Somehow the automated voice within the introduction to AC 360 is more than appropriate, it relays a real feeling of the puppeteer of the anchor.
I had enough of this program before it got started !
Thursday, June 22, 2006
How quickly the current deaths are forgotten.
1000
Al-Qaeda chief beheaded US soldiers: report
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/alqaeda-chief-beheaded-us-soldiers-report/2006/06/21/1150701561957.html
Iraqi insurgents have boasted that al-Qaeda's new leader in Iraq "slaughtered" two missing US soldiers, whose bodies were found yesterday.
The statement from an umbrella group for Iraqi insurgents suggested the soldiers had been beheaded by Abu Hamza al-Muhajer.
The bodies showed signs of "barbaric torture" when they were found by US and Iraqi troops, a senior Iraqi general told Reuters. "The two soldiers were found yesterday by a combined US-Iraqi force. We found they had been tortured in a barbaric fashion," Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed said. Private Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, from Madras, Oregon and Private Kristian Menchaca, 23, from Houston, Texas went missing at dusk on Friday after an ambush at a checkpoint in Yusufiya, a town in an area south of Baghdad some Iraqis call the "Triangle of Death".
The Arabic word used in the insurgents' statement, "nahr", is used for the slaughtering of sheep by cutting the throat and has been used in past statements to refer to beheadings.
DEMOCRATS 'think' for a living, Anderson. Something you are not used to !
1010
Web Post Says Russians Slain in Iraq; Workers Abducted, AP Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a_qi3dAOT8Vk&refer=us
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- A group loyal to al-Qaeda in Iraq said it killed four kidnapped Russian diplomats, according to an Internet posting found by the Washington-based Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute.
The claim surfaced on a day in Iraq during which about 85 factory workers were kidnapped by gunmen and Saddam Hussein went on a hunger strike to protest the killing of one of his lawyers, according to the Associated Press.
The workers were abducted as they left work from a factory for metal doors, windows and pipes north of Baghdad, according to AP. About 30 women and children were later freed.
Iraq's new government is trying to clamp down on insurgent and sectarian violence to help forge national unity and economic growth.
1012
"LIE AND DIE"
Yep.
That's Bush. He's hasn't said a word of truth yet. And. He hasn't captured either Osama bin Laden OR the 20th hijacker.
'Al-Qaeda video' of 20th hijacker
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5101954.stm
A video said to be from al-Qaeda shows the man it says was the planned "20th hijacker" for the 9/11 US attacks.
The video, released by a US intelligence organisation, is of Saudi man, Fawaz al-Nashimi, who was killed in a shootout in Saudi Arabia in 2004.
The US has not commented and the video claim cannot be independently verified.
The identity of a 20th hijacker has been the subject of great debate, although there is no concrete evidence one was part of the plans for 9/11.
Al Qaeda has their own movie production company? Oh, really? Where exactly is this studio? Kabul?
Al-Qaeda’s al-Sahab Productions Releases New Zawahiri Video in Response to Kabul Riots
By SITE Institute
http://www.siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?ID=publications187506&Category=publications&Subcategory=0
A video of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two leader, was released today. Zawahiri’s statement on the video is a response to the rioting that occurred in Kabul, Afghanistan, on May 29, 2006, after three American military vehicles crashed into civilian cars during rush hour. The recording, almost four minutes, was likely recorded on May 30, 2006, as Zawahiri refers to “yesterday’s” events.
Zawahiri calls upon the Muslims in Kabuland elsewhere in Afghanistanto work with al-Qaeda against the Americans. This is the second message released by Zawahiri after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death on June 8, 2006. However, as the video was likely made before Zarqawi’s death, there is no mention of his death.
1018
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1019
NEW AL QAEDA CHIEF: I SLIT THEIR THROATS
Sick claim as bodies of kidnapped troops found
By Mark Ellis, Foreign Editor
THE new head of al-Qaeda in Iraq personally slit the throats of two US soldiers whose bodies were found near Baghdad, it was claimed last night.
A statement on the internet gloated that Abu Hamza al-Muhajir had "implemented" sentence on the "two captive crusader parasites".
And it is feared al-Qaeda has scored a propaganda coup by carrying out the atrocity despite a huge US-led hunt for privates Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, and Kristian Menchaca, 23.
More than 8,000 Iraqi and US troops, backed by fighter and spotter planes, searched for the soldiers who were snatched on Friday from a checkpoint in Yusifiya, 12 miles south of Baghdad.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17264726&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=new-al-qaeda-chief--i-slit-their-throats--name_page.html
1022
more commercials
I GUESS THE BOYS REPEATED THEIR SKILLS . THEY ARE ON A ROLL. I was hoping they could duplicate their victory. I congratulate them. This time it was the Aussies.
US troops kill Zarqawi's 'right-hand man'
The US military says it has killed the "right-hand man" of slain Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Major General William Caldwell says Iraqi Mansur Suleiman al-Mashhadani was killed on Friday by US forces in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad.
"We do know that Sheikh Mansur was a key leader in Al Qaeda in Iraq with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials within that organisation," General Caldwell said.
He describes him as Zarqawi's right-hand man and a liaison between Al Qaeda and tribes in the restive area south of Baghdad.
The Mashhadani are a major tribe of Sunni Arabs.
