New Hampshire Health News Digest

Times Online - Sunday Times Britain - New elite force to combat Al-Qaeda A DEDICATED special forces unit is being assembled alongside the SAS and SBS to infiltrate and destroy Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. The unit, nicknamed the “X-men”, has already begun recruiting and is expected eventually to comprise some 600 men and women from all three armed services and the intelligence agencies. Particular efforts will be made to recruit people of Arabic appearance in addition to members of ethnic minority communities and Muslims. The unit would be expected to operate around the world as well as to counter the terrorism threat in Britain itself. Much of the core of the unit will be made up of undercover surveillance operators who have honed their skills fighting terrorists in Northern Ireland. More than 150 members of the 14th Intelligence and Security Company, have already left Northern Ireland and are forming the nucleus of the new unit. The company was involved in...

Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East: When Grozny comes to Fallujah/ Russia to send troops to Iraq? : "Do not be surprised to see three or four divisions of the Russian army in the Sunni triangle before year-end, with an announcement just prior to the US presidential election in November. Long rumored (or under negotiation), a Russian deployment of 40,000 soldiers was predicted on July 16 by the US intelligence site www.stratfor.com, and denied by the Russian Foreign Ministry on July 20. Nonetheless, the logic is compelling. Russian support for US occupation forces would make scorched earth of Senator John Kerry's attack on the Bush administration's foreign policy, namely its failure to form effective alliances. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the chance to make scorched earth of Fallujah is even more tempting. In exchange for a troop presence in Iraq, Russia would obtain a free hand in dealings with the countries of the forme...

Bat Yeor on Europe on National Review Online After the Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil blackmail in 1973, the then-European Community (EC) created a structure of Cooperation and Dialogue with the Arab League. The Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) began as a French initiative composed of representatives from the EC and Arab League countries. From the outset the EAD was considered as a vast transaction: The EC agreed to support the Arab anti-Israeli policy in exchange for wide commercial agreements. The EAD had a supplementary function: the shifting of Europe into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, thus breaking the traditional trans-Atlantic solidarity. The EAD operated at the highest political level, with foreign ministers on both sides, and the presidents of the EC — later the European Union (EU) — with the secretary general of the Arab League. The central body of the Dialogue, the General Commission, was responsible for planning its objectives in the political, cultural, social, econom...

Bat Yeor on Dhimmitude on National Review Online Dhimmi collaboration on the theological level is oriented in two directions: toward Christianity and toward Islam. It finds its most radical expression in the "Palestinian Liberation Theology," meaning nothing less than the liberation of Christianity from its Jewish matrix. The spiritual center of this theology is the al-Liqa institute in Jerusalem, created in 1983 for the study of the Muslim and Christian heritage in the Holy Land. This strongly politicized institute, sponsored by international Christian organizations, specializes in disseminating anti-Israeli propaganda through its international religious and media channels. Uniting Marcionist and Gnostic theological currents, this Palestinian theology strips away Jesus's Jewishness and turns him into a sui generis Arab-Palestinian Jesus, a twin of the Muslim Jesus (Isa). Christianity, thus liberated from its Jewish roots, can be transplanted in Arab-Islamism. This...

Michael Ledeen on Islamists on National Review Online ll of a sudden everybody's asking, "Who are we fighting anyway?" It's an interesting question, but it's not nearly as important as many of the debaters believe. The 9/11 Commission tells us we're fighting Islamists, or Islamist terrorists, and David Brooks has cooed over this, because he likes the notion that we're fighting an ideology. The White House has devoted lots of man-hours to this matter, trying to figure out how we win "the battle of ideas," and the Internet is full of people who argue, variously, that we're fighting "radical Islam," "Saddam's die-hards," "foreign fighters," or even "Islam itself." All of these "Islamic" definitions guide us back to Samuel Huntington's thesis that there is a war — or at least a clash — of civilizations underway. Most share the conviction that we're fighting something that is unusua...

