In its first official confirmation of last week’s raids, the military said it had confiscated maps, videos, photographs and documents in one of the raids on a site in Baghdad. The military confirmed the arrests of five Iranians, and said that three of them had since been released.

The Bush administration has described the two Iranians still being held late Tuesday night as senior military officials. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell IV, the chief spokesman for the American command, said that the military, in the raid, had “gathered specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities against Iraqi civilians, security forces and coalition force personnel.”

General Caldwell made his remarks by e-mail in response to a query about the raids, first reported Monday in The New York Times. “Some of that specific intelligence,” he said via e-mail, “dealt explicitly with force-protection issues, including attacks on MNF-I forces.”

MNF-I stands for Multinational Force-Iraq, the official name of the American-led foreign forces there.

American officials have long said that the Iranian government interferes in Iraq, but the arrests, in the compound of one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite political leaders, were the first since the American invasion in which officials were offering evidence of the link.

The raids threaten to upset the delicate balance of the three-way relationship between the United States, Iran and Iraq. The Iraqi government has made extensive efforts to engage Iran in security matters in recent months, and the arrests of the Iranians could scuttle those efforts.

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt12_27_6_1.htm

The first pardon President Ford did created controversy- the pardoning of Richard Nixon. Today that is seen by historians as part of a healing process. But his last pardon he did leaving office outraged veterans of World War 2 at the time. Today her nickname is used by "everyone who knows" as a symbol of treason. But like other facts "everyone knows"- that Joe McCarthy was wrong, that Lincoln was a defender of Constitutional rights, upon examination- the "facts" fall apart.

THE CONTROVERSIAL FORD PARDON

Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino - accused Tokyo Rose - used Orphan Ann as broadcasting pseudonym. 

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_toguri_iva.htm

Iva Toguri has lived a long time, but she said the "most memorable" day of her life came earlier this year when she was recognized by a group of U.S. military veterans.
    The Chicago ceremony was rich with irony. The Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award, which the World War II Veterans Committee bestowed on 89-year-old Ms. Toguri at a January luncheon in Chicago, was named for a famous broadcaster whose narration of the Universal newsreels won him the moniker "The Voice of World War II."
    Ms. Toguri was also a broadcaster -- once notoriously known as Tokyo Rose.
    The January award was an important vindication of Ms. Toguri, who was sent to federal prison after being convicted of treason based on perjured testimony. Her American citizenship was stripped in 1949. President Ford restored it in 1977.
    The irony-filled saga of this woman born on the Fourth of July -- in Los Angeles in 1916 -- is the kind of amazing story that sounds like a Hollywood script. Indeed, Paramount has a film of Ms. Toguri's life in the works, to be produced by Frank Darabont, best known for such films as "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile."
    The child of Japanese-American parents, Ms. Toguri grew up in a middle-class family determined to assimilate into the American mainstream. Ms. Toguri, who spoke almost no Japanese and hated Japanese food, was a Girl Scout, a Methodist and a Republican. She loved pop culture ("Orphan Annie" was her favorite cartoon character) and graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, with plans to become a doctor.
    Then, in June 1941, a letter arrived from her aunt, who had remained in Japan and was in failing health. She begged Ms. Toguri's mother to come to Japan for one last visit.
    Ms. Toguri's mother also was in poor health, however. Her father and brother were busy running the family business, and so Ms. Toguri was sent instead, boarding a ship for what she expected would be a six-month visit to Tokyo.
    Then came the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. Ms. Toguri found herself trapped in the capital of the Japanese empire, 7,000 miles from her American home.
    Unlike some Japanese-Americans who found themselves stuck in wartime Japan under similar circumstances, Ms. Toguri resisted official pressure to renounce her U.S. citizenship.
    Ms. Toguri found work as a typist at the Domei News Agency and at the Danish Embassy and, in 1943, responded to an ad from Radio Tokyo for English-speaking typists. At about the same time, Japanese military authorities decided to step up their radio propaganda broadcasts by bringing in three Allied prisoners of war -- Australian Maj. Charles Cousens, American Capt. Wallace Ince and Philippine Lt. Norman Reyes -- to run a new daily show called the "Zero Hour."
    Maj. Cousens resolved to use the "Zero Hour" to entertain, rather than demoralize, the U.S. troops who were targets of the broadcast and, arguing that the shows would be more persuasive if presented with an authentic Western touch, talked his Japanese captors into granting him control of the program.

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.washingtontimes.com/culture/20060529%2D115535%2D6055r.htm 

Former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who was swept into office after the Watergate scandal and later pardoned Richard Nixon, died at age 93, his widow said on Tuesday.

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, has passed away at 93 years of age," Betty Ford said in a statement.

"His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

A former Republican congressman, Ford took office vowing, "Our long national nightmare is over." He served for 2 1/2 years with a style often mocked as bumbling until he lost the 1976 U.S. presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Ford, the oldest living U.S. president, had been ailing and largely out of the public eye for several years.