"He was tied to the senior leadership, including having relationships with both Zarqawi and al-Masri," General Caldwell said, referring to Abu Ayub al-Masri, whom the US military claim to be Zarqawi's successor.
"We do think that his death will significantly continue to impact on the ability of this organisation to regenerate and organise itself."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1667855.htm
1024
Campbell sees corruption in IWC practices
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1668876.htm
Federal Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell has labelled some of the practices in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) as corrupt.
Senator Campbell is back in Australia after attending the commission's annual meeting, which was this year held on the Caribbean island of St Kitts.
There have been accusations of vote-buying and bullying, after pro-whaling nations led by Japan managed to pass a resolution to end a 20-year ban on commercial whaling by one vote.
Senator Campbell is disappointed with the outcome.
"I think that some of the practices within the IWC over many years could be called corrupt," he said.
"It's been happening in the last couple of years, these sorts of practices have been going on for many years."
Protesters fined
Meanwhile, a magistrate in St Kitts has fined six Greenpeace activists more than $12,000 for charges arising from a protest yesterday.
Five activists, who jumped from high-speed launches and waded through the surf to the beach beside the conference resort, were convicted of illegal entry and fined more than $A2,500 each.
The protesters, four from Brazil and one from Mexico, had boarded the launches from the nearby Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, which had been banned from entering St Kitts' port during IWC talks.
They had planned to plant more than 800 banners in the sand in the shape of whale fins bearing the slogan "R.I.P." in memory of whales killed by Japan in the Southern Ocean during its "research whaling" program this year.
A sixth activist, Greenpeace spokesman Mike Townsley from Britain, was convicted of obstructing a police officer and fined $A500.
Prosecutors said Townsley was charged after telling other protesters not to give their names to a senior police officer.
A second charge of resisting arrest was dropped against him.
All six activists were remanded in custody until the fines were paid.
1029
NASA safety chief won't appeal shuttle launch order
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/nasa-safety-chief-wont-appeal-shuttle-launch-order/2006/06/22/1150845291372.html
NASA's top safety officer says he won't appeal a decision to clear shuttle Discovery for lift-off next week, even though he has nagging concerns about its safety.
On Saturday, following a two-day flight review, NASA safety chief Bryan O'Connor and chief engineer Chris Scolese declined to endorse the space agency's certification that Discovery was ready for launch.
At issue is whether additional modifications to the shuttle's external fuel tank were necessary before flights resume.
NASA redesigned the tank after the 2003 Columbia disaster, and then again after the first-post Columbia mission last July. Both times large pieces of insulating foam fell off the tank.
Columbia was hit and damaged by the falling debris, triggering the ship's break-up as it flew through the atmosphere for landing. Seven astronauts died in that accident.
Discovery escaped impact from the falling foam debris during its launch nearly a year ago, but NASA suspended flights for additional modifications.
Some engineers say the agency has not gone far enough, an opinion clearly shared by O'Connor and Scolese.
But both, speaking in a teleconference with reporters today, ruled out any last-minute appeals aimed at scuttling the planned July 1 launch of Discovery.
1043
Somalis head for Sudan talks to stave off war
1.00pm Thursday June 22, 2006By Mohamed Ali Bile
MOGADISHU - Sudan's president is to mediate in talks between Mogadishu's new Islamist rulers and Somalia's interim government on Thursday.
The Arab League-sponsored talks are aimed at heading off new war in the Horn of Africa nation.
Tensions have risen between the government and the Islamists since the latter kicked US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu on June 5 and went on to seize a strategic swathe of Somalia.
The government's call for international peacekeepers and its assertion that Muslim fundamentalists from around the world helped the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) secure its victory in Mogadishu have infuriated the Islamists.
The two sides seemed unlikely even to meet face-to-face.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is to lead the Khartoum talks under the auspices of the Arab League.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, whose weak interim government is based in the provincial town of Baidoa, was on his way to Sudan for the talks. But ICU chairman Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was sending a 10-man delegation.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387803
Zimbabwe to compensate foreigners for land
1.25pm Thursday June 22, 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe will pay compensation in foreign currency for land seized from foreigners, but the land owners could still challenge the seizures in court, a cabinet minister has said.
Since 2000, President Robert Mugabe's government has taken over thousands of white-owned commercial farms after backing often violent invasions led by veterans of the country's 1970s struggle against white rule.
The government last August passed laws that nationalised all such farms, barring farmers from challenging the seizure of their property in courts. Many economists and critics say the programme has ruined a once-thriving agricultural sector.
Some of the confiscated land belonged to foreign countries despite being protected under bilateral agreements.
Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, who heads land reform and resettlement, said those with farms covered by such deals would receive full compensation and have the right to contest the seizures in court.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387852
1046
THIS IS WHAT IS COMING ACROSS THE USA SOUTHERN BORDER.
Policemen beheaded in Mexico border city of Tijuana
2.20pm Thursday June 22, 2006
TIJUANA, Mexico - Three police officers and a fourth man were decapitated in the drug-plagued Mexican city of Tijuana on the US border, their heads and bodies dumped kilometres apart, authorities there have said.
Police found the heads of three municipal policemen and a man identified only as a friend of one of the officers in plastic bags under a Tijuana bridge hours after their corpses turned up in the outlying district of Rosarito, said Jaime Niebla, a senior Tijuana police official. The city is near San Diego.
