New Hampshire Health News Digest

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World 'US planning strike against Iran' By JPOST.COM STAFF [Print this Article] [EMail this Article] [Subscribe] [SMS Alerts] [JPost Toolbar] [JPost ePaper] Talkbacks for this article: 139 The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran. The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike. According to the report, CIA chief Porter Gus, in his last visit to Turkey on December 12, requested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide military bases to the United States in 2006 from where they would be able to launch an assault. The German news agency DDP also noted that countries neighboring Iran, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, and Pakistan were also updated regarding the supposed p...

KR Washington Bureau | 12/27/2005 | Kurds in Iraqi army proclaim loyalty to militia By Tom Lasseter Knight Ridder Newspapers KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan. Five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggest that U.S. plans to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national army aren't gaining traction. Instead, some troops that are formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them think is inevitable. The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Pes...

We still believe that when al-Zawahiri told jihadists to target the "Muslims' stolen oil," he was not issuing a warning to the oil industry or the West but rather was giving al Qaeda supporters targeting guidance. It is important to note that this statement did not say exactly where the oil infrastructure was to be targeted. The assumption on our part -- which we are now rethinking -- was that al Qaeda followers would attempt to carry out this mandate where they can feasibly do so -- meaning within their local reach, namely the Middle East. We know al Qaeda has strength in the Middle East, so that's one logical area to beef up defenses around oil infrastructure; but we failed to look at the possibility that al-Zawahiri's comments could have been directed toward a sleeper operation or jihadist sympathizers inside the United States. We don't know that they have strength within the United States, but it is a possibility that should be seriously considered and eva...

Top News Article | Reuters.com Trucks start rolling as Iraq tackles fuel crisis By Waleed Ibrahim and Gideon Long BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq started trucking fuel from its main oil refinery in the north to cities across the country on Saturday to ease a crisis that has triggered panic buying and long queues at petrol stations. Exasperated drivers waited for over three hours to fill their tanks in Baghdad, capital of a country which sits on the third-largest proven oil reserves in the world, as trucks rolled out of the Baiji refinery for the first time in 10 days. Nearly three years after a U.S. invasion which many thought would lead to the revival of Iraq's dilapidated oil industry, the authorities cannot provide their citizens with even basic fuel requirements. Long lines of cars, vans, and rust-bucket white-and-orange taxis snaked down the streets of Baghdad, watched over by armed policemen on the lookout for queue-jumpers. "A week ago it took half an hour to fill my car, but ...

VDH's Private Papers::The Plague of Success Afghanistan in October, 2001, conjured up almost immediately warnings of quagmire, expanding Holy War at Ramadan, unreliable allies, a trigger-happy nuclear Pakistan on the border, American corpses to join British and Russian bones in the high desert — not a seven-week victory and a subsequent democracy in Kabul of all places. Nothing in our era would have seemed more unlikely than democrats dethroning the Taliban and al Qaeda — hitherto missile-proof in their much ballyhooed cave complexes that maps in Newsweek assured us rivaled Norad's subterranean fortress. The prior, now-sanctified Clinton doctrine of standoff bombing ensured that there would be no American fatalities and almost nothing ever accomplished — the perfect strategy for the focus-group/straw-poll era of the 1990s. Are we then basking in the unbelievable notion that the most diabolical government of the late 20th century is gone from Afghanistan, and in its place are sc...

Squirt Alert: Science News Online, Dec. 24, 2005 : "Designed to survive Some 3,000 species of squirts inhabit waters from the equator to the poles. For most of Gretchen Lambert's 40 years spent studying these animals, 'I was kind of like the Maytag repairman,' she says. 'Nobody ever called.' Squirts were a little-valued detail in the seas' vast diversity of inhabitants, explains the taxonomist, who is affiliated with the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories in Seattle. Demand for her expertise rose precipitously a dozen or so years ago, she says, when an unremitting tide of nonnative marine species began upsetting the balance of established ecosystems in near-coast waters around the world. Some of the more unusual pests were foreign squirts. 'Now, I spend virtually all of my time on invasive species,' she says—particularly on that 'very interesting scourge' known as Didemnum sp. Like other sea squirts, this o...

Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds By Ker Than Special to LiveScience posted: 27 April 2005 07:01 am ET Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science. Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say. The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting. Mirror neurons In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning movements. The cluster of cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but likewise when the monkey saw the same action performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way whether the monkey reached out t...

