It figures that Frankenstein keeps his job. It's so insulting. There should be live journalists introducing the news. Next we'll be hearing from the WB the reporting of the news. Tha', Tha', That's all folks.
1005
Bush is starting his rant about Iran. He's a jerk. This is a NEW resolution regarding the borders of Israel. 15,000 UN troops are going to be deployed. Bush is an idiot. There is no reason to invade Iran.
I tell you what. Why not concentrate on terrorist sponsors that ACTUALLY cause genocide rather than worrying about the 'potential' for invading a sovereign country that has done little to carry out genocide to date.
WHEN IS DARFUR FINALLY GOING TO STOP IT'S KILLING !!!!!!!
21 May 2002
Terror Report Identifies Sudan as State Sponsor of Terrorism, May 21, 2002
(Africa overview of 2001 Patterns of Global Terrorism Report)
The shock produced by the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and renewed international cooperation to combat global terrorism are producing a "new readiness" on the part of African leaders to address the problems of international terrorism, says the Africa Overview section of the 2001 Patterns of Global Terrorism Report.
The report, which was prepared by the U.S. Department of State and released May 21, adds, however, that "international terrorist organizations with Islamic ties, including al-Qaida and Lebanese Hizballah, have a presence in Africa and continue to exploit Africa's permissive operating environment -- porous borders, conflict, lax financial systems, and the wide availability of weapons -- to expand and strengthen their networks."
Sudan, which is identified in the Africa Overview as one of the seven state sponsors of terrorism, is discussed in a separate state sponsorship section of the same report.
Following is the text of the Africa Overview of the report:(begin text)
Africa Overview
"The Organization of African Unity (OAU) expresses to the Government and people of the United States of America the full solidarity and the deepest condolence of the OAU and the entire people of Africa over this tragedy which affected not only the people of the USA but humanity as a whole." OAU Communique 20 September 2001
There was nearly universal condemnation of the September 11 attacks on the United States among Sub-Saharan African governments. These governments also pledged their support to the war against terrorism. In addition to bilateral cooperation with the United States and the global Coalition, multilateral organizations such as the Organization of African Unity and the Southern African Development Community have committed themselves to fighting terrorism.
The shock produced by the September 11 attacks and renewed international cooperation to combat global terrorism is producing a new readiness on the part of African leaders to address the problems of international terrorism. Africa's increased cooperation may help counter the persistent threat and use of terrorism as an instrument of violence and coercion against civilians. Most terrorist attacks in Africa stem from internal civil unrest and spillover from regional wars as African rebel movements and opposition groups employ terrorist tactics in pursuit of their political, social, or economic goals. Countries where insurgent groups have indiscriminately employed terrorist tactics and attacked civilians include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
International terrorist organizations with Islamic ties, including al-Qaida and Lebanese Hizballah, have a presence in Africa and continue to exploit Africa's permissive operating environment -- porous borders, conflict, lax financial systems, and the wide availability of weapons -- to expand and strengthen their networks. Further, these groups are able to flourish in "failed states" or those with weak governments that are unable to monitor the activities of terrorists and their supporters within their borders. Press reports also indicate that terrorists may be using the illicit trade in conflict diamonds both to launder money and to finance their operations.
Sudan, one of the seven state sponsors of terrorism, is discussed in the state sponsorship section of this report.
Angola
Angola made strides in combating terrorism since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. In late November, the National Assembly passed a resolution calling for Angola to participate in regional and international efforts to combat terrorism, to include sharing intelligence, technical expertise, and financial information, and cooperating on legal issues. President dos Santos publicly backed U.S. military actions and supports the Organization of African Unity resolutions against terrorism.
For more than two decades, Angola has been plagued by the protracted civil war between the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Angolan Government. UNITA is believed to have been responsible for several brutal attacks on civilian targets in 2001. Unidentified militants -- suspected of being UNITA rebels -- ambushed a train killing 256 persons and injuring 161 others in August. Later that month, armed men fired a missile at a passing bus, killing approximately 55 and wounding 10. UNITA rebels are also suspected of attacking a farm in May, killing one person, wounding one, and kidnapping 50 others.