Rosarito's police chief, Valente Montijo, citing witnesses, said men in federal police uniforms attacked the victims.
The killings were the latest in a spate of police killings along the US border in recent months. Officers often collude with drug traffickers, and shootouts between members of different police forces are common.
Drug violence has been rife along the border since President Vicente Fox declared "the mother of all battles" on drug cartels in January 2005 and sent hundreds of troops and federal police to border cities.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387854
US and Colombia crack drug smuggling ring
11.20am Thursday June 22, 2006By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK - US and Colombian authorities have arrested 30 suspected members of one of Colombia's top trafficking rings, a US official said.
The traffickers secreted heroin and cocaine in the soles of sandals, furniture, the lining of golf bags, and used human carriers who swallowed heroin pellets packed in condoms and boarded commercial airlines, the official said.
The arrests "dismantled a drug trafficking organisation that operated from the darkened jungles of Colombia to the bright lights of New York City", US Drug Enforcement Administration special agent John Gilbride told a news conference in New York.
Twenty-one people were arrested in Colombia, including nine suspected leaders of the Jaime Ocampo-Marin operation. US authorities arrested two people in Florida and seven in New York, Gilbride said.
As part of the investigation, anti-drug agents seized more than 113 kg of heroin worth more than US$25 ($40.9) million in raids in the United States and Colombia between mid-2004 and December 2005, Gilbride said.
He described it as "one of the largest amounts of heroin seized in a single drug investigation".
Nine Colombian anti-narcotics police involved in the investigation were killed on May 22, giving authorities an incentive to crack the ring, Gilbride said.
Eight Colombian soldiers have been arrested in connection with the deaths. Colombian investigators say the soldiers were in the pay of right-wing paramilitary militias.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387814
1050
Even mild injuries to brain add up
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-06-brain-damage_x.htm
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
After a land mine exploded under his armored vehicle last October in Barwana, Iraq, Marine Sgt. Devon Bradley remembers a deafening noise and a flash. Then nothing.
Seconds later, when he came to, Bradley grabbed his weapon and went back into the fight. He led his team for the next two months in efforts to clear insurgents from Barwana.
"We're hard dogs, and I kept pushing to be with my Marines," says Bradley, 29, who was on his third combat tour.
But something was wrong. In the weeks that followed the blast, he began forgetting what other Marines had just told him. He struggled to handle more than one task at once. Taste and smell disappeared. Worst of all, so did the name of his soon-to-be-born daughter, Addison. Bradley says he had to dig through letters from home to remember it.
He was eventually flown to a battlefield hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion — his second in the Iraq war and the third of his life. Bradley learned that what he thought was post-nasal drip was actually leaking spinal fluid.
By January, he was back at Camp Pendleton in California. Doctors told him his brain may never fully recover, and his career in the Marine Corps is in doubt
After more than three years of war in Iraq, where bombs are the biggest threat to U.S. troops, military doctors are seeing a growing number of brain injuries among soldiers and Marines caught too close to a blast. The vast majority are mild concussions that cannot be detected even with a CT scan or MRI.
THIS IS FROM January 2004. Once again the troops receive less than adequate protection from the Bush Administration.
Head Injuries Push Improvements In Gear
http://www.operation-helmet.org/head-injury.html
By Sandra JontzStars and StripesEuropean Edition January 30, 2004WASHINGTON — U.S. troops are suffering traumatic brain injuries in greater numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan than in previous wars, prompting studies on better helmets and improved medical treatment and recuperation care.
An area of scientific focus at the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, headquartered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., is how many traumatic brain injuries, or TBI, are direct results from the shock wave of a blast, and not just from the head impacting with the ground or other head and brain injuries wounds caused by shrapnel, for example, said Laurie Ryan, the center's assistant director for research.
In a preliminary study done among troops treated at Walter Reed, scientists analyzed 155 patients wounded in combat in Iraq to see if any showed signs of combat traumatic brain injury. Of the 155 troops, 96, or 62 percent, showed symptoms of minor to severe brain injuries. Of the 96, 88 likely had sustained an injury as a result of a blast, such as an explosion from a landmine, rocket propelled grenade or improvised explosive device, she said...
Original article
http://www.operation-helmet.org/documents/news-stories/Head-Injuries-Push-Improvements-In-Gear.pdf
1100
Large Incidents along the Southwest USA has increased exponentially since a week ago.
http://firemapper.sc.egov.usda.gov/
There is no sign of relief. The current turbulence is east of most of the fires. Drought.
http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_wv_hem_loop-12.html
The Caribbean Sea was hot today. I can't believe the longevity of the Mid Atlantic vortex.
1108
I don't care to second guess the NECESSARY trials of our soldiers. We cannot allow a military to kill at will. For as much as it hurts to prosecute soldiers there has to be a brevity to their killing, otherwise, an event as the one that killed Pat Tillman will occur over and over again besides the deaths of innocent people. The USA military aren't supposed to be worse than the terrorists. I really think the USA military is out of control It's happening too frequently.
1110
I couldn't agree more. The Bush policy on most issues is inflammatory without resolve.