In Iraq, A Push For Unity On Vote In Iraq, A Push For Unity On Vote Factions Negotiate Following Protests By Jonathan Finer Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, December 25, 2005; Page A01 BAGHDAD, Dec. 24 -- After angry street protests and charges of vote-rigging in last week's elections heightened tensions in an already divided Iraq, U.S. officials and leaders of the country's main factions are negotiating the formation of a government that would represent all groups in hopes of heading off further fragmentation and a possible surge of violence. Each of the country's three largest communities -- Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds -- voted overwhelmingly on Dec. 15 for lists of parliamentary candidates that represented its own group. According to preliminary, unofficial ballot counts, the largest share of votes was won by the alliance of Shiite Muslim religious parties that leads Iraq's outgoing government. Minority Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, ap...

ABC News: India's Outsourcing Boom Runs Into Trouble Dec. 24, 2005 — A chronic shortage of skilled workers is threatening India's outsourcing industry. Call centers and outsourcing firms are growing fast, but their human resources employees despair because most of the young Indians they interview are, they say, "unemployable." Some people in the IT industry have said that only one in 10 graduates is worth taking on. "Just look at their English," fumed a frustrated Mumbai-based call center manager as he waved around letters written by employees. One read: "As I am marrying my daughter, please grant a week's leave." Another said: "I am in well here and hope you are also in the same well." India employs about 350,000 people in the outsourcing industry and adds 150,000 new jobs each year. But filling those vacancies is proving to be a nightmare. At this moment, the industry needs to hire around 9,000 people but can't find th...

U.S., Citing Abuse in Iraqi Prisons, Holds Detainees - New York Times U.S., Citing Abuse in Iraqi Prisons, Holds Detainees * Sign In to E-Mail This * Printer-Friendly * Single-Page * Reprints * Save Article By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER Published: December 25, 2005 WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 - The commander of American-run prisons in Iraq says the military will not turn over any detainees or detention centers to Iraqi jailers until American officials are satisfied that the Iraqis are meeting United States standards for the care and custody of detainees. "Bottom line, we will not pass on facilities or detainees until they meet the standards we define and that we are using today," the commander, Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner of the Army, said in a telephone interview this week from Iraq. The comments by General Gardner come in the aftermath of two recent raids of Iraqi government detention centers that uncovered scores of abused prisoners. T...

CNN.com - Officials: Muslim sites subject to secret monitoring for radiation - Dec 24, 2005 : "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Since 2002 the U.S. government has been monitoring for suspicious radiation levels outside more than 100 predominantly Muslim-related sites in the greater Washington, D.C., area, as well as various sites in other cities, several government officials with knowledge of the program confirmed to CNN Friday. One government official said the authorities don't obtain warrants because the testing is conducted from outside the buildings on what they consider public property. An official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that none of the FBI's programs target gathering places of any specific segment of the population and that non-Muslim sites were also monitored for radiation. (Watch how sources say the monitoring took place nationwide -- 1:31) A Muslim advocacy group has said that the program is 'misguided' and targets 'the wrong pe...

World Tribune.com -- China recruiting U.S. IT grads China recruiting U.S. IT grads Special to World Tribune.com EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM Friday, December 23, 2005 China's rapid economic expansion has allowed Beijing to fund a recruitment drive targeting some of the best and brightest IT graduates from U.S. universities, according to Chinese sources. In turn, this brain trust is being used by China both as a control on its own Internet revolution as a potential resource for North Korea' cyberwar program. South Korea’s defense ministry said North Korean hackers are targeting the most tightly-guarded systems of that country's main foes to extract intelligence information and to spread viruses capable of wiping out material or, at least, slowing down computers. North Korean students learn how to use computers at an elite school in Pyongyang. AFP Defense officials said privately that North Korea, with no great pool of computer whizzes from which to select, is re...

New York Daily News - Home - Al Qaeda fiend targeted Bush Al Qaeda fiend targeted Bush By JAMES GORDON MEEK WASHINGTON - Before he was captured last spring, Osama Bin Laden's top operational commander was solely focused on killing President Bush and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharaff, the Daily News has learned. The capture last May of Al Qaeda's No. 3 leader, Abu Faraj Al-Libi, apparently thwarted plots to assassinate the two partners in the global war on terror, said a senior Pakistani official, whose information was corroborated by two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials. "Al-Libi had one mission: Kill Bush and Musharraf," the Pakistani official told The News. "He wanted to kill Bush in the White House, preferably." "It was clearly something they wanted to do. There's no question about that. It's the holy grail of jihad," a senior U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed. Al-Libi organized several failed a...

Independent Online Edition > TransportL Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years. Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years. The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts. By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day...