During 2001, violence from the Angolan civil war again spilled over into neighboring Namibia. The Angolan Government, operating on the invitation of the Namibian Government, pursued UNITA rebels into Namibia. Border clashes resulted in several attacks. In May, rebels attacked a village killing one person and wounding one other. Earlier in the year, armed men entered a village, abducting eight persons who were taken to Angola and held hostage.
(On 4 April, 2002, shortly after the death of Jonas Savimbi, UNITA leaders signed a cease-fire agreement with the Government of Angola.)
Djibouti
Djibouti pledged early, strong, and consistent support for the U.S.-led Coalition in the global war on terrorism. Djibouti also hosts Coalition forces from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Djibouti closed financial networks suspected of funneling funds for terrorist operations that operated there and issued a Djiboutian executive order that commits the country to cooperate fully with U.S. counterterrorist financial measures.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia has been another strong supporter of the campaign against terror. The Ethiopian response was immediate and vocal following the September 11 attacks. Ethiopia also has shut down terrorist financial networks operating in its territory. Ethiopia continues to cooperate in examining potential terrorist activity in the region, including in Somalia.
Kenya
Kenya already had suffered from an al-Qaida attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in August 1998. Kenya remained a key ally in the region, implementing new measures to impose asset freezes and other financial controls, offering to cooperate with the United States to combat terrorism, and leading the current regional effort toward national reconciliation in Somalia. Kenya is a party to 10 of the 11 antiterrorism conventions and is a signatory to the newest, the 1999 UN Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.
Nigeria
Nigeria has strongly supported U.S. antiterrorism efforts around the world as well as the military action in Afghanistan. Nigeria led diplomatic efforts in the U.N. and the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) and in the battle against terrorism. The Nigerian Government has drafted legislation -- the Anti-Terrorism, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act -- that contains explicit criminal sanctions against terrorism and its financing. The Government of Nigeria is committed to preventing its territory -- home to Africa's largest Muslim population -- from becoming a safehaven for Islamic extremists.
Senegal
Senegal has been a leader in the African response to the attacks of September 11, with President Abdoulaye Wade's proposed African Pact Against Terrorism. President Wade stressed this issue with many of the continent's leaders during a two-day conference in Dakar in October 2001 and is energizing countries to join the fight via the Organization of African Unity/African Union. The Senegal Central Bank and regional banks based in Dakar have modified regulations to restrict terrorist funding. Senegal has also created a regional counterterrorism intelligence center, using assets of its security and intelligence services along with assistance from the United States. Senegal plans to ratify all remaining U.N. conventions against terrorism in the near future.
Somalia
Somalia, a nation with no central government, represents a potential breeding ground as well as safehaven for terrorist networks. Civil war, clan conflict, and poverty have combined to turn Somalia into a "failed state," with no one group currently able to govern the entire country, poor or nonexistent law enforcement, and an inability to monitor the financial sector. Some major factions within Somalia have pledged to fight terrorism. However, one indigenous group, al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI), is dedicated to creating an Islamic state in Somalia, has carried out terrorist acts in Ethiopia, and may have some ties to al-Qaida. AIAI remains active in several parts of Somalia. In July, gunmen in Mogadishu attacked a World Food Program convoy, killing six persons and wounding several others. In March, extremists attacked a Medecins Sans Frontieres medical charity facility, killing 11 persons, wounding 40, and taking nine hostages. The hostages were later released. The need for cooperation among Somalia's neighbors in the Horn of Africa is obvious, given the long borders shared with Somalia by Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. These countries have -- individually and, in cooperation with the United States -- taken steps to close their ports of entry to potential terrorists, deny use of their banking systems to transfer terrorist-linked assets, and to bring about the peaceful reconciliation and long-term stability that will remove the "failed-state" conditions currently found in Somalia.
South Africa
South Africa expressed its unreserved condemnation for the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States. The Government has offered its support for U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to fight terrorism. South Africa also supports the Organization of African Unity's counterterrorism resolution. South Africa continued to experience some incidents of urban terrorism in 2001.
