Sunday, October 29, 2006

[NewScientist] Tamiflu could boost drug-resistant flu in wild birds

Tamiflu could boost drug-resistant flu in wild birds

10:49 18 October 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Debora MacKenzie

In a flu pandemic, millions of people are expected to take the antiviral drug Tamiflu, but new research shows that ultimately much of the drug will pass through the people taking it and end up in waterways. Chances are it will then linger long enough to promote Tamiflu-resistant flu viruses in wild birds.

As a vaccine tailored to the particular pandemic flu strain is unlikely to be widely available in the early days of an outbreak, emergency plans specify that sick people and, in some cases, people who have been exposed to the virus should be treated with Tamiflu.

A dozen countries have stockpiled more than three billion capsules of the drug. Andrew Singer and colleagues at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford, UK, estimated how much of this could potentially be flushed into lakes and rivers.

The team used detailed sewage runoff models of 16 river catchment areas in the US and UK, and also a model of the expected number of cases of flu per day in a pandemic (see Only drugs and vaccines will deflect bird flu pandemic).

Breaking down

Previous studies have shown that Tamiflu is unusually resistant to being broken down in the body – about 80% of it is excreted in its active form. The drug also dissolves readily in water, and is not broken down in sewage sludge or by common chemical reactions in nature.

Putting all this together, the researchers found that all the UK catchments, and most in the US, developed high enough concentrations of the drug to stop a flu virus from replicating, for weeks or months.

Avian flu viruses normally live in the guts of birds. In ducks that drink Tamiflu-contaminated water, the drug concentration that the team predicted would prevent susceptible viruses from replicating, giving drug-resistant viruses a selective advantage.

Such viruses may not make much difference to ducks. But flu viruses regularly swap genes, so Tamiflu resistance could end up spreading to human strains of flu, they warn.

“We recommend more research to study how Tamiflu behaves in water, and to determine cheap and easy ways to break it down before it reaches the river,” says Singer, who led the research. The team suggests that perhaps some chemical that destroys Tamiflu might be put down the toilet by people taking the drug.

Journal reference: Environmental Health Perspectives (DOI: 10.1289/ehp.9574)

Bird flu mixed with human flu lacks punch
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9655
01 August 2006
Only drugs and vaccines will deflect bird flu pandemic
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9065
26 April 2006
Spread of flu in US slowed after 9/11
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19125692.900
16 September 2006

[BBCNews] World discusses internet future

World discusses internet future

By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, Athens

The future of the net is the ambitious topic under discussion at the first global Internet Governance Forum, being held in Athens over the next five days.

It has been set up by the UN to give governments, companies, organisations and individuals space for debate.

Nitin Desai, chair of the organising body for IGF, has said the forum needed "dialogue in good faith".

He warned that the biggest challenge in making the IGF successful was a "potential culture clash".

In a column for the BBC News website, Mr Desai said: "The forum will give voice to the citizens of the global net and help identify emerging issues which need to be tackled in the formal processes."

[The forum] is about the future, the net as it will be some years from now and how we can give a voice to all who use it
Nitin Desai

The forum is not a decision-making body but instead is designed to give stakeholders in the internet a chance to form consensus around key areas.

More than 1,500 delegates from the around the world will be attending the meeting.

The four key agendas for the conference are security, diversity, openness and access.

Emily Taylor, the legal director of Nominet, the UK body in charge of the .uk domain name, said the forum was important to internet users because it would be tackling issues that matter to them.

'Issues'

"Issues around spam, cybersecurity, openness, what are the blocks to freedom of speech? - they speak to all internet users directly."

Everybody has an experience of spam, sadly a lot of people have an experience of phishing attacks
Emily Taylor, Nominet

She added: "Everybody has an experience of spam, sadly a lot of people have an experience of phishing attacks.

"People have got experience of viruses. They might be aware that internationally there are different approaches to freedom of speech - not just the obvious examples of regimes cracking down on content.

