users the most unsocial, unspeakable question: Should President Obama be assassinated?

Edwin Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said the agency will take "appropriate investigative steps" in connection to the survey, which was posted on Saturday and was quickly removed when Facebook employees were alerted to its existence.

"We are continuing our investigation," Donovan told FOXNews.com, declining further comment.

The poll asked respondents: "Should Obama be killed?"

The possible answers were "no," "maybe," yes," and "yes if he cuts my health care."

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said a "third-party application" enabled an individual user to create what he said was an "offensive poll."...

Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine

2009-10-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

Valery Yarynich glances nervously over his shoulder. Clad in a brown leather jacket, the 72-year-old former Soviet colonel is hunkered in the back of the dimly lit Iron Gate restaurant in Washington, DC. It's March 2009—the Berlin Wall came down two decades ago—but the lean and fit Yarynich is as jumpy as an informant dodging the KGB. He begins to whisper, quietly but firmly.

"The Perimeter system is very, very nice," he says. "We remove unique responsibility from high politicians and the military." He looks around again.

Yarynich is talking about Russia's doomsday machine. That's right, an actual doomsday device—a real, functioning version of the ultimate weapon, always presumed to exist only as a fantasy of apocalypse-obsessed science fiction writers and paranoid über-hawks. The thing that historian Lewis Mumford called "the central symbol of this scientifically organized nightmare of mass extermination." Turns out Yarynich, a 30-year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff, helped build one.

The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn't matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defense ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched...

Attorney: Oklahoma City bomb tapes appear edited

2009-10-05T00:53:00.000-07:00

OKLAHOMA CITY - Long-secret security tapes showing the chaos immediately after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building are blank in the minutes before the blast and appear to have been edited, an attorney who obtained the recordings said Sunday. "The real story is what's missing," said Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who obtained the recordings through the federal Freedom of Information Act as part of an unofficial inquiry he is conducting into the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

Trentadue gave copies of the tapes to The Oklahoman newspaper, which posted them online and provided copies to The Associated Press.

The tapes turned over by the FBI (web) came from security cameras various companies had mounted outside office buildings near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. They are blank at points before 9:02 a.m., when a truck bomb carrying a 4,000 pound fertilizer-and-fuel-oil bomb detonated in front of the building, Trentadue said...

Iran conducts third round of missile tests

2009-10-05T00:33:00.000-07:00

Iran said it successfully test-fired the longest-range missiles in its arsenal today, weapons capable of carrying a warhead and striking Israel, U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and parts of Europe.

State television said the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran's missile programme, successfully tested the medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil solid-fuel missiles with ranges up to about 1,200 miles. It was the third round of missile tests in two days of drills by the Guard.

The war games come at a time when Iran is under intense international pressure to fully disclose its nuclear activities. They began Sunday, two days after the US and its allies disclosed that Iran had been secretly developing an underground uranium enrichment facility and warned the country it must open the site to international inspection or face harsher international sanctions.

General Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, said Sunday the drills were meant to show Tehran is prepared to crush any military threat from another country.

The revelation of Iran's secret nuclear site has given greater urgency to a key meeting on Thursday in Geneva between Iran and six major powers trying to stop its suspected nuclear weapons programme...

Fresh doubts over Hitler's death after tests on bullet hole skull reveal it belonged to a woman

2009-10-05T00:28:00.000-07:00

Adolf Hitler may not have shot himself dead and perhaps did not even die in his bunker, it emerged yesterday.

A skull fragment believed for decades to be the Nazi leader’s has turned out to be that of a woman under 40 after DNA analysis.

Scientists and historians had long thought it to be conclusive proof that Hitler shot himself in the head after taking a cyanide pill on 30 April 1945 rather than face the ignominy of capture.

The piece of skull - complete with bullet hole - had been taken from outside the Fuhrer’s bunker by the Russian Army and preserved by Soviet intelligence.

Now the story of Hitler’s death will have to rewritten as a mystery - and conspiracy theorists are likely to latch on to the possibility that he may not have died in the bunker at all...

4 in 10 Brits feel lonely without a daily texting

2009-10-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Right Mobile Phone said 3,138 people were recently polled across the nation about how mobile phones affect their emotions. Eighty per cent in the survey responded that not receiving a reply to a text message damages their mood, and 41 per cent said that without a daily texting they felt "unpopular and lonely".

While a full 82 per cent of respondents said they look forward to being given a ring by their partners and loved ones, 19 per cent purposefully duck calls from their parents.

Eighteen per cent admit to have faked receiving a phone call or text message.