Debbie Schlussel's blog BREAKING SCHLUSSEL EXCLUSIVE: Germany Secretly Frees Hezbollah Terrorist Murderer of Navy Diver Robert Stethem (Trades Terrorist for Hostage in Iraq) By Debbie Schlussel In June, we wrote about the 20th anniversary of hijacking of TWA flight 847 and murder of Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem by Hezbollah terrorists. Stethem was a true American hero. Only 23 years old, he was tortured, beaten, and trampled to death by the Hezbollah terrorists for the crimes of being an American, a U.S. serviceman, and refusing--to his last breath--to denounce America. We're sad to report that yet another prediction of ours has now come true. We predicted in June that Mohammad Ali Hamadi, one of the Hezbollah terrorists who murdered Stethem, would be released by the German government. On Friday, the Stethem Family informed us that our worst fears have been realized and that Hamadi will not face justice for his brutal act of terrorism. Germany secretly rele...

Debbie Schlussel's blog BREAKING SCHLUSSEL EXCLUSIVE: Germany Secretly Frees Hezbollah Terrorist Murderer of Navy Diver Robert Stethem (Trades Terrorist for Hostage in Iraq) By Debbie Schlussel In June, we wrote about the 20th anniversary of hijacking of TWA flight 847 and murder of Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem by Hezbollah terrorists. Stethem was a true American hero. Only 23 years old, he was tortured, beaten, and trampled to death by the Hezbollah terrorists for the crimes of being an American, a U.S. serviceman, and refusing--to his last breath--to denounce America. We're sad to report that yet another prediction of ours has now come true. We predicted in June that Mohammad Ali Hamadi, one of the Hezbollah terrorists who murdered Stethem, would be released by the German government. On Friday, the Stethem Family informed us that our worst fears have been realized and that Hamadi will not face justice for his brutal act of terrorism. Germany secretly rele...

Creating first synthetic life form Work on the world's first human-made species is well under way at a research complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life. Robert Holt, head of sequencing for the Genome Science Centre at the University of British Columbia, is leading efforts at his Vancouver lab to play a key role in the production of the first synthetic life form -- a microbe made from scratch. The project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics, which completed a privately-owned map of the human genome in 2000. Dr. Venter, 59, has since shifted his focus from determining the chemical sequences that encode life to trying to design and build it: "We're going from reading to writing the genetic code," he said in an interview.

World Tribune.com -- Report: Syria agrees to hide Iran nukes Report: Syria agrees to hide Iran nukes SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Tuesday, December 20, 2005 LONDON — Syria has signed a pledge to store Iranian nuclear weapons and missiles. The London-based Jane's Defence Weekly reported that Iran and Syria signed a strategic accord meant to protect either country from international pressure regarding their weapons programs. The magazine, citing diplomatic sources, said Syria agreed to store Iranian materials and weapons should Teheran come under United Nations sanctions. Iran also pledged to grant haven to any Syrian intelligence officer indicted by the UN or Lebanon. Five Syrian officers have been questioned by the UN regarding the Hariri assassination, Middle East Newsline reported. "The sensitive chapter in the accord includes Syria's commitment to allow Iran to safely store weapons, sensitive equipment or even hazardous materials on Syrian soil shoul...

BREITBART.COM - Number of electoral democracies reaches 122 as freedom spreads The number of electoral democracies around the world rose from 119 to 122 this year, setting a new record as freedom made inroads in the Middle East and Africa, an independent monitoring group said. But in its annual report rating every nation in the world as "free," "partly free" or "not free," Freedom House on Monday expressed concern about countries like the United States and France, where it saw "looming problems" with electoral setups and immigrant integration. "These global findings are encouraging," said Arch Puddington, director of research at the organization. "Among other things, the past year has been notable for terrorist violence, ethnic cleansing, civil conflict, catastrophic natural disasters, and geopolitical polarization," he added. "That freedom could thrive in this environment is impressive." The three a...

Scotsman.com News - International - Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors CHRIS STEPHEN AND ALLAN HALL THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents. Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior. According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat." In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine". The order came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarked on a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as...

U.S. sub may have toured Canadian Arctic zone 'We don't have any idea what's going on up there': expert Chris Wattie, National Post A U.S. nuclear submarine cruised through the Arctic Ocean last month -- probably passing through Canadian territorial waters -- but the federal government is refusing to say whether it gave permission for the voyage. However, experts say it is highly unlikely Canada was even notified of the USS Charlotte's northern tour, which included a Nov. 10 stop at the North Pole, because it has no way of tracking what goes on beneath the Arctic ice. And that could threaten Canada's claim to hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of the North, including the Northwest Passage route across the Arctic, said Michael Byers, who holds the Canada research chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. "This is very important -- it's crucial," he said. "Any unauthorized pas...