Bush policy a failure, says diplomat
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bush-policy-a-failure-says-diplomat/2006/06/21/1150845247944.html
WASHINGTON: A former US diplomat who was deeply involved in North Korea policy said the Bush Administration's approach has been a failure that left Pyongyang to pursue its nuclear and missile programs.
In a rare public attack on the Administration by a foreign service officer, the retired head of the State Department's office of Korean affairs, David Straub, also questioned the decision-making on the issue by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
One fundamental failure of President George Bush's approach was the tendency to raise tensions and make South Korea nervous by stating that "all options" were on the table, a phrase underscoring US intentions to use force against North Korea if necessary, he said.
"Of course all options are on the table. No government ever takes any option off the table, but you don't have to talk about it all the time," Mr Straub said.
1123
The News Secretary finally.
This 'type' of incident of isolation leading to captured soldiers happened before with the squad of which Jessica Lynch was a memeber.
FIRST LYNCH
The truth about Jessica
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,956255,00.html
Her Iraqi guards had long fled, she was being well cared for - and doctors had already tried to free her. John Kampfner discovers the real story behind a modern American war myth Thursday May 15, 2003The Guardian
Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war. An all-American heroine, the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict. It couldn't have happened at a more crucial moment, when the talk was of coalition forces bogged down, of a victory too slow in coming.
Her rescue will go down as one of the most stunning pieces of news management yet conceived. It provides a remarkable insight into the real influence of Hollywood producers on the Pentagon's media managers, and has produced a template from which America hopes to present its future wars.
...In the early hours of April 2, correspondents in Doha were summoned from their beds to Centcom, the military and media nerve centre for the war. Jim Wilkinson, the White House's top figure there, had stayed up all night. "We had a situation where there was a lot of hot news," he recalls. "The president had been briefed, as had the secretary of defence."
The journalists rushed in, thinking Saddam had been captured. The story they were told instead has entered American folklore. Private Lynch, a 19-year-old clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was a member of the US Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company that took a wrong turning near Nassiriya and was ambushed. Nine of her US comrades were killed. Iraqi soldiers took Lynch to the local hospital, which was swarming with fedayeen, where he was held for eight days. That much is uncontested.
THE INCIDENT THAT KILLED THREE USA SOLDIERS
Left to die in ambush: army asks why
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/left-to-die-in-ambush-army-asks-why/2006/06/21/1150845247938.html
Major-General William Caldwell confirmed the bodies were believed to be the remains of Private First Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Private First Class Thomas Tucker, 25. General Caldwell said an autopsy would determine the cause of death and there would be DNA testing "to confirm that it is in fact them".
A third soldier, identified as Specialist David Babineau, 25, died in a gun battle that preceded the abduction. All three soldiers were guarding a canal bridge near their military camp.
The circumstances of the initial attack remain mysterious. In a country where military vehicles, even the most impervious tanks, rarely leave fortified areas unless in pairs, General Caldwell confirmed the soldiers were alone.
"We know that there was a single vehicle with three American soldiers when they came under attack," he said.
According to Iraqis living in the area, the three soldiers became isolated when their comrades pursued insurgents into the orchards off the roadside. Then, the Iraqis said, seven or eight masked guerillas attacked the three, killing Specialist Babineau and capturing the other two. The Iraqis said they believed insurgents had staged the first attack to divert most of the Americans and isolate the three.
General Caldwell said the two were killed in a violent way and had not died from battle wounds.
The Shura Council of the Mujahideen, an al-Qaeda-linked group, posted a message on a jihadist website taking responsibility for the killings, but offered no proof of involvement.
General Caldwell said US troops found the bodies on Monday night, but did not immediately recover them, fearing the area was booby-trapped.
'Far too few' soldiers sent to Iraq
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/far-too-few-soldiers-sent-to-iraq/2006/06/21/1150845247929.html
THE US deployed a disastrously undersized army to occupy Iraq because the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, wanted to prove a point about military theory, according to a former top Bush Administration official.
The deputy secretary of state in the first four years of the Bush Administration, Richard Armitage, said that the undersized troop commitment was one of four key US strategic errors.
With a debate raging in Washington over whether to withdraw from Iraq, and a vote in the US Senate due today, Mr Armitage said the Administration discarded an invasion plan for Iraq that deployed at least 380,000 troops in favour of a plan with two-thirds that size at 250,000.
The reason was that Mr Rumsfeld wanted to apply a doctrine of "transformation" of the military, a vaunted move away from traditional military practice towards more flexible and high-tech warfare.
This would represent a departure from the principle of overwhelming force known as the Powell doctrine, named after the former secretary of state and general Colin Powell, a rival of Mr Rumsfeld's within the Bush Administration.
"The largest strategic mistake we made is that we had enough soldiers to win the war, but we had far too few to secure the peace," Mr Armitage said in an interview with the Herald.
enough
Al-Qaeda chief beheaded US soldiers: report
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/alqaeda-chief-beheaded-us-soldiers-report/2006/06/21/1150701561957.html
Iraqi insurgents have boasted that al-Qaeda's new leader in Iraq "slaughtered" two missing US soldiers, whose bodies were found yesterday.
The statement from an umbrella group for Iraqi insurgents suggested the soldiers had been beheaded by Abu Hamza al-Muhajer.