He was the only U.S. president who was not elected to either the presidency or vice presidency. He was appointed vice president in 1973 after Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsone&storyID=2006-12-27T091801Z_01_N26411374_RTRUKOC_0_US-FORD.xml&WTmodLoc=IntNewsHome_R1_newsone-1

The State Department signaled support Tuesday for Ethiopian military operations against Somalia, noting that Ethiopia has had "genuine security concerns" stemming from the rise of Islamist forces in its eastern neighbor.

Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos also said that the Ethiopian military acted at the request of Somalia's internationally backed secular government, which has been resisting with little success the spreading influence of the more powerful Islamist forces.

Gallegos noted that Ethiopia has said that its action is intended to prevent further aggression by the Islamic Courts militias.

Ethiopia's Christian-led government has received counter-terrorism assistance from the United States. It includes military training for aviation security, police training and border and coastal security, the Pentagon said.

The Bush administration has been increasingly alarmed by the growing strength of the militias and the welcome they reportedly have given to al-Qaida militants.

The Islamic militants operate under the umbrella of the Council of Islamic Courts.

The government has no presence in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, its reach limited to the western town of Baidoa. In contrast, the CIC has dominated the country's entire southern region.

A priority U.S. goal in Somalia is the capture of three reputed al-Qaida militants wanted for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and a hotel in Kenya in 2002. The three are from Sudan, Kenya and the Comoros Islands, located off Africa's east coast.

Al-Qaida militants are operating with "great comfort" in Somalia, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said recently.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/12/26/national/w130749S85.DTL&type=printable

In three current high-profile criminal cases, federal prosecutors have asked that the identities of Israeli government witnesses be withheld from defendants and their attorneys — a move some legal scholars see as a highly unusual end run around the 6th Amendment.

Defense attorneys in all three cases have argued, with mixed results, that allowing U.S. prosecutors to keep the witnesses' identities secret — as demanded by Israel to protect its agents — violates their clients' constitutional right to confront their accusers.

Though courts have allowed witnesses to testify in secured courtrooms or found other ways to protect their identities when they might be in danger, experts say it is extraordinary to keep the identities secret even from defense attorneys.

"It absolutely gives me pause," said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford University law professor and 6th Amendment expert. "The essence of cross-examination is often being able to do a background investigation on the witness and use that as a lever for questioning their testimony. And if you take that away from a defendant, he is not left with very much."

Fisher added, "I can safely say the Supreme Court has never had a case about testifying under a pseudonym."

In Chicago, a federal judge recently permitted two Israeli agents to testify anonymously against two men accused of aiding the Palestinian group Hamas, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization since 1995. Judge Amy J. St. Eve said that the right to learn a witness' identity was "not absolute" and that the use of pseudonyms for the Israeli agents was justified because of their assignments.

"Given the safety issues inherent in revealing the [Israeli] agents' true identities, the government has met its burden that it need not disclose this identifying information," St. Eve said.

In Miami, however, a federal judge rejected a government request that six Israeli undercover police officers testify in disguises and without revealing their identities against a man awaiting trial on charges of trafficking in the drug Ecstasy.

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes677.html

Life at the Ramadi Outpost picture story:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/galleries/061223/ramadi/index.html

The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks - including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer - according to Pentagon officials.

    Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans' willingness to serve in uniform.

    The idea of signing up foreigners who are seeking US citizenship is gaining traction as a way to address a critical need for the Pentagon, while fully absorbing some of the roughly one million immigrants that enter the United States legally each year.

    The proposal to induct more noncitizens, which is still largely on the drawing board, has to clear a number of hurdles. So far, the Pentagon has been quiet about specifics - including who would be eligible to join, where the recruiting stations would be, and what the minimum standards might involve, including English proficiency. In the meantime, the Pentagon and immigration authorities have expanded a program that accelerates citizenship for legal residents who volunteer for the military.

    And since Sept. 11, 2001, the number of immigrants in uniform who have become US citizens has increased from 750 in 2001 to almost 4,600 last year, according to military statistics. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122606A.shtml

The number of military service women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has reached 70, more than the total from the Korean, Vietnam and Desert Storm wars.
    "Some have argued that the women who have died are no different than the men," according to a report noting the 70 casualties from the Center for Military Readiness, which opposes women in combat. "But deliberate exposure of women to combat violence in war is tantamount to acceptance of violence against women in general."
    The reasons for the historical high casualty rate are multiple. Women now make up more than 14 percent of the volunteer force, performing a long list of military occupational specialties they did not do 50 years ago. Women in earlier wars were mostly confined to medical teams. Today, they fly combat aircraft, drive trucks to resupply fighting units, go on patrol as military police (MPs) and repair equipment.
    What's more, the Afghan and Iraq conflicts are lasting longer than the relatively brief Desert Storm, which featured the first large contribution of American women in a war zone.
    But the real difference in Afghanistan and Iraq is the battlefield. It is virtually every road, neighborhood and rural village. Insurgents do not just attack front-line combat troops. Suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) strike at any time, meaning that women in support units can be just as vulnerable as men in ground combat.
    "What it means is, it's just unprecedented," said Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness. "It is something that people are not aware of, for the most part. Some of these stories are incredibly sad."  http://washtimes.com/national/20061225-110520-6688r.htm

North Korea, desperate for foreign currency under harsh US-imposed sanctions, has started to sell its gold reserves on the international markets, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported yesterday.