Bianca and Ramsey: A post from the neo-neocon blog [...] Writing in Friday's NY Post, Amir Taheri reports on a speech given by Bianca at a Foreign Press Association meeting in London. Taheri writes that a prize was given to there to "Akbar Ganji, an Iranian investigative reporter who is on a hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison." Taheri has learned from experience that ordinarily there are certain unwritten rules about awarding such prizes: Together with several colleagues, I had been trying for months to persuade the Western media to take an interest in Ganji, a former Khomeinist revolutionary who is now campaigning for human rights and democracy [by the way, that sounds like another fairly dramatic "change" story, doesn't it?]. But we never got anywhere because of one small hitch: President Bush had spoken publicly in support of Ganji and called for his immediate release. And that, as far as a good part of the Western media is conce...

In Iran, Arming for Armageddon By Charles Krauthammer Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A35 Lest you get carried away with today's good news from Iraq, consider what's happening next door in Iran. The wild pronouncements of the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have gotten sporadic press ever since he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. He subsequently amended himself to say that Israel should simply be extirpated from the Middle East map and moved to some German or Austrian province. Perhaps near the site of an old extermination camp? Except that there were no such camps, indeed no Holocaust at all, says Ahmadinejad. Nothing but "myth," a "legend" that was "fabricated . . . under the name 'Massacre of the Jews.' " This brought the usual reaction from European and American officials, who, with Churchillian rage and power, called these statements unacceptable. That something serious might accrue to Iran for this -...

Environment News: Federal Court Rejects EPA Secondhand Smoke Study (September 1998) Federal Court Rejects EPA Secondhand Smoke Study Decision has far-reaching implications In one of the most embarrassing setbacks for EPA in recent memory, a federal judge has thrown out the agency's landmark 1993 risk assessment linking secondhand smoke to cancer. The ruling, handed down July 17, invalidated EPA research linking exposure to secondhand smoke, also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), to 3,000 cancer deaths each year. The agency's ETS risk assessment was subsequently challenged by tobacco industry officials who feared--quite rightly, as it turned out--that the agency's findings would be used to justify smoking bans in public places. Tobacco companies argued that EPA cherry-picked data and ignored standard scientific and statistical practices to reach its conclusions, an opinion shared by a large number of independent scientists. The new court ru...

FrontPage magazine.com :: The Pentagon Breaks the Islam Taboo by Paul Sperry The Pentagon Breaks the Islam Taboo By Paul Sperry FrontPageMagazine.com | December 14, 2005 Washington's policy-makers have been careful in the war on terror to distinguish between Islam and the terrorists. The distinction has rankled conservatives who see scarce difference. A little-noticed speech by President Bush in October gave them some hope. In a major rhetorical shift, he described the enemy as "Islamic radicals" and not just "terrorists," although he still denies that radicalism has anything to do with their religion. Now for the first time, a key Pentagon intelligence agency involved in homeland security is delving into Islam's holy texts to answer whether Islam is being radicalized by the terrorists or is already radical. Military brass want a better understanding of what's motivating the insurgents in Iraq and the terrorists around the globe, includin...

Top France seizes military arsenal in Zarqawi-tied probe| Reuters.com France seizes military arsenal in Zarqawi-tied probe By Thierry Leveque PARIS (Reuters) - French police have seized large quantities of military weapons and explosives as part of a probe into an Islamic militant group said to have indirect links to al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, officials said on Thursday. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters the arsenal was discovered on Wednesday in a lock-up attached to a block of flats in the Clichy-sous-Bois suburb north of Paris. Judicial sources said the haul included assault rifles, dynamite and TNT. Police also arrested on Wednesday two new suspects in addition to the 25 rounded up in a string of dawn raids in the Paris area on Monday. Investigators believe the gang financed Islamic militancy by staging armed robberies and judicial sources said one suspect had admitted planning one such robbery in Beauvais, north of Paris, in October. Sar...

Statistics Suggest Race Not a Factor in Katrina Deaths By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Correspondent (CNSNews.com) - Statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals suggest that fewer than half of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black, and that whites died at the highest rate of all races in New Orleans. Liberals in the aftermath of the storm were quick to allege that the Bush administration delayed its response to the catastrophe because most of the victims were black. Damu Smith, founder of the National Black Environmental Justice Network, in September said that the federal government "ignored us, they forgot about us ... because we look like we look." Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in October said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasn't fit to help the storm's victims because "there are not enough blacks high up in FEMA" and added that, "certainly the Red Cross is the same." R...

Police Seize Forged Ballots Headed to Iraq From Iran - New York Times Police Seize Forged Ballots Headed to Iraq From Iran By DEXTER FILKINS BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 13 - Less than two days before nationwide elections, the Iraqi border police seized a tanker on Tuesday that had just crossed from Iran filled with thousands of forged ballots, an official at the Interior Ministry said. The tanker was seized in the evening by agents with the American-trained border protection force at the Iraqi town of Badra, after crossing at Munthirya on the Iraqi border, the official said. According to the Iraqi official, the border police found several thousand partly completed ballots inside. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border. The official, who did not attend the i...