The study also concludes that folks are overwhelmingly insincere about LOLing. Only 9 per cent of respondents said they have actually laughed out loud at anything they've ever been sent via text, even though 61 per cent said they regularly use the term LOL while texting...

The Gaza War 'victory' - Has Israel grown dependent on terror?

2009-10-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

It is a sickening thought. It is one that many in Israel have had to live with for months. One they have kept inside, silenced, some for reasons of guilt, others out of sympathy, superstition, or denial:

Despite everything, despite international denunciation unprecedented even by the standards of past Israeli operations, despite mind-reeling devastation of residential areas and unconscionable loss of life among Palestinian civilians, could the winter invasion of Gaza have actually been a success?

The suggestion was put forward this week in a Washington Post opinion piece headlined "Israel's Gaza Vindication." The Monday column was written by Jackson Diehl, who covered the first intifada as the paper's Jerusalem bureau chief, and who early in the Gaza war had called Cast Lead "Olmert's final failure."

Diehl noted that while a number of Israel's stated - and patently unrealizable - aims for the war went unaddressed, two crucial elements of the postwar reality were cause for distinct Israeli satisfaction: a precipitous drop in Palestinian rocket launchings against the Negev, and a considerable rise in the strength of Hamas blood rival, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Israel's defeat in Gaza has widely been portrayed as a foregone conclusion. During the war, Time magazine's cover was headlined "Why Israel can't win." An accompanying article asked darkly "Can Israel survive its assault on Gaza?"...

The perils of an Israeli airstrike on Iran

2009-10-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

American and Israeli military planners have been examining options for an attack on Iran for almost three decades. There is no shortage of possible targets: Iran has dozens of nuclear-related sites that are known to western officials.

Yet military experts in Washington and Tel Aviv acknowledge that a surprise airstrike would be likely to succeed only in delaying Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. It would also present daunting logistical and political challenges with no guarantee that even a sustained assault on known facilities would eradicate Tehran’s nuclear threat.

With President Barack Obama committed to diplomatic pressure, the most likely military scenarios involve Israeli airstrikes that would require mid-air refuelling and long flights through potentially hostile Arab air space. “Anyone who meets regularly with senior Israeli officials knows that Israel is considering military options ... with an understanding that they pose serious problems and risks,” said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon planner...

US official murdered in Kentucky – land of meth and moonshine

2009-10-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

The FBI is investigating whether a wave of intense anti-government sentiment sweeping America has claimed its first victim, after the body of a census collector was found hanging from a tree in a remote backwoods corner of Kentucky with the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest.

The death is fuelling speculation he was killed simply because he worked for the federal government – now the target of a wave of hate from extreme right-wingers.

Colleagues of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old single father and census volunteer, alerted police after the normally dependable part-time teacher failed to turn up for work on September 10. His corpse was discovered two days later, near a cemetery in the Daniel Boone National Forest. Preliminary medical reports indicated he had been asphyxiated.

Sparkman had been warned the people of rural Clay County do not always welcome federal visitors on official business. Gilbert Accairdo, who worked with him at Johnson Elementary School, said he was aware of the potential risks.

“As a retired state trooper, I recognised the inherent dangers of going to someone’s house and [them] not knowing what you’re about,” he said. “The thing I stressed with Sparkman was to make sure people know you are just there to gather statistics...

Poland approves forcible castration for paedophiles

2009-10-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Under the law, sponsored by Poland's centre-Right government, paedophiles convicted of raping children under the age of 15 years or a close relative would have to undergo chemical therapy on their release from prison.

"The purpose of this action is to improve the mental health of the convict, to lower his libido and thereby to reduce the risk of another crime being committed by the same person," the government said in a statement.

But the move drew criticism from human rights groups.

"Introducing any mandatory treatment raises doubts as such a requirement is never reasonable and life can always produce cases that lawmakers could never have even dreamt of," said Piotr Kladoczny from the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights.

The law was approved by an overwhelming majority of 400 with one vote against and two abstentions in Poland's 460-seat lower house of parliament.

The bill, which also increases prison sentences for rape and incest, must still be approved by the upper chamber of parliament. But this is seen as a formality as Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Platform party holds a majority of its 100 seats.

Mr Tusk first raised the controversial issue of chemical castration for convicted paedophiles in a year ago, after a 45-year-old man was charged with having raped and held his 21-year-old daughter captive for six years...

Gen. McChrystal Surprised by Enemy Strength in Afghanistan

2009-10-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in an interview to be aired Sunday on "60 Minutes" on CBS, says that in some areas of the country, the "geographic spread of violence is a little more" than he expected.

Today, military officials said five more U.S. troops have died in attacks in southern Afghanistan.