"Within Europe there are issues around dealing with content that is perhaps not illegal but distasteful to some countries and not to others.

"These are issues that matter."

The IGF was borne out of the World Summit on the Information Society meetings, the last of which was held in Tunis.

Overshadowed

Some felt that the aims of WSIS were overshadowed by debates around the control of the internet and controversy over internationalised domain names - ie giving countries which do not use or understand the Latin alphabet the ability to navigate the internet in their own script.

The move towards internationalised domain names is being overseen by Icann, the body appointed by the US Department of Commerce to oversee domain names such as .com and .org.

Tina Dam, director of Icann's IDN program, said the body had taken a "huge step forward" in resolving the issue.

It has recently started testing internationalised domain names with its engineers.

"People have been waiting for us to start testing for some time," she said.

Ms Taylor said the forum was there to debate issues that relate to the use and misuse of internet.

'Ordinary users'

"I know, from speaking to ordinary users, that these issues are much more on their minds than discussions about who manages the internet and what is exactly the role of the US government."

Mr Desai said the forum was important because it gave people the chance to discuss how the internet was evolving.

"The net has outgrown its origins as a network run by and for computer specialists.

"[The forum] is about the future, the net as it will be some years from now and how we can give a voice to all who use it."

Ms Taylor said: "The key thing is that anyone who is interested can take part - whether they rock up in Athens or take part via blogs.

"That's a major change of process from the past."

[BBCNews] Miliband draws up green tax plan

Another Tax on the UK people by our Labour Government, now why am I not surprised? Clive ################################## Miliband draws up green tax plan
Environment Secretary David Miliband has confirmed the government is holding discussions on tackling climate change using green taxes. Source: BBC News He refused to confirm details, shown in a leaked letter, which may include "pay as you drive" tax, cheap-flight tax and levies on energy-wasting appliances. He told Sky News that "the longer we wait, the more costly it will be". Meanwhile Conservative leader David Cameron has told the BBC he would be prepared to tax air travel. Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said "hard choices" had to be made to combat climate change. The comments come ahead of a report expected to warn climate change may cut global annual economic output by up to 20%. The influential report by economist Nicholas Stern is due to be published on Monday. The Mail on Sunday quotes a leaked letter from Mr Miliband to Chancellor Gordon Brown from 18 October, which it says calls for urgent action in next month's public spending review and next year's Budget. In the letter, Mr Miliband calls for measures to combat "car use and ownership", and a "substantial increase" in road tax, the paper claims. He also calls for a new pay-per-mile pollution tax. The paper said leaked proposals suggest families with big cars could end up paying more than £1,000 a year in additional tax. 'Tax flights' Changing people's behaviour is only achieved by "market forces and price signals," Mr Miliband wrote. He added: "As our understandings of climate change increases, it is clear more needs to be done." The minister also suggests making flights subject to VAT, for either domestic flights or "better still all EU flights," the Mail says. Mr Miliband also told Sky News that the UK was responsible for "two per cent of global emissions" and that it was "vital that this is a global response, not just a national response". He said: "In the UK I think we should be proud that our country is leading the way in the reduction of the greenhouses gases, the carbon dioxides that are so dangerous. "It's very significant that the economics revealed by Sir Nicholas Stern's report should be that the longer we wait - and certainly the longer we wait beyond the ten to 15 year timeframe that's set by the scientists - the longer we wait, the more costly it will be. "I think it's good that the Conservatives have come out of the Stone Age, they want to debate these issues. "I look forward to the next election when all parties are competing to show that they can make a difference on the climate." Tax hikes Sir Menzies told BBC One's Sunday AM programme: "We have absolutely no option but to deal with the problem of climate change and nothing but hard choices will do it." Meanwhile Mr Cameron spoke about green levies in an interview for the BBC One's The Politics Show. He told the programme: "Some green taxes do hit the poorest in our society, so we have to think about that very carefully before we make taxation decisions. "If it means putting a tax on air travel, then yes, that's something we'd be prepared to do." But he said budgetary decisions should be made closer to budgetary times. "We'll come up with those ideas closer to a general election - but green taxes will go up." Mr Cameron also gave his backing to Liberal Democrat-controlled Richmond council's plans to charge the drivers of the most polluting vehicles higher parking fees. He also said he would put a wind turbine and solar panels on top of Downing Street if he became prime minister. 'Grave threat' BBC political correspondent Robin Brant said there was general agreement amongst senior politicians that climate change is "really posing a grave threat to the future of the world". He said: "It's David Cameron's the new-look Conservatives who have made this issue the centre very much of their agenda now - somewhat surprising. "It was the Liberal Democrats who were the party who were going on about this for a long, long time before." And he added that Labour was likely to finalise its green tax plans over the coming weeks and would release further details in next year's budget. The Stern Review, due out on Monday, will examine economic, not environmental, arguments of global warming. Sir Nicholas's report is expected to claim that at the very best the cost of tackling global warming would be 1% of annual economic output. The report looked at the impact of global warming on economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP), until 2100. A new report, Up In Smoke 2, based on research from a coalition of UK aid agencies and environmental groups, says climate change is already affecting Africa.

