New Hampshire Health News Digest

My Way - News : "Report: Deal for U.S. to Hunt Bin Laden in Pakistan NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States has struck a deal with Pakistan to allow U.S. troops to hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden this spring in an area of Pakistan where he is believed to be operating, the New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday. Thousands of U.S. troops will be deployed in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan in return for Washington's support of President Pervez Musharraf's pardon of the Pakistani scientist who this month admitted leaking nuclear arms secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the issue that goes on sale on Monday. Full disclosure of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's activities would have exposed him as 'the worst nuclear-arms proliferator in the world,' an intelligence official is quoted as saying. 'It's a quid pro quo,' according to a former senior intelligence official. 'We're ...

Ion Mihai Pacepa on John Kerry on National Review Online Kerry’s Soviet Rhetoric The Vietnam-era antiwar movement got its spin from the Kremlin. By Ion Mihai Pacepa Part of Senator John Kerry's appeal to a certain segment of Americans is his Vietnam-veteran status coupled with his antiwar activism during that period. On April 12, 1971, Kerry told the U.S. Congress that American soldiers claimed to him that they had, "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned on the power, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan." The exact sources of that assertion should be tracked down. Kerry also ought to be asked who, exactly, told him any such thing, and what it was, exactly, that they said they did in Vietnam. Statutes of limitation now protect these individuals from prosecution for any such admissions. Or did Senator Kerry merely hear allegation...

U.S. search for bin Laden intensifies - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics : " The Pentagon is moving elements of a supersecret commando unit from Iraq to the Afghanistan theater to step up the hunt for Osama bin Laden. A Defense Department official said there are two reasons for repositioning parts of Task Force 121: First, most high-value human targets in Iraq, including Saddam Hussein, have been caught or killed. Second, intelligence reports are increasing on the whereabouts of bin Laden, the terror leader behind the September 11 attacks. 'Iraq has become more of a policing problem than a hunt for high-value Iraqis,' the defense official said. 'Afghanistan is the place where 121 can do more.' >>>Task Force 121 is a mix of Army Delta Force soldiers and Navy SEALs, transported on helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The SEALs and soldiers are based at Joint Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, N.C. Del...

OpinionJournal - Taste : "It is by now a truism, although a tragic one, that Christian minorities often suffer persecution in some Muslim countries. (Think only of the recent anti-Christian violence in Indonesia.) What is less well-known is the plight of non-Christian minorities. Here, too, the story is often tragic. An especially telling example concerns members of the Ahmadiyya Community, a world-wide religious group whose suffering illustrates all too well the increasing political power of a militant perversion of Islam. >>>That is not how Ahmadis see themselves. Members of the Ahmadiyya Community profess to be Muslims. They believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908)--a reformer who lived in a remote village in Punjab, India, and taught his followers to wage "jihad" against Islam's opponents with the pen and not the sword--was the messiah foretold by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Ahmad's followers, it should be said, do not constitu...

Al Qaeda Rebuffs Iraqi Terror Group, U.S. Officials Say : "The most active terrorist network inside Iraq appears to be operating mostly apart from Al Qaeda, senior American officials say. Most significantly, the officials said, American intelligence had picked up signs that Qaeda members outside Iraq had refused a request from the group, Ansar al-Islam, for help in attacking Shiite Muslims in Iraq. The request was made by Ansar's leader, a Jordanian, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and intercepted by the United States last month. The apparent refusal is being described by some American intelligence analysts as an indication of a significant divide between the groups."

Internet Ad Attack: In Politics, the Web Is a Parallel World With Its Own Rules When the Web was in its infancy, Internet utopians envisioned a political revolution, predicting that the new medium would engage and empower voters as never before. Much of what they envisioned has come to pass, with the Internet facilitating vigorous debate this year, most dramatically, giving Howard Dean’s campaign the ability to raise millions. But part of the Web’s appeal has been its unbridled nature, and it is showing that it can act as a back alley — where punches can be thrown and things can be said that might be deemed out of place, even if just at a particular moment, in the full light of the mainstream media. “The principals themselves feel like they can act out there in a way that they wouldn’t dare to do in the mainstream media,’’ said Jonathan Zittrain, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

CNEWS - Cdn. researcher: Cells can grow on silicon : CALGARY (CP) -- Researchers at the University of Calgary have found that nerve cells grown on a microchip can learn and memorize information which can be communicated to the brain. 'We discovered that when we used the chip to stimulate the neurons, their synaptic strength was enhanced,' said Naweed Syed, a neurobiologist at the University of Calgary's faculty of medicine. The nerve cells also exhibited memory traces that were successfully read by the chip, said Syed, co-author of the landmark study published in February's edition of Physical Review Letters, an international journal."

WorldNetDaily: New al-Qaida allies identified in Iraq::GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT INTELLIGENCE BRIEF : "Islamic insurgency groups specialize in suicide attacks against U.S. BAGHDAD – Iraq has attracted a range of new Sunni insurgency groups that specialize in suicide attacks against U.S. and allied interests. The Ansar Al Sunni Army is believed to be the most prominent of the new Sunni groups. Sources said Ansar was established by al-Qaida in September 2003. >>>Iraqi security sources and U.S. officials said the insurgency groups have emerged over the past four months. They appear to be composed of volunteers from Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. All of the groups appear to have been inspired, although not necessarily led, by al-Qaida. "It is clear that the suicide attacks are not homegrown," an Iraqi security official said. "They come from our neighbors." The groups go by such names as Ansar Al Sunni Army, Mohammed's Army, ...