The rising death toll comes as the Obama administration considers whether to add more troops to the total that's already been growing by 21,000.

Most of the additional troops have been sent to the south, where they've been targeted by roadside bombs and ambushes as they try to take back areas controlled by the Taliban.

The U.S. is on track to have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year. The Pentagon says McChrystal is asking for as many as 40,000 more...

UFO Filmed over Arizona

2009-10-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

CNN Video

US complains to Russia over 'sex tape' fabrication

2009-10-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

America protested to Russia's foreign ministry about what it calls "a smear campaign" against the diplomat, insisting that key parts of the embarrassing "honeytrap" allegedly featuring him were fabricated.

In an unusually public move, John Beyrle, Washington's ambassador to Russia, used an interview on a US TV network to defend the diplomat, hinting he thought the Russian authorities had framed him.

Russian media had a field day with the story in August, revelling in a video which purported to show Kyle Hatcher, a second secretary at the embassy, contacting three prostitutes and then being filmed with one of them on a bed in a darkened hotel room. Mr Hatcher, 34, is married and liaises with religious and human rights groups for the embassy.

But Mr Beyrle, the ambassador, told ABC News that he had concluded the episode was a fit-up, that Mr Hatcher was blameless, and that he would keep his job.

"The video we saw was a montage of lots of different clips, some of which are clearly fabricated," he said. "We had our security office in Washington take a look at that and they are convinced Kyle has done nothing wrong."

The film included what was alleged to be Mr Hatcher's bugged mobile phone conversations, spliced footage of him from different periods, and displayed photographs of a clutch of scantily clad women it alleged he frequented...

Proportion of births outside marriage 'has risen to highest ever level'

2009-10-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

In total 46 per cent of births were outside wedlock in the first three months of this year, compared to 45.3 per cent in 2008.

The proportion has risen by more than 50 per cent since 1991, when 30.2 per cent of children were born to unmarried mothers.

The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, also show that women in their thirties continue to have the highest fertility rate.

In 2008, 708,708 babies were born in England and Wales, up from 690,013 the previous year.

Fertility rose among all age groups rose, but women in their early 30s continued to enjoy the highest rates, at 112.3 live births per 1,000 women aged between 30 and 34.

Among women aged between 15 and 44 there were an average of 63.5 live births per 1,000 women, a rise which marked a return to 1992 levels.

In England, women in the West Midlands had the most children - 2.09 per head - and the lowest was the North East at 1.86...

Fruit and veg have 'unacceptable' levels of pesticides

2009-10-01T21:14:00.002-07:00

Apples, peas, and grapes are sometimes covered in crop spray that is above the maximum allowed levels allowed under European law.

The findings come from the Pesticides Residues Committee, part of the Health and Safety Executive, after testing more than 4,000 samples of food and drink.

The levels of pesticides varied considerably, with imported fruit and vegetables tending to have higher levels, according to its 2008 annual report. One in 7 beans in a pod one in 25 fresh peas (in pods) and one in five yams all had pesticides above the allowed level. One in 70 apples and pears had illegal levels of pesticides.

The Food Standards Agency insisted the illegal levels did not necessarily mean that the food was unsafe to eat, and pointed out that the overall levels of pesticides in food had fallen over the last year. In 2007 1.8 per cent of food had illegal levels; 2008 it had fallen to 1.2 per cent...

Who watches most television?

2009-10-01T21:14:00.001-07:00

DESPITE an increase in entertainment choices, watching television remains as popular as ever, according to data from the OECD's Communications Outlook report. American households watch the box for over eight hours a day on average, twice as long as anyone else. Viewing has fallen in some countries. Turks reportedly watched an hour's less television per day in 2007 than they did only two years earlier, when the country was America's nearest rival as couch-potato king.

US missile strike rises threefold in Pakistan

2009-10-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

The death toll from a US drone strike in Pakistan's troubled northwestern tribal Waziristan region has risen to 12 after tribesmen pulled more bodies from debris.

The strike from CIA-operated spy drones was the fourth this month in North Waziristan region.

Since August 2008, nearly 60 such attacks by US spy planes have killed more than 550 people in the volatile region

Earlier reports said four people were killed in the latest lethal incident which took place around five kilometers (three miles) northwest of Miransha in the North Waziristan tribal district on Thursday night.

Local residents told Press TV correspondent in Peshawar that at least a dozen people lost their lives in the attack.

The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured were said to be in critical condition.

The drone planes continued low-altitude flights in several towns of Waziristan region over the past weeks.

The air strikes, which are common in Pakistan, allegedly target pro-Taliban militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

However, Pakistani media outlets say only one-sixth of the raids have managed to target militant hideouts...