The US last year blacklisted a Pyongyang-linked bank in Macau, infuriating the communist regime, which then boycotted six-nation disarmament talks for 13 months, during which it tested an atom bomb.

Since the US crackdown on the bank, North Korea has earned $US28 million in foreign cash by exporting gold to Thailand, which had not imported gold from Pyongyang for the previous five years, the newspaper reported.

The US blacklisted Macau's Banco Delta Asia in September last year, saying it suspected $US24 million ($30.6 million) in North Korean bank accounts was linked to counterfeiting or money-laundering. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20977194,00.html

After 11 years, the hunt for Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic may well be the most frustrating, infuriating and fruitless around.

The two, wanted for the most heinous crimes of Bosnia’s bloody civil war from 1992 to 1995, have managed to elude thousands of Western peacekeepers and local police forces with what is widely suspected to be the collusion of the Serbian military. Reality and myth have grown indistinguishable as stories have emerged of their possible hide-outs and of the failed attempts to track them down.

Now, for the first time, clear — even mundane — details of how General Mladic has managed to dodge arrest are emerging bit by bit in a Belgrade courtroom.

Until January this year, the general, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, was living in the Serbian capital protected by a network of former comrades in arms, according to testimony given during the trial of 11 people accused of helping to hide him.

Evidence at the trial describes an urban odyssey that started out with the general hiding in Belgrade’s best known army barracks with the full knowledge of the army hierarchy, and then shows him being whisked away in a Yugo by bodyguards to a private apartment.

For a period of three and half years, the onetime Yugoslav Army officer — who is still regarded as a hero by many Serbs but is vehemently despised by the Bosnian Muslims he victimized — moved between six different addresses. He used some for a matter of days and others for months, before finally holing up in a Communist-era monolith for over two years. There, prosecutors say, he was provided with a housekeeper, and groceries and phone cards were brought to his door.

Throughout, he seemed to have the protection of the army and state officials. At one point, he was offered plastic surgery and a false passport to help him flee the country, something he appears to have declined. To this day, he still eludes arrest.  http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt12_26_6_1.htm

The sentence has already stoked Iraq's sectarian rage, with the Shiite majority demanding Saddam's death and his fellow Sunni Arabs calling the trial tainted.

"From tomorrow, any day could be the day" Saddam is sent to the gallows, the chief judge said. Saddam was condemned to death for his role in the execution of 148 Shiite Muslims from the small northern town of Dujail, after a 1982 assassination attempt.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061227/D8M8RSR80.html

Israel has approved a new settlement in the West Bank to house former Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, officials said Tuesday, breaking a promise to the U.S. to halt home construction in the Palestinian territories.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6304475,00.html

Somalia's Islamists are in full retreat after Ethiopian airstrikes and a ground offensive that have killed up to 1,000 of the religious movement's fighters, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday.

"A joint Somali government and Ethiopian force has broken the back of the international terrorist forces… These forces are in full retreat," Meles told reporters in Addis Ababa, adding that up to 1,000 Islamist fighters had been killed.

"A few are Somali but the majority are foreigners," he said of the dead. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2751428

More than 70 Catholic recruits have quit the Northern Ireland Police Service, it was revealed today.

Even though representation from the Catholic community has increased since the introduction of the new policing arrangements, all sorts of pressures have been blamed for numbers dropping out.

These include domestic and work difficulties and republican paramilitary threats.

"One of the main reasons for people leaving was cited as personal reasons, as was individuals failing to meet standards required," a police spokeswoman said.

"Family and work life was also a factor and this includes people coming under pressure from family and indeed societal pressure to leave.

"Unfortunately a small number of student officers have been advised about their personal security and for some this has resulted in them deciding to leave the organisation."

Sinn Féin is considering joining the Policing Board oversight committee but Catholic members of scrutiny structures have been threatened by dissident republicans.
http://www.eecho.ie/news/bstory.asp?j=181133512&p=y8yy34y35&n=181134200

J'ACCUSE
Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews
By David Pryce-Jones (Encounter Books 171pp Ł20.99)

As I write, it is exactly a year since the desolate banlieues of France erupted in an orgy of violence, on a scale which had not been seen for generations. At the time, these riots were blamed on social exclusion. Since then, it has become clear that the rioters are not just 'immigrants' or 'youths', but are first and foremost Muslims. When they set light to a car, their cry is often: 'Allahu akhbar!' ('Allah is great!')