[Aljazeera] US airstrike kills six in Iraq

US airstrike kills six in Iraq
by
Saturday 28 October 2006 12:45 PM GMT

Gunmen took to the streets of Ramadi earlier in the month

Six Iraqis, including three women and two children, have been killed in a US air strike in the city of Ramadi in western Iraq, a doctor said.

Kamal al-Ani, a doctor at Ramadi hospital, said the bodies of six members of a single family killed in the attack had been brought in, before being released to relatives for burial.

Police Brigadier Hamid Hamad Shuka confirmed that there had been an air strike in the south of the city at dawn. He said five civilians were killed in the hit.

Asked about the report, the US military said that the troops came under attack several times on Friday and responded with tank fire and "precision munitions" - a phrase commonly associated with air-launched missiles.

US forces killed "numerous insurgents", including some waiting in an ambush and gunmen firing at a US outpost, the military said.

"Coalition forces also noted two unexplained explosions that were possible IED and rocket-propelled grenade misfires," it said, adding that it was not able to assess civilian casualties in the incident.

Asked to clarify whether the US military was referring to the same incident as reported by Iraqi officials, a spokeswoman said there were no reports of airstrikes around dawn on Saturday.

'Aggressive approach'

US troops have blocked entrances
to the city of Ramadi

Earlier this week, a senior US general had said that the US and Iraqi security forces were taking "an aggressive, offensive approach" to reclaim Ramadi from fighters.

Last week, dozens of al Qaeda-linked gunmen took to the streets to announce that the city was joining an Islamic state comprising Iraq's mostly Sunni Arab provinces.

Shuka said US forces had taken control of the street where the fighters made their demonstration, ordering some families to evacuate their homes and setting up sniper positions.

On Friday, gunmen attacked three military positions in the city with rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and machine-gun fire, police said.

Residents reported further clashes on Saturday and said that the US troops were using loudspeakers to order people to stay in their homes. The US forces also reportedly blocked entrances to the city.

Soldiers captured

In Udhaim, 50km north of Baquba, gunmen at a fake checkpoint seized 11 Iraqi soldiers travelling in a minibus.

The soldiers, who were wearing civilian clothes, were taken out of the bus at gunpoint after the gunmen found their military IDs.

On Thursday, 28 policemen were killed in an ambush near Baquba. That attack followed a separate ambush on Sunday on a convoy of buses in which 13 police recruits were killed and several more were reported kidnapped.

In Baghdad, one person was killed and 35 wounded when a rocket hit an outdoor market in the southern neighbourhood of Dura, according to police. A second person was killed and nine wounded when a bomb went off in a minibus in an eastern Baghdad district, another police spokesman said.