Institute for War and Peace Reporting: The Father of Invention A man in Afghanistan has spent his life developing original solutions to everyday problems. Ghulam Sediq Wardak holds a screwdriver and clamp in his dirty hands. The 62 year old, wearing a turban and the tradition shalwar kamiz costume, picks up an engine part from the floor of his Kabul workshop and attaches it to a partially built car. Engine parts from the 1980 Volkswagen litter the floor, but Sediq moves purposefully amid the chaos. He screws six solar panels on to the roof, door and back of the vehicle. He is adapting the car to his own design – and working against a deadline. In a week, the vehicle is scheduled to be driven through the streets of Kabul, without using petrol, water or batteries. This prototype is expected to travel at just 25 kilometres per hour - but Sediq plans to improve the speed in future models. He stands back to admire his work. Afghanistan’s first solar-powered car is bein...

Animal Vegetable Video: Outfitting Animals and Plants with Helmet-Mounted Video Cameras Worldwide 19 cool short quicktime movies. This is the real deal.

The New York Times > Magazine > The Quest for the Nonkiller App. I recently was invited to the Pentagon to watch a film depicting field tests of a new weapons program called the Active Denial System, which, it occurred to me, could have been named by an unhinged cognitive therapist. The live-action video opened on a vista reminiscent of Iraq or Afghanistan. Scattered amid the scrub of a desert plain, angry demonstrators howl unintelligible slogans and advance menacingly on a handful of soldiers who nervously pivot their rifles back and forth trying to deter the mob. For safety's sake during this test run, the ''crowd'' -- played for the most part by off-duty soldiers -- flings bright green tennis balls at the uniformed servicemen instead of rocks. As one member of the crowd hurls a ball, a soldier operating the Active Denial System (it looks like a squat satellite dish) targets an unruly protester in the weapon's viewfinder, squeezes a trigger that r...

Chrenkoff : "In many ways, the public sentiment in Afghanistan remains significantly more positive and optimistic than in Iraq, which is surely a good sign for Afghanistan. In the north of the country, too, optimism prevails about the future and the direction of the country. Ghalib Shah Azizi, whom I quoted at the start of the article, has this to say about the Afghani president: 'I believe Hamed Karzai is an intelligent and proper person to be selected as a president for Afghanistan. He will be able to rule the government and ensure peace and stability in the country.' Religious authorities too, throw their support behind the efforts to build the new Afghanistan: the Afghan Ulema Council, composed of the nation's eminent religious scholars, has called on the Afghani people to give up their weapons and end 'the rule of the gun,' which has spread across the country over a quarter of a century of conflict. The scholars also called on people to support t...

Jay Nordlinger on Jimmy Carter on National Review Online The ex-president is known as Joe Human Rights, but he’s mighty selective about whose human rights to champion. If you live in Marcos’s Philippines, Pinochet’s Chile, or apartheid South Africa, he’s liable to care about you. If you live in Communist China, Communist Cuba, Communist Ethiopia, Communist Nicaragua, Communist North Korea, Communist . . .: screw you............ In a 1997 op-ed piece entitled “It’s Wrong to Demonize China” (also for the New York Times), Carter wrote — and forgive the awkward prose — “American criticism of China’s human rights abuses are justified, but their basis is not well understood. Westerners emphasize personal freedoms, while a stable government and a unified nation are paramount to the Chinese. This means that policies are shaped by fear of chaos from unrestrained dissidents or fear of China’s fragmentation by an independent Taiwan or Tibet. The result is excessive punishment [excessive pu...

The New York Times > Magazine > Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy : "Andy Rappaport isn't the only one asking these questions. The party's decline is a constant source of gallows humor among Democrats in Washington. It is true that in terms of voter identification, the country remains more or less evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, and in fact, the best data show that Democrats still enjoy a slight advantage among the ever-shrinking pool of voters who do identify themselves with one party or another. But the historical arc of the parties tells a different story. Since the 1950's, when nearly half of all voters called themselves Democrats, nearly one in six Democrats has left the party, according to a University of Michigan study, while Republican membership has held close to steady. Reflected in this trend -- although it is by no means the entirety of the problem -- is that the Democratic Party has seen an exodus of the white working-clas...