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Suicide bombing 'pig fat threat' : "Suicide bombing 'pig fat threat' A leading Israeli rabbi has proposed hanging bags of pig fat in buses to deter Muslim suicide bombers who may want to avoid contact with an 'unclean' animal. The idea was suggested to police by Rabbi Eliezer Fisher. The newspaper Maariv said rabbinical authorities had sanctioned the plan to use the product - considered impure by Jews and Muslims - if it might save lives. Police had no immediate comment on the proposal, according to Reuters news agency. Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Yaacov Edri said he supported the proposal. 'If bags of pig lard will prevent zealous Muslim terrorists from carrying out attacks, I'm all for it,' Maariv quoted him as saying. "

Libyan Arms Designs Traced Back to China (washingtonpost.com) : "Libyan Arms Designs Traced Back to China Pakistanis Resold Chinese-Provided Plans Investigators have discovered that the nuclear weapons designs obtained by Libya through a Pakistani smuggling network originated in China, exposing yet another link in a chain of proliferation that stretched across the Middle East and Asia, according to government officials and arms experts. The bomb designs and other papers turned over by Libya have yielded dramatic evidence of China's long-suspected role in transferring nuclear know-how to Pakistan in the early 1980s, they said. The Chinese designs were later resold to Libya by a Pakistani-led trading network that is now the focus of an expanding international probe, added the officials and experts, who are based in the United States and Europe. The packet of documents, some of which included text in Chinese, contained detailed, step-by-step instructions for assembling an im...

My Way News : "A U.N. official said Friday it was unlikely elections could be held before a U.S.-set June 30 deadline for handing power to the Iraqis, and several Iraqi leaders said there was growing support for scrapping the U.S. blueprint for establishing a new government. U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, meanwhile, warned Iraqis to be aware of the risks of civil war as they try to find an acceptable formula for sovereignty. 'I am a little bit disturbed and a little bit uneasy because there are very serious dangers,' Brahimi said. Civil wars erupt, he said, 'because people are reckless, people are selfish, because people think more of themselves than they do of their country.' Some members of the U.S.-picked Governing Council were pushing an alternative to the U.S. plan that would call for transferring sovereignty to an expanded council on June 30. The council would then arrange elections before the end of the year."

My Way - News : "SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. National Guardsman in Washington state has been charged with trying to pass military secrets to the Islamic militant group al Qaeda after being caught in a sting operation, military officials said on Thursday. Army Spc. Ryan Anderson, a tank crewman, was slated for deployment to Iraq this summer from Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington, where his unit is based. Anderson was arrested on Thursday for 'aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to give information to the al Qaeda terrorist network,' according to Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, a spokesman at Fort Lewis. Anderson was to be mobilized as part of a rotation of U.S. troops in the Iraq occupation force. Local media said Anderson was 26 and a converted Muslim who grew up in Everett, Washington, and graduated from Washington State University in 2002."

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | U.N. Finds Secret Iran Nuclear Documents : "VIENNA, Austria (AP) - U.N. inspectors sifting through Iran's nuclear files have discovered drawings of high-tech equipment that can be used to make weapons-grade uranium - a new link to the black market headed by the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, diplomats said Thursday. Beyond adding another piece to the puzzle of who provided what in the clandestine supply chain headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the revelations cast fresh doubt on Iran's commitment to dispelling suspicions it is trying to make atomic arms. But Iran insisted Thursday that it was cooperating. The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the designs were of a P-2 centrifuge - more advanced than the P-1 model Iran has acknowledged using to enrich uranium for what is says are peaceful purposes. They said preliminary investigations by inspectors working for the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated they mat...

Mirror.co.uk - OSAMA'S NAVY : "OSAMA bin Laden has a 'terrorist navy' of 15 ships. And Scotland Yard has warned one could sail up the Thames to attack Parliament. The vessels - capable of carrying lethal chemicals or a dirty bomb - could also ram cruise liners, oil rigs or enter ports on missions of destruction. A private memo sent to police chiefs by the Met's marine unit is headlined: Next Terror Attack Waterborne? Ship insurer Lloyd's of London is said to be helping MI6 and the CIA trace vessels bought by al-Qaeda from a Greek shipping magnate with links to bin Laden. The memo states shipping agents have been asked to help in the search. The report by the Met - which says it obtained its intelligence from maritime agencies - states: 'Al-Qaeda has reportedly taken possession of 15 ships, forming what could be described as the first terrorist navy. The ships fly the flags of Yemen and Somalia where they are registered - and are capable of carrying le...

IHT: Search : "MUNICH: This city is no longer the venue of appeasement. At an annual security conference here on the eve of NATO's seven-state expansion, Moscow's neo-imperialist defense minister threatened to back out of an agreement limiting the size of his armed forces on Russia's European front. Sergei Ivanov's bluff was immediately called by Senator John McCain. The Arizonan had accused President Vladimir Putin's regime of a 'creeping coup' against democracy within Russia, as well as a campaign to intimidate and reassert control over states - from the Baltics to Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine - that America's victory in the cold war had liberated from Soviet rule. This Russia-NATO confrontation has been brewing for a year. While France and Germany split with the rest of Europe and the United States over the war in Iraq, Putin took advantage of the world's distraction to crack down on internal dissent and to undermine the independence of hi...