Agencies
By

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/56BCCC09-B4A5-45AC-8B86-2EAEF25DB53B.htm

[infowarsnews] Neo-Fascists Threaten Terror Unless Voters Approve Dictatorship

Neo-Fascists Threaten Terror Unless Voters Approve Dictatorship
Bush junta deploys Osama campaign videos to frighten sheep into tacitly supporting unitary decidership

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | October 20 2006

The Bush junta has potentially unveiled its "October surprise" in a desperate last gasp effort to salvage its power monopoly, a rash of lavishly funded campaign videos in which Osama Bin Laden is used to threaten Americans with terror attacks unless they vote Republican in the mid-term elections.

The Associated Press reports,

"The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic terror attacks against the U.S. homeland."

"The ad displays an array of quotes from bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, that include bin Laden's Dec. 26, 2001 vow that "what is yet to come will be even greater."

The Neo-Fascists have employed their most loyal servant - Osama Bin Laden - to star in campaign videos threatening the American people with armageddon unless they tacitly approve the occupational dictatorship of George W. Bush.

When questioned on exactly what he meant in promising an "October surprise," Karl Rove made reference to the formulation and massive investment into the production and dissemination of these ads.

The fact that the terrorists within the Bush administration would again threaten terror unless the dissenters and the waverers got back in line is hardly a surprise. The only real stunner is that they still have the temerity to believe this lowest common denominator propaganda still has a significant impact on the body politic of the nation - in the face of example piled atop example of hoax terror alerts that have left the public fatigued to the rumor mill of "the inevitable attack."

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"The DVD of the resistance!" Get TerrorStorm on DVD today! Subscribe to Prison Planet.tv and see it in high quality or watch it for free at Google Video.
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Recent polls show only a third still support the war in Iraq and just 16% of the population believes the entirety of the government's version of what happened on 9/11.

In saying that however, the massive voting block of the elderly, ostracized from the red pill of the Internet, largely still buy the scam that only cokehead Bush can protect them from his business partner Osama.

Karl Rove is messianically clinging to the belief that he can scare enough soccer moms and pensioners into helping the Neo-Fascists retain both Houses - or at least get close to it and let the CIA run electronic voting machines do the rest.

If there's a manufactured scare around election day the threat of chaos and the need for a focused government response could quickly silence enough vote fraud naysayers to re-entrench the power monopoly of Bush's unitary decidership.

A leaked November 2005 GOP memo which discussed ways of avoiding a comprehensive defeat in the mid-terms touted a terror attack as one of the few ways Republicans could reverse Bush's sagging fortunes. Another suggested scenario was the announcement of the capture or death of Osama Bin Laden.

The Neo-Cons are threatening violence in an attempt to influence the actions and democratic participation of the citizens of the United States of America.

That is the very definition of terrorism.

ter-ror-ism –noun 1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

[Infowarsnews] Now Europe Targets Bloggers As Terrorists

Now Europe Targets Bloggers As Terrorists
UK, EU crackdown on "spreading propaganda," mirrors U.S. assault on Internet freedom

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | October 26 2006

Bush administration efforts to infiltrate, misdirect, regulate and pollute the Internet with Neo-Con propaganda, as well as their openly stated agenda to target American bloggers as terrorists, is now being aped by the British government across the pond as well as other major European countries.

Home Secretary John Reid met with ministers from the six largest European Union countries and, according to a BBC report, "agreed to work together to make the internet a "more hostile" place for terrorists."

How will they accomplish this? By initiating a crackdown on people who use the Internet to "spread propaganda." The very website you are now reading would be considered propaganda by these neo-fascists- no matter the fact that the criminal syndicates Bush and Blair front for are the most deceitful progenitors of lurid propaganda since the third reich.

The purge also aims to use the Internet and other media to target young audiences with state approved indoctrination PR spin on how the war on terror is really not about imperial hegemony and crushing liberties at home.

Reid himself is no stranger to the strong arm tactics of despots, a former hardcore Stalinist, member of the Scottish Communist Party and an alcoholic bully with a penchant for thumping people in the face - he could also become the next Prime Minister.