Telegraph | News | Palestinians 'made millions' selling cheap cement for barrier they bitterly oppose : "Palestinian businessmen have made millions of pounds supplying cement for Israel's 'security barrier' in the full knowledge of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader and one of the wall's most vocal critics. A damning report by Palestinian legislators, which has been seen by the Telegraph, concludes that Mr Arafat did nothing to stop the deals although he publicly condemned the structure as a 'crime against humanity'. The Israeli wall cuts through the Palestinian town of Baqa el-Gharbiya The report claims that the cement was sold with the knowledge of senior officials at the Palestinian ministry of national economy, and close advisers to Mr Arafat. It concludes that officials were bribed to issue import licences for the cement to importers and businessmen working for Israelis." hahaha! They're going to put themselves out...

How Many Words-Per-Minute Do You Read? : Press the Start button and begin reading. Read at your natural pace. Do not skim. When a minute has passed, you'll hear and see the alert on your screen. Stop reading. Press OK on the alert. To see your results, click the last word you read when the alert appeared."

"Ministers consider vaccination scheme. Heroin, cocaine and nicotine targeted : "A radical scheme to vaccinate children against future drug addiction is being considered by ministers, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. Under the plans, doctors would immunise children at risk of becoming smokers or drug users with an injection. The scheme could operate in a similar way to the current nationwide measles, mumps and rubella vaccination programme. Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users, making drugs such as heroin and cocaine pointless to take. Such vaccinations are being developed by pharmaceutical companies and are due to hit the market within two years..... Scientists are already conducting trials for drugs that can be used by doctors to vaccinate against cocaine, heroin and nicotine addiction. Xenova, the British biotechnology firm, has carried out trials on an anti-cocaine vaccine which sho...

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Saddam's day: gardening, reading and eating muffins Saddam is being held in a white-walled air-conditioned cell, three metres wide and four metres long, Mr Amin said. He is kept apart from the other prisoners, who can mix freely with each other during the daily three-hour exercise periods. Since appearing in court, Saddam had taken to reading the Qur'an and writing poetry, Mr Amin said. "One of the poems is about George Bush, but I had no time to read it." Saddam's health was "generally good" but he was being treated for high blood pressure and had suffered a chronic prostate infection for which he had received antibiotics. The former president had refused a biopsy to test for signs of cancer. Mr Amin said Saddam "was regaining weight again" after a self-imposed diet in which he "resisted all fatty foods and had lost 11lb". Like the other high-value detainees, Saddam's day beg...

In Defense of Memorization by Michael Knox Beran If there’s one thing progressive educators don’t like it’s rote learning. As a result, we now have several generations of Americans who’ve never memorized much of anything. Even highly educated people in their thirties and forties are often unable to recite half a dozen lines of classic poetry or prose. Yet it wasn’t so long ago that kids in public schools from Boston to San Francisco committed poems like Shelley’s “To a Skylark” and Tennyson’s “Ulysses” to memory. They declaimed passages from Shakespeare and Wordsworth, the Psalms and the Declaration of Independence. Even in the earliest grades they got by heart snippets of “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” or “Abou Ben Adhem.” By 1970, however, this tradition was largely dead. Should we care? Aren’t exercises in memorizing and reciting poetry and passages of prose an archaic curiosity, without educative value? That too-common view is sadly wrong. Kids need both the poetr...

FOXNews.com - Politics - House GOP Sees Political Plus to 9/11 Action "WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders radically altered their original "go slow" playbook on the Sept. 11 commission recommendations, reversing themselves after reading the report closely and finding a variety of "law and order" issues they intend to use against Democrats during the fall campaign........... A lot of members won't like it but they won't have a choice," a GOP leadership aide said. "The Democrats thought we'd stay where we were but we called their bluff. And when they come back and see the legislation they're not going to like it and they are going to pay." Senior Republican aides devoted considerable time Friday to discussing the numerous immigration and airport security regulations in the commission report. Of the 41 recommendations, seven deal with border security. The commission's report, the culmination of a 20-month investig...