The bodies showed signs of "barbaric torture" when they were found by US and Iraqi troops, a senior Iraqi general told Reuters. "The two soldiers were found yesterday by a combined US-Iraqi force. We found they had been tortured in a barbaric fashion," Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed said. Private Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, from Madras, Oregon and Private Kristian Menchaca, 23, from Houston, Texas went missing at dusk on Friday after an ambush at a checkpoint in Yusufiya, a town in an area south of Baghdad some Iraqis call the "Triangle of Death".
The Arabic word used in the insurgents' statement, "nahr", is used for the slaughtering of sheep by cutting the throat and has been used in past statements to refer to beheadings.
DEMOCRATS 'think' for a living, Anderson. Something you are not used to !
1010
Web Post Says Russians Slain in Iraq; Workers Abducted, AP Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a_qi3dAOT8Vk&refer=us
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- A group loyal to al-Qaeda in Iraq said it killed four kidnapped Russian diplomats, according to an Internet posting found by the Washington-based Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute.
The claim surfaced on a day in Iraq during which about 85 factory workers were kidnapped by gunmen and Saddam Hussein went on a hunger strike to protest the killing of one of his lawyers, according to the Associated Press.
The workers were abducted as they left work from a factory for metal doors, windows and pipes north of Baghdad, according to AP. About 30 women and children were later freed.
Iraq's new government is trying to clamp down on insurgent and sectarian violence to help forge national unity and economic growth.
1012
"LIE AND DIE"
Yep.
That's Bush. He's hasn't said a word of truth yet. And. He hasn't captured either Osama bin Laden OR the 20th hijacker.
'Al-Qaeda video' of 20th hijacker
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5101954.stm
A video said to be from al-Qaeda shows the man it says was the planned "20th hijacker" for the 9/11 US attacks.
The video, released by a US intelligence organisation, is of Saudi man, Fawaz al-Nashimi, who was killed in a shootout in Saudi Arabia in 2004.
The US has not commented and the video claim cannot be independently verified.
The identity of a 20th hijacker has been the subject of great debate, although there is no concrete evidence one was part of the plans for 9/11.
Al Qaeda has their own movie production company? Oh, really? Where exactly is this studio? Kabul?
Al-Qaeda’s al-Sahab Productions Releases New Zawahiri Video in Response to Kabul Riots
By SITE Institute
http://www.siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?ID=publications187506&Category=publications&Subcategory=0
A video of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two leader, was released today. Zawahiri’s statement on the video is a response to the rioting that occurred in Kabul, Afghanistan, on May 29, 2006, after three American military vehicles crashed into civilian cars during rush hour. The recording, almost four minutes, was likely recorded on May 30, 2006, as Zawahiri refers to “yesterday’s” events.
Zawahiri calls upon the Muslims in Kabuland elsewhere in Afghanistanto work with al-Qaeda against the Americans. This is the second message released by Zawahiri after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death on June 8, 2006. However, as the video was likely made before Zarqawi’s death, there is no mention of his death.
1018
commercials
1019
NEW AL QAEDA CHIEF: I SLIT THEIR THROATS
Sick claim as bodies of kidnapped troops found
By Mark Ellis, Foreign Editor
THE new head of al-Qaeda in Iraq personally slit the throats of two US soldiers whose bodies were found near Baghdad, it was claimed last night.
A statement on the internet gloated that Abu Hamza al-Muhajir had "implemented" sentence on the "two captive crusader parasites".
And it is feared al-Qaeda has scored a propaganda coup by carrying out the atrocity despite a huge US-led hunt for privates Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, and Kristian Menchaca, 23.
More than 8,000 Iraqi and US troops, backed by fighter and spotter planes, searched for the soldiers who were snatched on Friday from a checkpoint in Yusifiya, 12 miles south of Baghdad.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17264726&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=new-al-qaeda-chief--i-slit-their-throats--name_page.html
1022
more commercials
I GUESS THE BOYS REPEATED THEIR SKILLS . THEY ARE ON A ROLL. I was hoping they could duplicate their victory. I congratulate them. This time it was the Aussies.
US troops kill Zarqawi's 'right-hand man'
The US military says it has killed the "right-hand man" of slain Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Major General William Caldwell says Iraqi Mansur Suleiman al-Mashhadani was killed on Friday by US forces in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad.
"We do know that Sheikh Mansur was a key leader in Al Qaeda in Iraq with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials within that organisation," General Caldwell said.
He describes him as Zarqawi's right-hand man and a liaison between Al Qaeda and tribes in the restive area south of Baghdad.
The Mashhadani are a major tribe of Sunni Arabs.
"He was tied to the senior leadership, including having relationships with both Zarqawi and al-Masri," General Caldwell said, referring to Abu Ayub al-Masri, whom the US military claim to be Zarqawi's successor.
"We do think that his death will significantly continue to impact on the ability of this organisation to regenerate and organise itself."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1667855.htm
1024
Campbell sees corruption in IWC practices
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1668876.htm
Federal Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell has labelled some of the practices in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) as corrupt.
Senator Campbell is back in Australia after attending the commission's annual meeting, which was this year held on the Caribbean island of St Kitts.
There have been accusations of vote-buying and bullying, after pro-whaling nations led by Japan managed to pass a resolution to end a 20-year ban on commercial whaling by one vote.
Senator Campbell is disappointed with the outcome.
"I think that some of the practices within the IWC over many years could be called corrupt," he said.