The British government's paranoid fear of anyone "spreading propaganda" that could compete with their own is perhaps one of the reasons why they outlawed the right to protest under the 2005 Serious and Organized Crimes Act. Now Brits are only allowed to protest against the government with the government's permission - in other countries they would call that a police state and in others besides - like Zimbabwe or China - it's the de rigueur of tyranny.

Similarly, the Glorification of Terror legislation is so broadly defined that disagreeing with the government's "official explanation" of a terrorist event could be seen as enemy propaganda.

The only remaining outlet for the groundswell of dissent in opposition to the Neo-Fascist takeover of the west is the Internet, and it keeps these jack-booted bastards awake at night to think you can sit in front of your computer and broadcast your outrage to the four corners of the earth on a whim.

The fact that the U.S. government demanded access to the Google search queries of around 150 million Internet active Americans under the umbrella of the NSA eavesdropping program (recall the surveillance trucks in V For Vendetta that tuned into home conversations) proves that the elite are deliriously nervous about the last remaining outpost of freedom and its potential to influence change.

G6 Globalists scheme to destroy Internet freedom throughout Europe.

In addition, the European Union has moved to completely regulate Internet freedom. The first step is the introduction of licensing laws where you would be required to register, pay tax and only receive permission to operate a website if your material didn't violate the broad ranging "hate speech" laws legislated by the EU - win hich criticizing the EU itself is deemed "hate speech."

The development of "Internet 2" is also designed to create an online caste system whereby the old Internet hubs would be allowed to break down and die, forcing people to use the new taxable, censored and regulated world wide web. If you're struggling to comprehend exactly what the Internet will look like in five years unless we resist this, just look at China and their latest efforts to completely eliminate dissent and anonymity on the web.

Last week we highlighted similar efforts in the U.S. to mobilize resources in the war on terror to target bloggers as terrorist sympathizers and propagandists.

The White House has made it perfectly clear that it will target American citizens for propagating information harmful to the interests of the U.S. government and classify them as enemy combatants. This is codified in sub-section 27 of section 950v. of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Bush's own strategy document for "winning the war on terror" identifies "conspiracy theorists," meaning anyone who exposes government corruption and its lies about major domestic and world events, as "terrorists recruiters," and vows to eliminate their influence in society.

In a speech given last Monday, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills."

Chertoff has pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

A program on behalf of CENTCOM is also underway to infiltrate blogs and message boards to ensure people, "have the opportunity to read positive stories,"presumably about how Iraq is a wonderful liberated democracy and the war on terror really is about protecting Americans from Al-CIAda.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

House of Lords Mentions Gary McKinnon

Source: Hansard - The official record of the proceedings of the
British Houses of Parliament, London, UK

http://tinyurl.com/yfpqef

10 Oct 2006

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I shall speak to this group, and
particularly to my Amendment No. 129A. First, I thank the
Government for taking into account some of the comments I made
about the difference between making and inventing the tools, and
supply and distribution of the tools, which is what they are
trying to hit.

However, I am afraid that their amendment does not quite go far
enough. It is a question of effectiveness and whether it works,
and I am afraid to say that it will not. I reassure the noble
Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, that things like "script
kiddies" are quite common terms in the industry. Phishing is a
big worry at the moment; I was talking about it only last week.

The real problem probably stems from something we have just been
talking about. I have just been at dinner with the Hansard
Society in the Commons, talking about globalisation, regulation
and a few other things. This is a typical example. We think we
can regulate, but in a global, internet-based world we cannot.
People can host these things abroad. They can host sites which
will supply tools to allow you to do this, that and the other,
and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. They will be
hosted on servers abroad by foreign companies, and you cannot do
anything about it. If they were hosted on British servers you
could give them notice and tell them to remove them or even
prosecute them if you were lucky enough.