FOXNews.com - Views - CATO - Cowboy Capitalism Vs. Economic Tyranny In other words, for quite a while European-style “comfy capitalism” seemed to work as good as U.S.-style “cowboy capitalism”. But that is no longer true. What happened? First, there was a time in which economic policy mistakes had little impact, if only because there were many other governments that made far more basic mistakes—remember communism? After all, it’s easier to compete with countries whose governments systematically destroy their economies’ dynamism. But today, according to the Economic Freedom report, Estonia has a freer economy than Germany has; Hungary is ahead of Italy; and Latvia and the Czech Republic do better than France. Times are a-changin’ in another sense as well. Globalization and the revolution in information and communication technologies necessitates that capital and labor are increasingly directed into new jobs, new technologies, and new corporations. It’s exactly the ability to a...

New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Charles Krauthammer: Strike before Iran's nukes get hot : "Strike before Iran's nukes get hot Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons now being drawn from the 9/11 report is that Iran was the real threat. The Iraq War critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead. Well, of course Iran is a threat. But how exactly would the critics have 'done' Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Can you imagine the Iraq War critics actually supporting war with Iran?"........... Two years ago, there were five countries supporting terror and pursuing WMDs - two junior-leaguers, Libya and Syria, and the axis-of-evil varsity: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Bush administration has just eliminated two: Iraq, by direct military means, and Libya, by example and intimidation. Syria is weak and deterred by Israel. North Korea, having gone nuclear, is untouchable. That leaves Iran....

BBC NEWS | Americas | US army food... just add urine : "US army food... just add urine The US military has devised a way to ensure its troops in battle need never go hungry - with dried food that can be rehydrated using dirty water or urine. The meal comes in a pouch that filters out 99.9% of bacteria and most toxic chemicals, says New Scientist magazine. The aim is to reduce the amount of water soldiers need to carry. The firm behind it says soldiers should only use urine as last resort - as the membrane can not filter out urea, which in the long term causes kidney damage. 'The pouch - containing chicken and rice - relies on osmosis to filter the water or urine,' the New Scientist Magazine reported."

Yahoo! News - Monkey Apes Humans by Walking on Two Legs JERUSALEM - A young monkey at an Israeli zoo has started walking on its hind legs only — aping humans — after a near death experience, the zoo's veterinarian said Wednesday. Natasha, a 5-year-old black macaque at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv, began walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, zookeepers said. Monkeys usually alternate between upright movement and walking on all fours. A picture in the Maariv daily on Wednesday showed Natasha standing ramrod straight like a human. The picture was labeled humorously, "The Missing Link?"

My Way News Warner: New Report Backs Iraq WMD Claims : " WASHINGTON (AP) - An upcoming report will contain 'a good deal of new information' backing up the Bush administration's contention that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass destruction, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said Tuesday. The administration cited Saddam's hunger for such weapons as a main reason to invade Iraq last year. 'I'm not suggesting dramatic discoveries,' Warner told reporters, but 'bits and pieces that Saddam Hussein was clearly defying' international restrictions, 'and he and his government had a continuing interest in maintaining the potential to shift to production of various types of weapons of mass destruction in a short period of time.'"

Scotsman.com News - Features - Let the games begin The secret of the modern Olympics is that the athlete village, with its tightly packed collection of firm young bodies, 24-hour sports television and all-you-can eat international cuisine, has become the most exclusive VIP club in the world. It’s "a two-week-long private party for thousands of hard-bodies," says Nelson Diebel, an American swimmer who won gold twice in Barcelona. Like a mirage, the village appears in the middle of an exuberant host city for two weeks every two years. Open only to competitors, coaches and trainers, it’s a wonderland of hormones, glycogen and dance mixes. The free dining hall is open 24/7. Vending machines dispense free soft drinks. Pool halls, cinemas, bowling alleys and discos stay open - and jumping - throughout the night. "It’s like adult Disney World for two weeks," says Christo Doyle, a television executive who was the assistant venue logistics manager for Atlanta’s village...