The violence, moreover, is endemic and ubiquitous. In 2005, there were 110,000 incidents of urban violence, including 45,000 vehicles burnt out. This year, there has been an average of over 100 incidents a day. Since the riots supposedly subsided last January, some 3,000 police officers are reported to have been injured. France is quite deliberately being made ungovernable.

This 'French intifada' was merely the culmination of a process that has turned many suburbs into no-go areas for the police and increasingly for non-Muslims too. In particular, the Islamist rabble-rousers who are behind the insurgency have incited their followers to attack Jews, who are now outnumbered by Muslims in France by at least ten to one.

How has it come to this? In this devastating indictment, the cri de coeur of an Englishman who loves France but is exasperated by the French, the background to this breakdown of civil society gradually emerges. David Pryce-Jones has discovered the explanation in the archives of the French foreign ministry, known after its imposing headquarters, the Quai d'Orsay. The corps diplomatique who have run this institution like a private club - known to initiates simply as 'la carričre' - are responsible not only for the decline of French prestige abroad, but also for creating the conditions for the unfolding catastrophe at home.

Like so many misfortunes, this one has its origins in the megalomania of the Bonaparte clan. For more than two centuries, since Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, French diplomacy has been gripped by a delusion of grandeur: the idea of France as une puissance musulmane, 'a Muslim power' - a phrase that has a new and sinister echo now.

French diplomats, determined to outdo their British and German rivals in great-power politics, were also convinced that France had a special mission civilisatrice in the Islamic world. Yet their sentimental orientalism was entirely compatible with an institutional anti-Semitism that is documented in shocking detail by Pryce-Jones. The rise of Zionism transformed this anti-Semitism from a mere prejudice, odious perhaps but peripheral to foreign policy, into a distorting mirror which motivated and reinforced the fatal misjudgements that have led France to its present predicament.

The French had pretensions to be the protecting power for all Catholics in the Middle East, and they saw Zionism as a competitor - one, moreover, that was associated in their eyes first with German and then with British interests. In response to what it saw as an impudent demand for a Jewish homeland, the Quai d'Orsay 'effectively launched the Arab nationalist movement' on the eve of the First World War.

Some of this book makes uncomfortable reading for Catholics, because several of the most outré orientalists who have controlled French policy in the last century turn out to have been Tartuffes of the worst kind. Pryce-Jones devotes a whole chapter to the curious case of Louis Massignon, who was the Arabist guru of the Quai d'Orsay both before and after World War II. Massignon's faith was a bizarre confection of Catholic and Islamic mysticism, and he ended up as a Melkite priest. Though he was married, it was the homoerotic attractions of Arab boys that evidently drew him to the East. He enjoyed cloak-and-dagger espionage, alternating between the robe and turban of an Egyptian imam and the habit of a Franciscan. He liked Lawrence of Arabia - as Pryce-Jones comments, 'they were two of a kind' - but enjoyed correcting the Englishman's Arabic grammar.

Massignon's influence was similarly pernicious. Put in charge of French propaganda to the Muslim world, he dedicated himself to building a Franco-Islamic 'bloc' or 'entente' and worked hard to scupper the Zionist project. His conversation and writings are riddled with rage against 'the ignominy of the Jews', and he even had the temerity to tell Martin Buber that Israel must stop 'Atlantic speculators' from exploiting Arab oil. Though he died in 1963, Massignon anticipated much of the contemporary French critique of the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon alliance.

Other pre-war intellectuals played an equally nefarious role in this episode of the betrayal of French rationalism - what Julien Benda called 'la trahison des clercs'. Pryce-Jones singles out Paul Morand, Jean Giraudoux and Paul Claudel: all writers, all senior officials at the Quai d'Orsay, all virulent anti-Semites. It is hard not to see the present prime minister and littérateur, Dominique de Villepin, as their spiritual descendant, when he describes Israel as 'a parenthesis in history'.

The one brief phase of rapprochement between post-war France and Israel, during the mid-1950s, took place despite the Quai d'Orsay, which was kept in the dark about defence and nuclear co-operation. The Suez operation was doomed partly because the ministry had to be kept out of the loop. Even the then foreign minister, Christian Pineau, had to tell colleagues: 'Above all, not a word to the Quai d'Orsay!'

Under General de Gaulle, France reverted to its traditional 'Muslim policy' and imposed an arms embargo on Israel. After the Six Day War in 1967, de Gaulle set the tone for future French statesmen by calling the Jews 'an elite people, self-assured and domineering' with 'a burning ambition for conquest'. He ignored Raymond Aron, who warned that de Gaulle had opened 'a new era in ... anti-Semitic history', and instead echoed the old Quai d'Orsay motto of France as a 'Muslim power'.

Thereafter, Israel looked to America, while France recklessly encouraged a succession of Muslim leaders who proved to be implacably hostile to the West, from Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein. It was the French who turned Yasser Arafat into a figure on the world stage and tolerated his terrorists in their midst. And it was the French who enabled Ayatollah Khomeini to launch his Islamic revolution from a suburb of Paris.