"It's been happening in the last couple of years, these sorts of practices have been going on for many years."
Protesters fined
Meanwhile, a magistrate in St Kitts has fined six Greenpeace activists more than $12,000 for charges arising from a protest yesterday.
Five activists, who jumped from high-speed launches and waded through the surf to the beach beside the conference resort, were convicted of illegal entry and fined more than $A2,500 each.
The protesters, four from Brazil and one from Mexico, had boarded the launches from the nearby Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, which had been banned from entering St Kitts' port during IWC talks.
They had planned to plant more than 800 banners in the sand in the shape of whale fins bearing the slogan "R.I.P." in memory of whales killed by Japan in the Southern Ocean during its "research whaling" program this year.
A sixth activist, Greenpeace spokesman Mike Townsley from Britain, was convicted of obstructing a police officer and fined $A500.
Prosecutors said Townsley was charged after telling other protesters not to give their names to a senior police officer.
A second charge of resisting arrest was dropped against him.
All six activists were remanded in custody until the fines were paid.
1029
NASA safety chief won't appeal shuttle launch order
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/nasa-safety-chief-wont-appeal-shuttle-launch-order/2006/06/22/1150845291372.html
NASA's top safety officer says he won't appeal a decision to clear shuttle Discovery for lift-off next week, even though he has nagging concerns about its safety.
On Saturday, following a two-day flight review, NASA safety chief Bryan O'Connor and chief engineer Chris Scolese declined to endorse the space agency's certification that Discovery was ready for launch.
At issue is whether additional modifications to the shuttle's external fuel tank were necessary before flights resume.
NASA redesigned the tank after the 2003 Columbia disaster, and then again after the first-post Columbia mission last July. Both times large pieces of insulating foam fell off the tank.
Columbia was hit and damaged by the falling debris, triggering the ship's break-up as it flew through the atmosphere for landing. Seven astronauts died in that accident.
Discovery escaped impact from the falling foam debris during its launch nearly a year ago, but NASA suspended flights for additional modifications.
Some engineers say the agency has not gone far enough, an opinion clearly shared by O'Connor and Scolese.
But both, speaking in a teleconference with reporters today, ruled out any last-minute appeals aimed at scuttling the planned July 1 launch of Discovery.
1043
Somalis head for Sudan talks to stave off war
1.00pm Thursday June 22, 2006By Mohamed Ali Bile
MOGADISHU - Sudan's president is to mediate in talks between Mogadishu's new Islamist rulers and Somalia's interim government on Thursday.
The Arab League-sponsored talks are aimed at heading off new war in the Horn of Africa nation.
Tensions have risen between the government and the Islamists since the latter kicked US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu on June 5 and went on to seize a strategic swathe of Somalia.
The government's call for international peacekeepers and its assertion that Muslim fundamentalists from around the world helped the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) secure its victory in Mogadishu have infuriated the Islamists.
The two sides seemed unlikely even to meet face-to-face.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is to lead the Khartoum talks under the auspices of the Arab League.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, whose weak interim government is based in the provincial town of Baidoa, was on his way to Sudan for the talks. But ICU chairman Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was sending a 10-man delegation.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387803
Zimbabwe to compensate foreigners for land
1.25pm Thursday June 22, 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe will pay compensation in foreign currency for land seized from foreigners, but the land owners could still challenge the seizures in court, a cabinet minister has said.
Since 2000, President Robert Mugabe's government has taken over thousands of white-owned commercial farms after backing often violent invasions led by veterans of the country's 1970s struggle against white rule.
The government last August passed laws that nationalised all such farms, barring farmers from challenging the seizure of their property in courts. Many economists and critics say the programme has ruined a once-thriving agricultural sector.
Some of the confiscated land belonged to foreign countries despite being protected under bilateral agreements.
Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, who heads land reform and resettlement, said those with farms covered by such deals would receive full compensation and have the right to contest the seizures in court.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387852
1046
THIS IS WHAT IS COMING ACROSS THE USA SOUTHERN BORDER.
Policemen beheaded in Mexico border city of Tijuana
2.20pm Thursday June 22, 2006
TIJUANA, Mexico - Three police officers and a fourth man were decapitated in the drug-plagued Mexican city of Tijuana on the US border, their heads and bodies dumped kilometres apart, authorities there have said.
Police found the heads of three municipal policemen and a man identified only as a friend of one of the officers in plastic bags under a Tijuana bridge hours after their corpses turned up in the outlying district of Rosarito, said Jaime Niebla, a senior Tijuana police official. The city is near San Diego.
Rosarito's police chief, Valente Montijo, citing witnesses, said men in federal police uniforms attacked the victims.
The killings were the latest in a spate of police killings along the US border in recent months. Officers often collude with drug traffickers, and shootouts between members of different police forces are common.
Drug violence has been rife along the border since President Vicente Fox declared "the mother of all battles" on drug cartels in January 2005 and sent hundreds of troops and federal police to border cities.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387854
US and Colombia crack drug smuggling ring
11.20am Thursday June 22, 2006By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK - US and Colombian authorities have arrested 30 suspected members of one of Colombia's top trafficking rings, a US official said.
The traffickers secreted heroin and cocaine in the soles of sandals, furniture, the lining of golf bags, and used human carriers who swallowed heroin pellets packed in condoms and boarded commercial airlines, the official said.