Will it work? It will not, I am afraid. It is one of those
things that sounds good but will do nothing. What it will do is
cause a lot of trouble to large companies that supply perfectly
legitimate tools to help people to carry out remote maintenance
or use remote access. It will not help parliamentary staff
because if someone supplies the tools to them, whereby they can
shadow you working on your own terminal in Parliament and
thereby help you solve the problem that you just got trapped in,
those sorts of tools might be forbidden under the supply rule.

The Home Office response to this is: "Well of course we won't
chase the good guys. We won't go after them. We are only after
the bad guys." The trouble with that is that it is all well
until an enforcer trying to achieve some other aim threatens
someone. I do not think that, as Parliament, we should be
passing laws that give power to enforcement agencies to
blackmail companies into doing other things for them because
they know they can use something like this against them. It is
too much of a blanket power.

Further, it is useful for penetration testing-for instance,
people testing to see whether their company systems can be
hacked. A typical example of this is phishing. Last week I was
sitting next door to a chap called Gary McKinnon, who is the
person the Americans are trying to extradite and put in jail for
60 years because he put post-it notes all over the Department of
Defense systems. Five years ago he got into their systems
because he thought it would be fun to see how good their
passwords were. He ran a little program and discovered that a
large number of people with Windows access had not bothered to
use passwords. For the Department of Defense in America not to
check that its stuff was moderately secure and that its senior
people at least had passwords to prevent access is stupid. So he
thought he would show them how stupid they were.

As a result of that Gary has got into hot water. I will not go
into the merits of the case or whatever, but the department
should have been using tools like this to ensure their own
security was all right long before Gary got there. And so should
we. However, it will make these things illegal and large groups,
large banks and so on should be testing that their systems are
secure. In fact Parliament should. But, under this provision,
whoever supplies you with that tool to test that will be
committing an offence. It is all very well to say, "They are the
good guys, we won't prosecute them", but I do not think that is
good enough. I have great trouble with laws that hand over
powers to the enforcers and say, "It is at our discretion
whether we are going to prosecute you".

I stand very strongly on that, having seen and heard of many
incidents where people have been told that unless they comply
with something else there is an obscure rule and they can throw
the book at a company for something else. I know that there will
be efforts made at the European level to reverse this provision
if we pass it in this form. I was informed of that by some
international companies.

I would prefer to see the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord
Northesk, go through and remove the provision altogether. I do
not think it will do any good. It is a waste of time. It will
not allow you to do anything effective against enforcing what
you want. However, I believe that the Minister will not allow
that. Therefore, I would suggest that you should either say
"more likely than not" if that is what you mean. I suggested
last time using the word "primarily"; this time I suggest using
"principally". We are looking at the objective of the people
supplying or trying to sell these tools. If it is principally to
sell it to the hacker community, I do not have a problem. In
which case say so in the Bill. We know these things are likely
to be used. If the Government mean that it is more likely than
not, then they should say more likely than not.

I would like to push this issue at some stage. I know that there
is only one more stage of the Bill. It concerns me greatly that
we should leave the matter in this form. Therefore, I would like
to hear what the Government have to say.

Friday, October 20, 2006

[aljazeera.com] White terrorists- Never the focus of Western media

White terrorists- Never the focus of Western media

10/10/2006 8:00:00 PM GMT

Source: aljazeera.com

It’s become an inevitable fact that Western media is biased against Islam and Muslims: every Muslim or Arab who reads the daily papers, watches TV coverage of daily events, or listens to the radio can clearly see that.

Last week, Robert Cottage and David Jackson, both former British National Party members, have been arrested for having a "master plan" to cause mayhem after a police recovered a "record haul" of chemicals used to make explosives.

Officers also recovered rocket launchers, BNP literature and a nuclear and biological suit. The police say this is the largest haul ever found at a house in Britain.

And while the world media's busy with the Muslims’ reaction to ignorant remarks made by a British official and Pope Benedict, the incident involving the arrests in Britain went unreported, except by local papers; Burnley Citizen and Pendle Today.

Cottage, charged under the Explosives Substances Act 1883 last Monday, reportedly drives disabled children to school.

His Peugeot car has been taken away for examination.