The cynicism, corruption and arrogance of all four presidents since de Gaulle - Pompidou, Giscard, Mitterrand and Chirac - have reinforced the déformation professionnelle of the Quai d'Orsay. Far from buying France influence in the Muslim world, the 'Arab policy' has merely imported the conflicts of the Middle East onto the streets of Paris.

Only now, when the country is in the grip of an Islamist jihad, has Chirac acknowledged that anti-Semitism - the existence of which in France he had long denied - is so serious that 'an attack against a French Jew is an attack against France'. It is David Pryce-Jones's great merit to have documented the conflict between this affirmation of the rights of French Jews at home and their denial abroad by French foreign policy. Whether the French public will heed this English indictment of their political class is more than doubtful, but Betrayal should resonate among those for whom Zola is still not a footballer but the author of J'accuse. http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/johnson_12_06.html

Among them are two tree frogs, a whole range of plants and trees and 30 brand new types of fish including a tiny one less than a centimetre long and a catfish with an adhesive belly that allows it to stick to rocks.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=423523&in_page_id=1965

'All I want to say is that the age of hardship, threat and spite will come to an end someday and, God willing, Jesus would return to the world along with the emergence of the descendant of the Islam's holy prophet, Imam Mahdi, and wipe away every tinge of oppression, pain and agony from the face of the world,' Ahmadinejad said.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53430

The chief U.S. negotiator said Tuesday that there had been no progress yet at renewed six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms program in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees.

As the disarmament talks convened Monday for the first time since the North tested a nuclear device, Pyongyang insisted it be treated as a full-fledged nuclear power. But the United States dismissed the communist regime's opening comments as unsurprising rhetoric and warned time was running out for the North to dismantle its nuclear arsenal or face sanctions.

``In terms of implementing the joint statement, I'd say (there was) not too much progress from yesterday,'' U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters early Tuesday.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/12/19/a14.int.koreanukes.1219.p1.php?section=nation_world

Afghanistan says it has arrested a Pakistani intelligence agent who acted as a key link with al-Qaeda leaders.

Presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi said the agent had been detained in eastern Kunar province carrying documents which proved his guilt.

The news came a day after intelligence officials said an Afghan general had been arrested for spying for Pakistan.

Afghanistan has long blamed Pakistan for cross-border attacks by the Taleban. Islamabad denies the charges.

'Bin Laden escort'

Mr Karimi named the man arrested as Sayed Akbar, who he said worked for Pakistan's controversial Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

Officials say he has confessed to his "illegal activities" in Afghanistan. These are said to include escorting Osama Bin Laden last year from Nuristan to Chitral.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6192939.stm

"The findings show how great the potential is to improve the quality of life for cancer patients," said lead investigator Dr. Vincent Maida of the University of Toronto.   http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=governmentFilingsNews&storyID=2006-12-16T001537Z_01_N15421976_RTRIDST_0_CANCER-CANNABIS-UPDATE-1.XML

NATIONAL REVIEW has attempted during its tenure as, so to speak, keeper of the conservative tablets to analyze public problems and to recommend intelligent thought. The magazine has acknowledged a variety of positions by right-minded thinkers and analysts who sometimes reach conflicting conclusions about public policy. As recently as on the question of troops to Bosnia, there was dissent within the family from our corporate conclusion that we'd be best off staying home.

For many years we have published analyses of the drug problem. An important and frequently cited essay by Professor Michael Gazzaniga (Feb. 5, 1990) brought a scientist's discipline into the picture, shedding light on matters vital to an understanding of the drug question. He wrote, for instance, about different rates of addiction, and about ambient pressures that bear on addiction. Elsewhere, Professor James Q. Wilson, now of UCLA, has written eloquently in defense of the drug war. Milton Friedman from the beginning said it would not work, and would do damage.

We have found Dr. Gazzaniga and others who have written on the subject persuasive in arguing that the weight of the evidence is against the current attempt to prohibit drugs. But NATIONAL REVIEW has not, until now, opined formally on the subject. We do so at this point. To put off a declarative judgment would be morally and intellectually weak-kneed.

Things being as they are, and people as they are, there is no way to prevent somebody, somewhere, from concluding that ``NATIONAL REVIEW favors drugs.'' We don't; we deplore their use; we urge the stiffest feasible sentences against anyone convicted of selling a drug to a minor. But that said, it is our judgment that the war on drugs has failed, that it is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction, that it is wasting our resources, and that it is encouraging civil, judicial, and penal procedures associated with police states. We all agree on movement toward legalization, even though we may differ on just how far.