The arrests "dismantled a drug trafficking organisation that operated from the darkened jungles of Colombia to the bright lights of New York City", US Drug Enforcement Administration special agent John Gilbride told a news conference in New York.
Twenty-one people were arrested in Colombia, including nine suspected leaders of the Jaime Ocampo-Marin operation. US authorities arrested two people in Florida and seven in New York, Gilbride said.
As part of the investigation, anti-drug agents seized more than 113 kg of heroin worth more than US$25 ($40.9) million in raids in the United States and Colombia between mid-2004 and December 2005, Gilbride said.
He described it as "one of the largest amounts of heroin seized in a single drug investigation".
Nine Colombian anti-narcotics police involved in the investigation were killed on May 22, giving authorities an incentive to crack the ring, Gilbride said.
Eight Colombian soldiers have been arrested in connection with the deaths. Colombian investigators say the soldiers were in the pay of right-wing paramilitary militias.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10387814
1050
Even mild injuries to brain add up
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-06-brain-damage_x.htm
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
After a land mine exploded under his armored vehicle last October in Barwana, Iraq, Marine Sgt. Devon Bradley remembers a deafening noise and a flash. Then nothing.
Seconds later, when he came to, Bradley grabbed his weapon and went back into the fight. He led his team for the next two months in efforts to clear insurgents from Barwana.
"We're hard dogs, and I kept pushing to be with my Marines," says Bradley, 29, who was on his third combat tour.
But something was wrong. In the weeks that followed the blast, he began forgetting what other Marines had just told him. He struggled to handle more than one task at once. Taste and smell disappeared. Worst of all, so did the name of his soon-to-be-born daughter, Addison. Bradley says he had to dig through letters from home to remember it.
He was eventually flown to a battlefield hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion — his second in the Iraq war and the third of his life. Bradley learned that what he thought was post-nasal drip was actually leaking spinal fluid.
By January, he was back at Camp Pendleton in California. Doctors told him his brain may never fully recover, and his career in the Marine Corps is in doubt
After more than three years of war in Iraq, where bombs are the biggest threat to U.S. troops, military doctors are seeing a growing number of brain injuries among soldiers and Marines caught too close to a blast. The vast majority are mild concussions that cannot be detected even with a CT scan or MRI.
The same article was noted by Michael Moore.
Even mild injuries to brain add up
By Gregg Zoroya / USA Today
After a land mine exploded under his armored vehicle last October in Barwana, Iraq, Marine Sgt. Devon Bradley remembers a deafening noise and a flash. Then nothing.
Seconds later, when he came to, Bradley grabbed his weapon and went back into the fight. He led his team for the next two months in efforts to clear insurgents from Barwana.
"We're hard dogs, and I kept pushing to be with my Marines," says Bradley, 29, who was on his third combat tour.
But something was wrong. In the weeks that followed the blast, he began forgetting what other Marines had just told him. He struggled to handle more than one task at once. Taste and smell disappeared. Worst of all, so did the name of his soon-to-be-born daughter, Addison. Bradley says he had to dig through letters from home to remember it.
He was eventually flown to a battlefield hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion — his second in the Iraq war and the third of his life. Bradley learned that what he thought was post-nasal drip was actually leaking spinal fluid.
By January, he was back at Camp Pendleton in California. Doctors told him his brain may never fully recover, and his career in the Marine Corps is in doubt.
After more than three years of war in Iraq, where bombs are the biggest threat to U.S. troops, military doctors are seeing a growing number of brain injuries among soldiers and Marines caught too close to a blast. The vast majority are mild concussions that cannot be detected even with a CT scan or MRI.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7180
THIS IS FROM January 2004. Once again the troops receive less than adequate protection from the Bush Administration.
Head Injuries Push Improvements In Gear
http://www.operation-helmet.org/head-injury.html
By Sandra JontzStars and StripesEuropean Edition January 30, 2004WASHINGTON — U.S. troops are suffering traumatic brain injuries in greater numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan than in previous wars, prompting studies on better helmets and improved medical treatment and recuperation care.
An area of scientific focus at the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, headquartered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., is how many traumatic brain injuries, or TBI, are direct results from the shock wave of a blast, and not just from the head impacting with the ground or other head and brain injuries wounds caused by shrapnel, for example, said Laurie Ryan, the center's assistant director for research.
In a preliminary study done among troops treated at Walter Reed, scientists analyzed 155 patients wounded in combat in Iraq to see if any showed signs of combat traumatic brain injury. Of the 155 troops, 96, or 62 percent, showed symptoms of minor to severe brain injuries. Of the 96, 88 likely had sustained an injury as a result of a blast, such as an explosion from a landmine, rocket propelled grenade or improvised explosive device, she said...
Original article
http://www.operation-helmet.org/documents/news-stories/Head-Injuries-Push-Improvements-In-Gear.pdf
1100
Large Incidents along the Southwest USA has increased exponentially since a week ago.
http://firemapper.sc.egov.usda.gov/
There is no sign of relief. The current turbulence is east of most of the fires. Drought.
http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_wv_hem_loop-12.html
The Caribbean Sea was hot today. I can't believe the longevity of the Mid Atlantic vortex.