Liberty magazine, March 1997 : " Smith's Follies Rothbard's treatment of Adam Smith is the most surprising and most controversial aspect of the two volumes. Rothbard argues that Smith is not the founding figure of modern economics, as he is usually portrayed. Rather, partly because he was led astray by his strong Calvinist proclivities, Smith proved to be a significant retrogression. Scholastic and other writers before Smith had already worked out a reasonable approximation of the microeconomic insights that have been accepted in the twentieth century by the Austrian school and most other right-thinking economists: a) Utility is the foundation of value; b) marginal considerations determine prices; c) the only way to know values and prices is to look to the actual workings of a functioning market. As Rothbard tells the story, however, Smith undermined all these good efforts of prior economists with his Wealth of Nations , whose labor theory of value was an ...

Checkmate -- has chess king Bobby Fischer met his match? : "Tokyo -- For 12 years he has stayed one move ahead of the U.S. government he despises, always in motion, hard to corner. But U.S. justice may have finally caught up with Bobby Fischer. Wanted for defying a U.S. ban on doing business with Yugoslavia in 1992, the onetime world chess champion was arrested by Japanese officials this week as he tried to fly out of Tokyo's Narita airport. Fischer, who was headed to the Philippines, stands accused by the Japanese of traveling on a revoked U.S. passport. The man often said to possess the world's most brilliant chess mind -- and a great eccentric in a profession bulging with them -- now sits in jail facing deportation and subsequent arrest by U.S. marshals as early as Sunday. ...... The U.S. case against him stems from his out-of-retirement exhibition battle with former rival Boris Spassky in 1992, which led to a $3.5 million payday for Fischer. Staged in Yugo...

WorldNetDaily: Sudan jihad forces Islam on Christians : Sudan's militant Muslim regime is slaughtering Christians who refuse to convert to Islam, according to the head of an aid group who recently returned from the African nation. The forced conversions are just one aspect of the Khartoum government's self-declared jihad on the mostly Christian and animist south, Dennis Bennett, executive director of Seattle-based Servant's Heart told WorldNetDaily. Villagers in several areas of the northeast Upper Nile region say that when women are captured by government forces they are asked: 'Are you Christian or Muslim?' Women who answer 'Muslim' are set free, but typically soldiers gang-rape those who answer 'Christian' then cut off their breasts and leave them to die as an example for others. Bennett says these stories are corroborated by witnesses from several tribes in the region. Upon returning to the U.S., he wrote a letter to influential m...

WorldNetDaily: Iranian regime change in Iran if Bush wins? : Following leaked reports yesterday that Israel is ready to strike against several of Iran's nuclear power facilities if Russia supplies the Ayatollah's with rods for enriching uranium, a senior U.S. official said America will take actions to overturn the regime in Iran if President Bush is elected for a second term. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the London Times Bush would provide assistance to Iran's 'hugely dissatisfied' population to help them revolt against the ruling theocracy. The U.S. would not use military force, as in Iraq, but 'if Bush is re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran,' said the official, who stressed the war on terror would 'continue to be relentless.' The Times said the official hinted at a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, explaining there was a window of opport...

Newsday.com - World News CIA: 9/11 hijackers passed through Iran Agency cautious of Tehran plot link : "The 9/11 commission's report about Iran's assistance to the terrorists who eventually carried out the 9/11 attacks, which was first disclosed by Time Magazine, is likely to be politically sensitive. Many critics have accused the Bush administration of launching an unnecessary war in Iraq on the basis of flimsy or nonexistent evidence of links between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida while ignoring signs of much closer connections between the terrorist network and other governments. The commission has uncovered evidence that eight to 10 of the so-called 'muscle hijackers' -- those whose role was to physically subdue passengers and crew on the commandeered airliners -- passed through Iran in late 2000 and early 2001, Time reported. They and other al-Qaida operatives were allowed to do so by Iranian authorities, who issued orders to border gu...