Uganda
President Yoweri Museveni publicly condemned the 11 September attacks and called upon the world to act together against terrorism. Two insurgent groups -- the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda and the Allied Democratic Forces in Western Uganda -- continued military operations aimed at undermining the Kampala government in 2001 -- resulting in several terrorist attacks that injured foreign nationals. In June, three bombs exploded simultaneously in public areas in Kampala killing one and wounding 19 persons. Suspected LRA rebels ambushed a Catholic Relief Services vehicle in September, killing five persons and wounding two others.
Alternate Means of Terrorist Funding? Diamonds and Tanzanite
Several media reports made the claim that the al-Qaida network has made millions of dollars from diamonds mined by rebels in Sierra Leone, either by trading them or using them to launder money. Revolutionary United Front (RUF) officials were alleged to have sold millions of dollars in diamonds to Usama Bin Ladin's al-Qaida terrorist network.
Similarly, allegations were made linking the sale of tanzanite to al-Qaida financing. Press reports claimed that a former personal secretary to Bin Ladin kept a diary detailing al-Qaida's use of tanzanite to help finance its operations for the past several years.
A subsequent claim was made that other radical Islamic groups (including the Lebanon-based Hizballah) transferred millions of dollars made from Congolese diamond sales to their organizations back home.
We continue to investigate these claims. The US Government also is cooperating with the United Nations, diamond-producing countries, and diamond-importing countries to develop a certification system for diamonds to prevent "conflict diamonds" from entering the international trading system.
(end text)
REPORTS ARE PAPERWORK. How many people are dying that Bush couldn't care less about because they don't have oil wells to drill? Or a Caspian Sea to exploit and fight over?
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commercials
1019
The Brits never was attacked by terrorists before they joined the USA in attacking Iraq.
Along with the U.S., Britain launched air strikes against Iraq in Dec. 1998 after Saddam Hussein expelled UN arms inspectors. In the spring of 1999, Britain spearheaded the NATO operation in Kosovo, which resulted in Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic's withdrawal from the territory.
In Feb. 2001, foot-and-mouth disease broke out among British livestock, prompting other nations to ban British meat imports and forcing the slaughter of thousands of cattle, pigs, and sheep in an effort to stem the highly contagious disease. The episode cost farmers and the tourist industry billions of dollars.
In June 2001, Blair won a second landslide victory, with the Labour Party capturing 413 seats in Parliament.
Britain became the staunchest ally of the U.S. after the Sept. 11 attacks. British troops joined the U.S. in the bombing campaign against Afghanistan in Oct. 2001, after the Taliban-led government refused to turn over the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden.
Blair again proved himself to be the strongest international supporter of the U.S. in Sept. 2002, when he became President Bush's major ally in calling for a war against Iraq. Blair maintained that military action was justified because Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction that were a direct threat to its enemies. He continued to support the Bush administration's hawkish policies despite significant opposition in his own party and the British public. In March 2003, a London Times newspaper poll indicated that only 19% of respondents approved of military action without a UN mandate. As the inevitability of the U.S. strike on Iraq grew nearer, Blair announced that he would join the U.S. in fighting Iraq with or without a second UN resolution. Three of his ministers resigned as a result. Britain entered the war on March 20, supplying 45,000 troops.
In the aftermath of the war, Blair came under fire from government officials for allegedly exaggerating Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. In July 2003 Blair announced that “history would forgive” the UK and U.S. “if we are wrong” and that the end to the “inhuman carnage and suffering” caused by Saddam Hussein was justification enough for the war. The arguments about the war grew so vociferous between the Blair government and the BBC that a prominent weapons scientist, David Kelly, who was caught in the middle, committed suicide. In Jan. 2004, the Hutton Report exonerated the Blair administration of any misconduct concerning the weapons inspections and concluded that it had not “sexed-up” the intelligence dossier, an accusation put forth by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. The report strongly criticized the BBC for its “defective” editorial policies, and as a consequence, the BBC's top management resigned.
In July 2004, the Butler Report on pre–Iraq war British intelligence was released. It echoed the findings of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee of the week before that the intelligence had vastly exaggerated Saddam Hussein's threat. The famous claim that Iraq's chemical and biological weapons “are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them” was especially singled out as highly misleading. But like the U.S. report, it cleared the government of any role in manipulating the intelligence.