1108
I don't care to second guess the NECESSARY trials of our soldiers. We cannot allow a military to kill at will. For as much as it hurts to prosecute soldiers there has to be a brevity to their killing, otherwise, an event as the one that killed Pat Tillman will occur over and over again besides the deaths of innocent people. The USA military aren't supposed to be worse than the terrorists. I really think the USA military is out of control It's happening too frequently.
1110
I couldn't agree more. The Bush policy on most issues is inflammatory without resolve.
Bush policy a failure, says diplomat
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bush-policy-a-failure-says-diplomat/2006/06/21/1150845247944.html
WASHINGTON: A former US diplomat who was deeply involved in North Korea policy said the Bush Administration's approach has been a failure that left Pyongyang to pursue its nuclear and missile programs.
In a rare public attack on the Administration by a foreign service officer, the retired head of the State Department's office of Korean affairs, David Straub, also questioned the decision-making on the issue by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
One fundamental failure of President George Bush's approach was the tendency to raise tensions and make South Korea nervous by stating that "all options" were on the table, a phrase underscoring US intentions to use force against North Korea if necessary, he said.
"Of course all options are on the table. No government ever takes any option off the table, but you don't have to talk about it all the time," Mr Straub said.
1123
The News Secretary finally.
This 'type' of incident of isolation leading to captured soldiers happened before with the squad of which Jessica Lynch was a memeber.
FIRST LYNCH
The truth about Jessica
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,956255,00.html
Her Iraqi guards had long fled, she was being well cared for - and doctors had already tried to free her. John Kampfner discovers the real story behind a modern American war myth Thursday May 15, 2003The Guardian
Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war. An all-American heroine, the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict. It couldn't have happened at a more crucial moment, when the talk was of coalition forces bogged down, of a victory too slow in coming.
Her rescue will go down as one of the most stunning pieces of news management yet conceived. It provides a remarkable insight into the real influence of Hollywood producers on the Pentagon's media managers, and has produced a template from which America hopes to present its future wars.
...In the early hours of April 2, correspondents in Doha were summoned from their beds to Centcom, the military and media nerve centre for the war. Jim Wilkinson, the White House's top figure there, had stayed up all night. "We had a situation where there was a lot of hot news," he recalls. "The president had been briefed, as had the secretary of defence."
The journalists rushed in, thinking Saddam had been captured. The story they were told instead has entered American folklore. Private Lynch, a 19-year-old clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was a member of the US Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company that took a wrong turning near Nassiriya and was ambushed. Nine of her US comrades were killed. Iraqi soldiers took Lynch to the local hospital, which was swarming with fedayeen, where he was held for eight days. That much is uncontested.
THE INCIDENT THAT KILLED THREE USA SOLDIERS
Left to die in ambush: army asks why
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/left-to-die-in-ambush-army-asks-why/2006/06/21/1150845247938.html
Major-General William Caldwell confirmed the bodies were believed to be the remains of Private First Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Private First Class Thomas Tucker, 25. General Caldwell said an autopsy would determine the cause of death and there would be DNA testing "to confirm that it is in fact them".
A third soldier, identified as Specialist David Babineau, 25, died in a gun battle that preceded the abduction. All three soldiers were guarding a canal bridge near their military camp.
The circumstances of the initial attack remain mysterious. In a country where military vehicles, even the most impervious tanks, rarely leave fortified areas unless in pairs, General Caldwell confirmed the soldiers were alone.
"We know that there was a single vehicle with three American soldiers when they came under attack," he said.
According to Iraqis living in the area, the three soldiers became isolated when their comrades pursued insurgents into the orchards off the roadside. Then, the Iraqis said, seven or eight masked guerillas attacked the three, killing Specialist Babineau and capturing the other two. The Iraqis said they believed insurgents had staged the first attack to divert most of the Americans and isolate the three.
General Caldwell said the two were killed in a violent way and had not died from battle wounds.
The Shura Council of the Mujahideen, an al-Qaeda-linked group, posted a message on a jihadist website taking responsibility for the killings, but offered no proof of involvement.
General Caldwell said US troops found the bodies on Monday night, but did not immediately recover them, fearing the area was booby-trapped.
'Far too few' soldiers sent to Iraq
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/far-too-few-soldiers-sent-to-iraq/2006/06/21/1150845247929.html
THE US deployed a disastrously undersized army to occupy Iraq because the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, wanted to prove a point about military theory, according to a former top Bush Administration official.
The deputy secretary of state in the first four years of the Bush Administration, Richard Armitage, said that the undersized troop commitment was one of four key US strategic errors.
With a debate raging in Washington over whether to withdraw from Iraq, and a vote in the US Senate due today, Mr Armitage said the Administration discarded an invasion plan for Iraq that deployed at least 380,000 troops in favour of a plan with two-thirds that size at 250,000.
The reason was that Mr Rumsfeld wanted to apply a doctrine of "transformation" of the military, a vaunted move away from traditional military practice towards more flexible and high-tech warfare.
This would represent a departure from the principle of overwhelming force known as the Powell doctrine, named after the former secretary of state and general Colin Powell, a rival of Mr Rumsfeld's within the Bush Administration.
"The largest strategic mistake we made is that we had enough soldiers to win the war, but we had far too few to secure the peace," Mr Armitage said in an interview with the Herald.
enough
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