TIME.com: 9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran Next week's much anticipated final report by a bipartisan commission on the origins of the 9/11 attacks will contain new evidence of contacts between al-Qaeda and Iran—just weeks after the Administration has come under fire for overstating its claims of contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards—in som...

Chinese produce new type of sub China's naval buildup has produced a new type of attack submarine that U.S. intelligence did not know was under construction, according to U.S. defense and intelligence officials. The submarine was spotted several weeks ago for the first time and has been designated by the Pentagon as the first Yuan-class of submarine....... One official said the new submarine was a "technical surprise" to U.S. intelligence, which was unaware that Beijing was building a new non-nuclear powered attack submarine. U.S. intelligence agencies have few details about the new submarine but believe it is diesel-powered rather than nuclear-powered, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The new boat, which appears to be a combination of indigenous Chinese hardware and Russian weapons, suggests that China is building up its submarine forces in preparation for a conflict over Taiwan, defense analysts say. "China ha...

House Votes to Block Aid for Saudi Arabia WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers cheered as the House of Representatives voted on Thursday to strip financial assistance for Saudi Arabia from a foreign aid bill because of criticism that the country has not been sufficiently cooperative in the U.S. war on terror. The vote was a stinging defeat for the Bush Administration which had strongly opposed the measure saying it would "severely undermine" counterterrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia and U.S. efforts for peace in the Middle East...... Supporters of the measure also argued that with Saudi Arabia's massive wealth from ownership of one-fourth of the world's proven oil reserves, the kingdom should not need financial aid from the United States. The Senate would also have to strip the Saudi aid from its version of the foreign assistance bill before it stands a chance of being enacted. U.S.- Saudi ties were shaken by the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers in t...

Thousands of Iraqis Demand Saddam's Execution BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thousands of Iraqis marched through central Baghdad on Thursday demanding the execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein and denouncing Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Noisy protesters waved Iraqi flags, chanted anti-Saddam slogans and held up posters depicting mass graves. "Let every fool listen, Saddam has to be executed," "No, No to Tikrit" shouted the crowd in reference to Saddam's hometown north of Baghdad. Protesters also shouted slogans denouncing the United States, Zionism and terrorism. "Death to Wahabis! Death to Zarqawi!" shouted several hundred people in the heart of Baghdad's commercial district, referring to a strict Sunni Muslim sect based in Saudi Arabia. Zarqawi, the U.S. military's number one target in Iraq with a $25 million bounty on his head, is suspected of being behind many of the most deadly suicide attacks that have devastate...

Iraq PM Announces Formation of Spy Agency BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's interim prime minister announced the formation of a domestic spy agency on Thursday in a bid to uncover insurgents carrying out daily attacks on U.S.-led troops and Iraqi forces. Speaking at a news conference amid an upsurge in violence in Iraq, Iyad Allawi said he was forming the General Security Directorate, a domestic intelligence network, which would attempt to infiltrate and expose those behind the insurgency. "We are determined to bring down all the hurdles that stand in the way of our democracy ... terrorism will be terminated, God willing," Allawi said. The prime minister, whose government regained sovereignty from the United States on June 28, said security was gradually improving and said he had been working hard to boost border controls to prevent foreign insurgents entering the country. Last week, Iraq and Syria agreed to work to tighten controls along their long desert ...

WorldNetDaily: Iran blames U.S. for beheadings : "Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared today that the United States and Israel are responsible for the recent spate of terrorist kidnappings and beheadings in the Middle East. According to an Associated Press report, Iran's official news outlet, the Islamic Republic News Agency, claims the leader decried the terrorist acts, calling them 'loathsome, horrible.' Khamenei also said it was 'of great importance' to fight terrorism." During a visit with Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Khamenei said there was no way such vile acts were perpetrated by Muslims.