Wealth, Income, and Power

2009-10-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.

Some of the information might be a surprise to many people. The most amazing numbers on income inequality come last, showing the change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years.

First, though, some definitions. Generally speaking, wealth is the value of everything a person or family owns, minus any debts. However, for purposes of studying the wealth distribution, economists define wealth in terms of marketable assets, such as real estate, stocks, and bonds, leaving aside consumer durables like cars and household items because they are not as readily converted into cash and are more valuable to their owners for use purposes than they are for resale (see Wolff, 2004, p. 4, for a full discussion of these issues). Once the value of all marketable assets is determined, then all debts, such as home mortgages and credit card debts, are subtracted, which yields a person's net worth. In addition, economists use the concept of financial wealth, which is defined as net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing. As Wolff (2004, p. 5) explains, "Financial wealth is a more 'liquid' concept than marketable wealth, since one's home is difficult to convert into cash in the short term. It thus reflects the resources that may be immediately available for consumption or various forms of investments."...

Obama's Policies Would Redistribute Nearly $1 Trillion in Wealth Every Year

2009-09-30T01:20:00.001-07:00

By 2012, nearly $1 trillion from the top 30 percent of American families will be redistributed among the bottom 70 percent if Obama’s proposals on taxes, health care, and climate change become law, according to the Tax Foundation.

“Even if none of Obama’s policies becomes law, the extent of income redistribution is remarkable,” Scott Hodge, president of the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, said. “The top-earning 40 percent of families will transfer $826 billion to the bottom 60 percent in 2012.”

Under the Obama plan, 70 percent of American families as a group -- those earning less than $109,460 -- will receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, Hodge said.

“The majority of people below the 70 percent mark will get more back than they pay in taxes,” Hodge told CNSNews.com.

This would leave the top 30 percent -- those making more than $109,460 -- paying more in taxes than they receive in federal spending, Hodge said.

According to the report, the lowest-income families will gain $10.44 in federal spending for every dollar they pay in taxes...

Census Worker Found Hanged With "Fed" Scrawled on Body

2009-09-30T01:19:00.001-07:00

A census worker in Kentucky was found hanged to death with the word "Fed" scrawled on his body, according to unnamed law enforcement officials cited by The Associated Press. Bill Sparkman, age 51, was a part-time census worker and occasional teacher. His body was found September 12 hanged from a tree in a remote section of the Daniel Boone National Forest, located in a rural portion of southeast Kentucky. His truck was parked nearby, and his computer was found inside.

Authorities have been tight-lipped on the details surrounding Sparkman's death, refusing to state whether his death was murder or a suicide, and offered no details on the instrument used to scrawl "Fed" on his chest. Officials at the Census Bureau's Charlotte, North Carolina, office were informed the death was "an apparent homicide," but the investigation is ongoing...

DoJ Official Blows Cover Off PATRIOT Act

2009-09-30T01:15:00.002-07:00

In the debate over the PATRIOT Act, the Bush White House insisted it needed the authority to search people's homes without their permission or knowledge so that terrorists wouldn't be tipped off that they're under investigation.

Now that the authority is law, how has the Department of Justice used the new power? To go after drug dealers.

Only three of the 763 "sneak-and-peek" requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) quizzed Assistant Attorney General David Kris about the discrepancy at a hearing on the PATRIOT Act Wednesday. One might expect Kris to argue that there is a connection between drug trafficking and terrorism or that the administration is otherwise justified to use the authority by virtue of some other connection to terrorism.

He didn't even try. "This authority here on the sneak-and-peek side, on the criminal side, is not meant for intelligence. It's for criminal cases. So I guess it's not surprising to me that it applies in drug cases," Kris said...

Blackwater Offers Training to ‘Faith Based Organizations’

2009-09-30T01:15:00.001-07:00

In its ever-evolving re-branding campaign, Blackwater has created a new alter-ego for part of the company’s business. Meet the “Personal Security Awareness” program, which appears to be an off-shoot of Erik Prince’s Greystone, Ltd., a classic mercenary operation registered offshore in Barbados. On its website, which was registered on February 20, 2009 and went live recently, the “program” is described as “a multi-phase course which is designed to assist Non-Government Organizations, Faith Based Organizations and Commercial Businesses by providing individual personal awareness and driver training for their personnel when deployed to unfamiliar environments.” It adds: “Greystone recognizes the importance of “preparation by doing” and looks forward to you joining us for this exciting training!”