We are joined in our judgment by Ethan A. Nadelmann, a scholar and researcher; Kurt Schmoke, a mayor and former prosecutor; Joseph D. McNamara, a former police chief; Robert W. Sweet, a federal judge and former prosecutor; Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist; and Steven B. Duke, a law professor. Each has his own emphases, as one might expect. All agree that the celebrated war has failed, and that it is time to go home, and to mobilize fresh thought on the drug problem in the context of a free society. This symposium is our contribution to such thought.
--THE EDITORS Prepare to have your mind blown, when real conservatives speak out on drugs and the drug war: http://www.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

The DUP had suggested that a future minister should be elected by a weighted cross-community vote.

This method, however, is likely to exclude both Sinn Fein and the DUP.

Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly told the BBC Inside Politics programme he "will not collude" in his own party's exclusion from office.

"What party could argue for its own exclusion in these circumstances?" Mr Kelly asked. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6184907.stm

Northern Ireland punk legends Stiff Little Fingers are to return to Belfast for a show at the Ulster Hall on March 9, 2007, to mark 30 years in the music business.

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=11541&pt=e

Sen. John McCain on Saturday urged the United States' reluctant NATO partners to allow their troops to engage in combat operations against the resurgent Taliban, especially in Afghanistan's rebellious south.

The Arizona Republican, a likely contender in the 2008 presidential race, also criticized Pakistan for tolerating sanctuaries for Taliban fighters and other Islamic militants in tribal regions along its borders with Afghanistan.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_US?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-12-16-16-54-14

Hundreds of British troops in Afghanistan yesterday swept into Kandahar province as part of the biggest operation against the Taliban heartland in months.

A column of 200 vehicles containing 500 soldiers and Royal Marines advanced across the border under cover of darkness from neighbouring Helmand province, where UK forces have been concentrated up until now, with orders to help Canadian troops push back Taliban insurgents gathering for a fresh offensive against the allies.

News of the operation came amid warnings that Afghanistan could sound the "death knell" of Nato, due to the refusal of many of its members to supply desperately needed troops.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=423001&in_page_id=1811

IRAQ'S Shiite Prime Minister called today for the return of all officers of Saddam Hussein's disbanded army in an overture to disaffected Sunni Arabs aimed at reducing sectarian violence.

Nuri al-Maliki made the call at a national reconciliation conference of Shiites, Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians convened to halt communal bloodshed that has raised the spectre of civil war and was a major reason for US President George W. Bush's decision to review his Iraq strategy.

“The new Iraqi army is opening the door to former Iraqi army officers. Those who do not come back will be given pensions,” Mr Maliki said, in remarks in which he also told leaders to embrace reconciliation as a “safety net from death and destruction”.

Shortly after the US invasion to topple Saddam, US administrator Paul Bremer dissolved the Iraqi army, a move experts said drove many Sunni Arab soldiers and officers into the Sunni-led insurgency. http://www.news.com.au/sundaymail/story/0,23739,20941415-401,00.html

Murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was killed because of an eight-page dossier he had compiled on a powerful Russian figure for a British company, a business associate told the BBC on Saturday.

Litvinenko died in London on November 23 after receiving a lethal dose of radioactive polonium 210. On his deathbed, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his killing. The Kremlin has denied involvement.

The BBC said it had obtained extracts of the dossier, which British detectives also have, from an unnamed source. The BBC said the report contained damaging personal details about a "very highly placed member of Putin's administration".

"Litvinenko obtained the report on September 20," Shvets told the BBC. "Within the next two weeks he gave the report to Andrei Lugovoy. I believe that triggered the entire assassination."  http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-12-16T141636Z_01_L16859096_RTRUKOC_0_UK-BRITAIN-POISONING.xml&WTmodLoc=HP-C2-Business-2

Hunters in India’s remote northeast are tracking a rogue elephant blamed for 14 deaths in the region and named after Osama bin Laden by fearful villagers.
The order came after the bull dubbed Laden, which has twice evaded attempts to kill him, was blamed for the death of a woman Wednesday near the thickly wooden evergreen jungle where it lives.
‘‘We have ordered a hunter to shoot and kill the 10-feet tall tuskless bull that is believed to have killed up to 14 people in the past two years,’’

http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=34&url_article_id=22687&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2

A special unit of the Russian secret service could have provided the polonium that killed the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

Sources in Russia have suggested that a secret unit called Department V could have obtained the radioactive substance that has left a trail across Europe.

Polonium 210 is only produced in a small number of state-controlled facilities and Department V, also known as Vympel, is charged with guarding Russia's nuclear installations. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/16/wrussia16.xml

A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA station chief in Rome paid a visit to the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, Adm. Gianfranco Battelli, to float a proposal: Would the Italian secret services help the CIA kidnap terrorism suspects and fly them out of the country?

The CIA man did not identify which targets he had in mind but was "expressly referring to the possibility of picking up a suspected terrorist in Italy, bringing him to an airport and sending him from there to a foreign country," Battelli, now retired, recalled in a deposition.

This initial secret contact and others that followed, disclosed in newly released documents, show the speed and breadth with which the CIA applied in post-9/11 Europe a tactic it had long reserved for the Third World — "extraordinary rendition," the extrajudicial abduction of Islamic radicals overseas for interrogation in friendly countries.