WorldNetDaily: Iranian leaders threaten U.S. In an editorial, the July 6 edition of Kayhan stated: "The entire Islamic Middle East is now a volatile and tangled trap, and will be set off by the smallest bit of silliness – and will reap many victims of the sinful adventurers. ... Indeed, the White House's 80 years of exclusive rule are likely to become 80 seconds of Hell that will burn to ashes everything that has been built." Iran's "counter-reponse," the editorial said, "is likely to be called 'sudden death' and 'the Angel of Death suddenly revealed.' That very day, those who resist [Iran] will be struck from directions they never expected. The heartbeat of the crisis is undoubtedly [dictated by] the hand of Iran." Iran previously has threatened the U.S. and Europe with the recruitment and training of thousands of Iranian volunteers by Iran's Revolutionary Guards for suicide attacks. The country also has resumed, b...

The Atlantic | July/August 2004 | Plan of Attack | Hoffman Regardless of the ultimate outcome in Iraq, in the decades ahead the United States is likely to be drawn into other military occupations and nation-building efforts; America's superpower status and the ongoing war on terrorism make this prospect almost inevitable. To a very important degree our ability to carry out such jobs effectively will depend on an approach to counterinsurgency that makes intelligent use of the lessons that countries around the world have confronted repeatedly throughout history. At root those lessons are basic: First, always remember that the struggle is not primarily military but political, social, economic, and ideological. Second, learn to recognize the signs of a budding insurgency, and never let it develop momentum. Third, study and understand the enemy in advance. And fourth, put a strong emphasis on gathering up-to-the-minute local intelligence. P olitical considerations—applied to doct...

Clifford D. May on Joe Wilson on National Review Online /Our Man in Niger- Exposed and discredited, Joe Wilson might consider going back. Joe Wilson's cover has been blown. For the past year, he has claimed to be a truth-teller, a whistleblower, the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy — and most of the media have lapped it up and cheered him on. After a whirl of TV and radio appearances during which he received high-fives and hearty hugs from producers and hosts (I was in some green rooms with him so this is eyewitness reporting), and a wet-kiss profile in Vanity Fair, he gave birth to a quickie book sporting his dapper self on the cover, and verbosely entitled The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir. ....... But now Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV — he of the Hermes ties and Jaguar convertibles — has been thoroughly discredited. Last week's bipartisan Senate intelligence committee rep...

Disabled Saudi militant believed to be top Al-Qaeda figure surrenders : Saudi Arabia announced that a disabled militant, suspected of being a top Al-Qaeda figure close to Osama bin Laden and who had been hiding along the Iran-Afghan border, has surrendered under a royal amnesty. 'The wanted Saudi Khaled bin Odeh bin Mohammed al-Harbi, alias Abu Suleiman al-Makki, who had been in the Iranian-Afghan border region, contacted the (Saudi) embassy' in Iran, an interior ministry official said, quoted on state media..... The official announcement did not give more details, but Harbi, a native of the holy city of Mecca, is known here to have fought in Afghanistan alongside Al-Qaeda chief bin Laden in the early 1980s, during the Soviet invasion. Harbi, who was wounded while fighting in Bosnia, taught courses in Islam at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, but dropped out of sight after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. He is believed to...

Yahoo! News - Man Dodges Suicide Pact with Bride : TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian man who struck a suicide pact with his new bride over their guilt for having pre-marital sex is being held by police after he backed out on his side of the bargain, judiciary officials said on Sunday. The couple, who were not named, had been married for just two days when, 'due to their guilty consciences for having illicit sexual relations, they decided to kill each other at the same time,' the official said. The man helped to hang his wife but then changed his mind about killing himself and handed himself in to police in the northeastern Khorasan province, the official told the ISNA student news agency. Pre-marital sex is taboo in the Islamic state where some girls have to go through a virginity test before tying knot."