Blackwater, of course, works for such organizations as the International Republican Institute, but “Faith Based Organizations?” Are they serious? I’m sure there are just scores of Islamic aid groups just lining up to take courses from Blackwater, Xe, US Training Center, Greystone, Personal Security Awareness. Moreover, any legitimate “faith based organization” that wants harmony with other faiths would be insane to work with this company. One of the courses offered is described as teaching “persons traveling to foreign environments how to remain safe during their travels in a vehicle.” This truly is surreal. What would seem more appropriate would be a company offering courses on how to “remain safe” in a vehicle when going anywhere near Blackwater forces. Remember how those unarmed Iraqi civilians were blown up in their car by Blackwater operatives at Nisour Square? Or the Afghan civilians allegedly killed in their car by Blackwater operatives in Afghanistan in May?

Large quantities of water found on the Moon

2009-09-30T01:10:00.000-07:00

Data from the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft also suggests water is still being formed on its surface.

It is believed that the water is concentrated at the poles and possibly formed by the solar wind.

The finding was made after researchers examined data from three separate missions to the moon.

The reports, to be published in the journal Science on Friday, show that the water may be moving around, forming and reforming as particles become mixed up in the dust on the surface of the moon.

Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the mission’s project director at the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore, told The Times: “It’s very satisfying.

“This was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the Moon.”

The unmanned craft was equipped with Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, designed specifically to search for water by picking up the electromagnetic radiation emitted by minerals.

The M3, an imaging spectrometer, was designed to search for water by detecting the electromagnetic radiation given off by different minerals on and just below the surface of the Moon.

Unlike previous lunar spectrometers, it was sensitive enough to detect the presence of small amounts of water...

Russia says it will join sanctions against Iran

2009-09-30T01:08:00.000-07:00

President Obama’s biggest foreign policy gamble appeared to pay off last night as Russia opened the door to punishing new sanctions on Iran to halt its nuclear programme.

Emerging from his first meeting with Mr Obama since the Eastern Europe missile shield was scrapped, President Medvedev of Russia conceded that “in some cases, sanctions are inevitable”.

Mr Obama went into the meeting, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, ready to press Russia to support sanctions if Iran refused to address concerns about its nuclear activities. He emerged saying that Mr Medvedev had agreed that “serious additional sanctions” must be considered if diplomatic efforts fail.

That stance was reiterated later by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who emerged from a meeting of foreign ministers from the E3 + 3 countries – Britain, France, Germany, the US, Russia and China — to declare a united front on a policy of diplomacy and sanctions. Mr Miliband called for a “serious response” from Iran at talks scheduled for October 1 if it wished to avoid sanctions.

Mr Medvedev’s – admittedly lukewarm – support for sanctions is seen as payback for Washington’s decision to move its defensive missile shield from Poland and the Czech Republic to the Mediterranean. China was the only remaining Security Council power opposing sanctions on Iran, but the statement from the E3 + 3 suggested that it too was ready to consider them...

More than 1,000 police raid homes of notorious Los Angeles gang

2009-09-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

More than 1,000 law enforcement officers descended on the homes of alleged key members of a notorious Los Angeles gang that has defied authorities for decades.

Prosecutors say the Avenues have terrorised one of the city's neighbourhood for years – preying on residents, with two named suspects accused of attacking a man in a parking lot then shooting him dead after he tried to call for help.

An assistant US attorney, Ariel Neuman, said another woman who was pistol-whipped then shot identified an assailant by the Fedora-wearing skull tattoo on his chest.

About 1,100 police officers working with nearly 300 federal agents and other law officers carried out the series of raids yesterday. The pre-dawn operation marks a new effort by the authorities to clampdown on the Avenues gang, which has been prevalent in north-east Los Angeles since the 1950s.

Forty-six alleged members of the gang were arrested, while 33 others were already in custody and nine remained at large, authorities said.

The investigation into the gang was stepped up after two shootings against police last year...

Euro project to arrest us for what they think we will do

2009-09-30T01:04:00.000-07:00

Radical Think Tank Open Europe has this week exposed a study by the EU that could lead to the creation of a massive cross-Europe database, amassing vast amounts of personal data on every single citizen in the EU.

The scope of this project also reveals a growing governmental preference for systems capable of locking people up not for what they have done, but for what they might do.

Open Europe (OE) researcher, Stephen Booth, has been reviewing projects currently in receipt of EU funding. Last week he identified one of these - Project INDECT - as having potentially far-reaching effects for anyone living or working in Europe. The main objectives of this project, according to its own website, are:

To develop a platform for: the registration and exchange of operational data, acquisition of multimedia content, intelligent processing of all information and automatic detection of threats and recognition of abnormal behaviour or violence, to develop the prototype of an integrated, network-centric system supporting the operational activities of police officers...