A year after the first contact, the CIA officer held another meeting with his Italian counterparts, this time sharing a list of more than 10 "dangerous people" the agency was tracking in Italy, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands, according to a deposition from Gen. Gustavo Pignero, another high-ranking Italian military intelligence official. "It was clear that this was an aggressive search project, that their willingness to employ illicit means was clear," Pignero said, adding that the list was later destroyed and he could not recall the names.

U.S. spies drew up suspect lists with the help of European intelligence agencies and chased some of the men around the globe before putting a brake on the operations in early 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, according to documents unearthed in criminal investigations, lawsuits and parliamentary inquiries.

All told, the U.S. agency took part in the seizure of at least 10 European citizens or legal immigrants, some of them from countries not cited in that list of "dangerous people" received by the Italian spies. Four renditions occurred on European soil: in Sweden, Macedonia and Italy. Six operations targeted people who were traveling abroad or who had been captured in Pakistan; European intelligence agencies provided direct assistance to the CIA in at least five of those cases, records show.

Each prisoner was then secretly handed over to intelligence services in the Middle East or Africa with histories of human rights abuses. Some remain imprisoned in those countries; others have been taken to the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One man was later released after being taken from the Balkans to Afghanistan, the victim of an apparent case of mistaken identity.

In the early stages, the CIA had prepared even more ambitious plans, according to the depositions from the Italian intelligence officials, who testified last summer during a criminal investigation into a CIA-sponsored kidnapping of a radical Islamic cleric in Milan.

For example, Pignero said in his deposition that the CIA's Rome station chief had offered in 2002 to abduct a fugitive leader of the Red Brigades — a Marxist network blamed for dozens of assassinations in Italy — who had found refuge in South America. "The Americans would capture him and turn him over to us, and we in return would have to 'extradite' him to Italy without any legal proceedings," Pignero said.

In exchange, the CIA wanted help in abducting Islamic radicals living in the Italian cities of Turin, Vercelli and Naples, Pignero said. Italian intelligence officials rejected the offer, he added, because it was "contrary to international laws."

Reports of clandestine CIA operations have fueled deep public anger in Europe, where many people regard renditions as a blatant violation of national sovereignty and international law. Since last year, prosecutors have opened four separate criminal investigations into CIA activities in Europe. A dozen countries have conducted legislative inquiries into whether local spy agencies were involved.

Last month, a European Parliament committee investigating CIA operations in Europe condemned the practice of rendition "as an illegal and systematic instrument used by the United States" and called it "counterproductive in the fight against terrorism."

"I think that after the 11th of September, the CIA thought that all the ways useful to capture their enemies, the alleged terrorists, were now possible," Giovanni Claudio Fava, an Italian legislator who led the parliamentary probe, said in an interview in Brussels. "They wanted to clean Europe of all these dangerous, alleged terrorists. They didn't have faith in the quality and capacity of our own security controls and our justice system."

In the past year, U.S. officials have sought to repair the diplomatic damage. They have met repeatedly with their European counterparts to defuse opposition to renditions, the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo and the disclosure in November 2005 that the CIA had set up secret prisons for terrorism suspects in Eastern Europe.

John Bellinger, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said U.S. diplomats have made some headway. But he added that ongoing political disputes have "undermined cooperation and intelligence activities."

"I'd say that many European government officials and academics acknowledge now that there is a legal murkiness that applies to international terrorism," he said in a telephone interview from Washington. "On the negative side of the ledger, we do continue to have these hysterical, inflated allegations denouncing the United States that unfortunately do fan the flames of suspicion and anti-Americanism."

The CIA declined to comment.

'He Was Too Loud'

The most detailed disclosures about the CIA's European rendition project have emerged from Milan, where Italian prosecutors have spent two years investigating the disappearance of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a militant Egyptian-born cleric known as Abu Omar.

When Nasr vanished in February 2003, police and prosecutors in Milan thought at first that he had slipped out of the country on his own, perhaps to join resistance forces in Iraq in advance of the U.S.-led invasion. The CIA lent credence to their suspicions a few months later, when it delivered an intelligence bulletin to Rome stating that Nasr had been seen in the Balkans.

In fact, prosecutors later discovered, Nasr had been grabbed on the street in Milan as he was walking to a mosque and stuffed into a white van, which sped to Aviano Air Base, a joint U.S.-Italian military installation. From there, he was put on a plane to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and onward to Cairo, where Nasr claims he was tortured for months with electric shocks and sexually abused.

Prosecutors in Milan have since issued arrest warrants on kidnapping charges for 25 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force officer, alleging that they conspired with Italian secret service agents to abduct Nasr. Although none of the Americans is likely to be extradited to Italy, prosecutors have served notice that they intend to try them in absentia and asked a judge last month to formally indict the defendants.