New York Daily News - Home - Daily News Exclusive: Fury at anarchist convention threat : " 'These hard-core groups are looking to take us on. They have increased their level of violence.' - Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly The NYPD aims to keep things well in hand during the convention. 'Where is the legitimate protest in trying to endanger the public?' an angry Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told The News. Fringe elements are hoping to spark major disruptions at the Republican National Convention with a series of sneaky tricks - including fooling bomb-sniffing dogs on trains bound for Penn Station, the Daily News has learned. Internet-using anarchists are telling would-be troublemakers to decoy specially trained Labrador retrievers with gunpowder or ammonium nitrate-laced tablets in a bid to halt trains or even spur the evacuation of Madison Square Garden. Top cops are girding against the attempt to foil strong anti-terrorist strategies aimed at ...

Raid rounds up 'ghost' bombers behind medic's death Only the dogs heard them. Faces painted, duct tape concealing their names, two 1st Cavalry platoons swarmed into a dozen farm houses in the unruly marshlands south of Baghdad. They snatched any male they found and dumped him on a waiting flatbed. In their barracks before last week’s pre-dawn raid, the men of Capt. Rex Blair’s Dog Company, attached to the 1-8 Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division, slathered on green and black face paint. "It really wigs them out when they see that," Blair said. Face paint, covered up name-patches and no-names-asked abductions in the night are rarely used in "Big Army" units like the 1st Cavalry. But theirs is an elusive enemy that doe-eyed driver Pfc. Mark Wittemeyer calls "the ghosts." Adrenaline pumped, because this time it was personal. On May 30, these "ghosts," or a cell of insurgents whose specialty is the remote-detonated roadside bomb, set of...

Northeast Intelligence Network : "12 July 2004 - Iraqi Insurency Leader Al Sadr Stabbed in Dispute With Members of His Office A report published on ther internet on the Holy Al Najaf website indicates that Muqtada Al Sadr has bee Wounded. Sources close to Muqtada al-Sadr's Office have said that al-Sadr was stabbed with a knife by some of members of his office following a dispute that flared up between him and the members of his office over the issue of his jurisdiction. The office pointed out that he [Al-Sadr] does not have the right to hold contacts with political leaders, movements, or currents, and that he is not entitled to make any decision without consulting with the members of the office. The stab wound [he received] was due to contacting [Prime Minister] Iyad Allawi and some politicians in Baghdad without obtaining the approval of the members. The report claims that his injury is not serious."

A movement in denial - The Washington Times: Commentary - July 12, 2004 : "Well, on Wednesday in London, Lord Robin Butler will publish his report into the quality of the intelligence on which Britain's case for going to war with Iraq rested. The report is said to be critical of some of Tony Blair's claims, supportive of others. Among the latter, he says the statements about Iraq and Niger are justified and supported by the intelligence. In other words, the British Government did learn that Saddam Hussein did seek significant quantities of uranium from Africa. As a gazillion e-mails a day shrieked from my in-box back then, 'Bush lied.' So where exactly in that State of the Union observation is the lie? Last summer, the comparatively minor matter of uranium from Niger was all over the front pages and the news shows. Do you think Lord Butler's report will be? Do you think Terry McAuliffe and John Kerry and Howard Dean will eat humble yellowcake...

Prozac of the Deep : "In a study from Harvard Medical School, assistant professor of psychiatry Dr. Andrew Stoll and colleagues at McLean Hospital in Boston found that the omega-3s in salmon, mackerel, tuna, sardines, and other deep sea, cold-water fish may have a profound effect on mood. In the study (Archives of General Psychiatry, 5/99), 30 patients with manic depression--also called bipolar disorder--received either fish oil or olive oil (as a placebo) along with their standard medications, including lithium and Depakote. After four months, 65% of the fish oil recipients improved, compared with only 19% of the olive oil group. The results were so impressive that the researchers halted the study early so that those in the placebo group could begin taking fish oil if they wished. No one knows exactly how omega-3s regulate mood. One theory is that they work like lithium and certain other standard drugs by dampening overactive nerve-to-nerve communication channels in the br...