On May 5, 2005, Blair won a historic third term as the country's prime minister. Despite this victory, Blair's party was severely hurt in the elections. The Labour Party won just 36% of the national vote, the lowest percentage by a ruling party in British history. The Conservative Party won 33%, and the Liberal Democrats 22%. Blair acknowledged that the reason for the poor showing was Britain's involvement in the war in Iraq, which was widely unpopular. A number of political analysts believe Blair will not serve out his new five-year term. Many expect him to resign in the next several years and turn over the reins of the Labour Party to Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, whose policies many credit in creating Britain's strong and stable economy.
On July 7, 2005, London suffered a terrorist bombing, Britain's worst attack since World War II. Four bombs exploded in three subway stations and on one double-decker bus during the morning rush hour, killing 52 and wounding more than 700. Four Muslim men, three of them British-born, were identified as the suicide bombers. On July 21, terrorists attempted another attack on the transit system, but the bombs failed to explode. A leaked document by a top British government official warned Prime Minister Blair more than a year before the bombings that Britain's engagement in Iraq was fueling Islamic extremism, but Blair has repeatedly denied such a link, contending that the bombings were the result of an “evil ideology” that had taken root before the Iraq war. Blair proposed legislation that would toughen the country's antiterrorism measures, and suffered his first major political defeat as prime minister in November, when his proposal that terrorist suspects could be held without charge for up to 90 days was rejected.
In April 2006 the Blair government weathered a major scandal when it was revealed that since 1999 it had released 1,023 foreign convicts—among them murderers and rapists—into British society instead of deporting them to their countries of origin.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108078.html
YOU WANT to talk about security? Yeah? Then explain to me why after Lockerby there wasn't a 'terrorist' proof airline industry?
Could we have stopped it?
Regardless of whether or not the two named suspects are ever brought to trial, three key questions remain: Could the Lockerbie disaster have been prevented; Could it happen again; and can airliners be "hardened" sufficiently to make them bomb-proof?
Airports are stepping up securityThere is no doubt that in 1988 security procedures both at Frankfurt and Heathrow were sloppy. Reporters both in the UK and Germany gleefully went airside at both airports days after Lockerbie, when checks had allegedly been tightened-up. But it wouldn't be so easy now: controls over passes are much more rigid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/12/98/lockerbie/235632.stm
Riddle me that one ! Oh, wait. Commerialism, just like today when all the threat levels are rolled back and 'carry ons' are allowed again. I'll never fly. It's not safe. It's not terrorist proof and the industry doesn't care. Especially when it can be bailed out whenever an attack is buffered by big time government money. I mean for the monies the airline industry received after 9/11/01 it could have been said it is an incentive to allow it to happen again. And they will. That's why there is less protection today than since August 10, 2006. They are rolling everything back.
Dealing With Terrorism: Stick Or Carrot?
http://books.google.com/books?id=9hrJwYUZvowC&pg=PR6&lpg=PR5&dq=%22Frey%22+%22Dealing+With+Terrorism:+Stick+Or+Carrot%3F%22+&sig=LMespNJ4nrCPDYTm3WyJAuloZO8
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Man, CNN is really pushing fear, aren't they? Glen Beck is nobody. He's specializes in being nobody. I doubt he has the IQ to be anything but a Neocon.
1033
WE NEED NEW LEADERSHIP IN DC TO MAKE THE COUNTRY SAFE !!!!!N CNN continues to try to 'sell' the ability of the incompetents in DC as if they ever could.
Kick 'EM Out.
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Blah, blah, blah.... more of the culture of fear.. blah, blah, blah.... CNN creates it's own "Security Alerts."
1057
Feeling Low? Turn off that television. A study from England's Nottingham Trent University finds that watching TV news triggers depression, confusion, irritation, anger and anxiety. I'll be darn, they create business for their advertisers. TURN IT OFF !
Alumni News and Events
TV news can make us miserable Anyone wanting to keep a smile on their face and a ... such as depression , confusion , irritation , anger and anxiety . ...www.ntu.ac.uk/alumni/index.html - 49k - Supplemental Result -
Had enough?
i have