Senior Italian intelligence officials have also been charged in the case, including Gen. Nicolo Pollari, director of the Italian military intelligence agency known as Sismi. Pignero, his former deputy, was arrested in June, shortly after he gave his deposition to prosecutors. He died of cancer three months later, on Sept. 11.

European investigators are still examining other mysterious cases of missing or detained people. Among them are the disappearance a few weeks before Nasr's kidnapping of another Egyptian-born Islamic fundamentalist.

Gamal al-Menshawi, a physician and occasional mosque preacher who knew Nasr personally, had left his home in Graz, Austria, bound for the Islamic holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. His wife was waiting for him there, but he never arrived, according to Egyptian exiles in Austria and Italy who know him.

Menshawi's trail vanished after he arrived in Amman, Jordan, for a flight connection. He later surfaced in Egypt. European Parliament investigators have concluded he was detained there for two years without facing charges.

He was released in 2005 and is living in Alexandria, Egypt, according to Austrian journalists. He has severed contact with friends and colleagues in Europe, who strongly suspect he was subjected to a rendition, although they lack proof or direct evidence of U.S. involvement.

Arman Ahmed al-Hissini, imam of the Viale Jenner mosque in Milan and an acquaintance of Menshawi and Nasr, said both have been silenced by the Egyptian security services.

"The Arab secret services, they give names to the CIA of people who they want, people who are on the outside, such as Europe," said Hissini, an Egyptian native known locally as Abu Imad. "They give the names to the CIA, because the CIA can go to work in these countries."

There is also little doubt about Menshawi's fate among those who knew him in Austria's Islamic community.

"I see the American government as being primarily responsible," said Mohamed Mahmoud, chairman of a group called Islamic Group of Austria. "This is not the first time someone has disappeared."

"The Americans look around in Europe for who is being loud, who is speaking out, and then those people are kidnapped," he added. "He was very vocal; he was too loud for them. He talked openly about Egypt's government, about the U.S. government, about the Islamic community in Austria."

'They Needed Information'

About the same time, another Islamic militant from Austria disappeared during a stopover at the Amman airport.

Masaad Omer Behari, a Sudanese citizen who had lived in Austria for more than a decade, has said he was arrested by Jordanian secret service agents on Jan. 12, 2003, as he was traveling home to Vienna from a trip to Sudan.

Behari told European Parliament investigators in October that he was held for three months in a Jordanian prison, where he was interrogated about Islamic militants in Austria and elsewhere in Europe. "On the first day I was in prison, they told me they did not think I was a terrorist, but that they needed information about the Islamic scene in Vienna," he said.

Documents obtained by the investigators show that Behari had been under surveillance by Austria's domestic intelligence service since 1998, when he was interrogated about an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Vienna. Behari said he was innocent and never faced charges, but was pressured by Austrian secret service agents to leave the country after the Sept. 11 hijackings.

"I have experienced hard times because I did not cooperate with the security authorities in Europe and with the Americans," Behari said, according to a transcript of his testimony. The Austrians "threatened me that they would cause me problems. I thought it was only 'blah-blah,' but it was the truth."

Austrian authorities said they have not opened official inquiries into the disappearances of Menshawi or Behari, in part because neither is an Austrian citizen.

"Since the alleged abductions did not take place on Austrian soil, in an Austrian airplane or on an Austrian ship, we see no need for action," said Rudolf Gollia, spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry.

-- Special correspondent Shannon Smiley in Berlin contributed to this report.

http://www.dailytidings.com/2006/1216/stories/1216_cia.php

"The prosecutor is highly surprised because she was not consulted," Del Ponte's spokesman Anton Nikiforov told Serbia's B92 radio. "She is disappointed because it turns out that Serbia was rewarded for its noncooperation with the ( U.N. war crimes) tribunal."

http://www.paulding.net/bin/url.cgi/13492.17

Armed men in masks have been appearing in parts of Kosovo since Western powers said they will postpone a decision on the future of the breakaway Serbian province, residents said yesterday.

Kosovo's 2 million Albanians are growing increasingly impatient and some leaders in the UN-administered province have warned of unrest since Western powers said a decision on the Albanian majority demand for independence will be delayed.

Newspapers have reported a brief gunfight with police, residents said masked men have been stopping cars at night Western Kosovo and the police have confirmed at least one checkpoint was set up by men in black less than 100 km from the capital Pristina.

The men in black, who residents say claim to be part of the outlawed Albanian National Army (ANA) have appeared in the wake of last month's announcement from Western countries and Russia that they would allow an end-2006 deadline to pass. The ANA is a shadowy group labelled terrorists in 2003 by the UN mission running the breakaway Serbian province.

Police confirmed that armed men in black set up a checkpoint this week near the town of Djakovica, 80km west of the capital Pristina, but that it was not clear who they were. "We just know they are armed people wearing masks", regional spokesman Avni Gjevukaj said. Prime Minister Agim Ceku, a former guerrilla leader, said such groups were "damaging the image and security of Kosovo."  http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=December2006&file=World_News2006120975112.xml