The police recovered 22 chemical components from his house.

On the other hand, David Jackson, 62, of Trent Road, Nelson, was charged with similar offences.

Christiana Buchanan, who appeared for the prosecution in Jackson's case, asserts that both men had "some kind of master plan".

However, the police tried to reassure neighbours that they had not discovered “a bomb making factory.”

Brian Parkinson, a local BNP councilor, distanced his party from Cottage, arguing “it certainly wouldn't condone the sort of thing he is allegedly being connected with”.

UK and Worldwide media preferred to keep the focus on the protests and the anger of Muslims sparked initially by those who have been insensitive to them, making ignorant and silly remarks against their faith.

First it was Pope Benedict XVI, who angered the world's more than one billion Muslims in one of his recent lectures in which he cited a passage attacking Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The passage originally appeared in the “Dialogue Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia”, written in 1391 as an expression of the views of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, saying;

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

And second it was former foreign secretary Jack Straw, now Leader of the House of Commons. Straw said that the Muslim women’s veil was "a visible statement of separation and difference".

It was natural that Straw’s remarks, which demonstrate total ignorance of the Islamic culture and utter disrespect for its followers, to anger the world Muslims, not just the British Muslim Community.

Muslims obviously do not need advice from Mr. Straw. They don't need need lessons in dress from him.

"He has once again shown that for Cabinet ministers it is open season on Muslims and Islam," said Nazreen Nawaz, of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization.

There is an inherent media bias against Muslims and Arabs, that always tends to focus on unrest and anger in the Arab and Muslim communities rather than discussing the source of their anger, in most cases the West’s insistence not to respect their culture and sovereignty.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

The Great Veil Debate

This veil debate is just going over the top and is starting to smell of something in the way of stirring up trouble against the British and Islamic ways of life.

Jack Straw only asked if Muslim women would "not wear veils which cover the face" when they attended his Blackburn constituency surgeries. He did not ask them to take their cloths off and did not ask that they not wear head scarf's or the full covering dress nor did he criticise the Muslim faith. He just believed that covering people's faces could make community relations more difficult and he has a right to have this view. We know how much facial expressions are needed to help in the communication of words, it may not be for the Islamic language but it is for English.

But what gets me about this new state of the debate involving Ms Azmi, who was suspended from a school for wearing a full face veil whilst teaching her pupils is this, Why was she working at a Church of England school in the first place? there are many Islamic schools that need teachers, why did she not work there where she could wear a full face veil without causing problems.

The court heard that when she applied for the job and attended the interviews she did not mention that she would have to wear a veil and was not wearing a full face veil at the time of the interview. She must of known that by wearing a veil at the Headfield Church of England Junior School in Dewsbury would cause problems. Seems a certain person knew and wanted to challenge our religious establishment or at the least stir up trouble. She did not loose her job and continues to receive her salary, thought to be about £15,000, she was just suspended for refusing to NOT teach without the veil.

The confusing thing is that she stated that her religion dictates that women wear the full face veil yet the women in Muslim countries state that it is not compulsory for women to wear the full face veil and that they do not wear it because they feel that it is repressive of the Muslim women.

Clive

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

[BBC News] FoE criticises recycle bag fine

This is a prime example of County Councils getting greedy and abusing their new powers.

Clive

-----------------------------------------------

FoE criticises recycle bag fine

Environmental campaigners have criticised the prosecution of a man for the wrong rubbish in a recycling bag.

Magistrates fined Swansea journalist Michael Reeves £200 after finding him guilty of putting paper in a recycling sack for bottles and cans.

The 28-year-old denied putting an item of junk mail in the bag.

Julian Rosser, from Friends of the Earth (FoE), said: "I think what we really need to do in recycling at the moment is to encourage people to

recycle."

He added: "Local authorities need to be putting in good schemes and publicising them well to people so that more and more people are recycling.

We don't want to create the idea that recycling is difficult - recycling is not difficult
Environmentalist Howie Watkins

"It seems very much that prosecuting somebody for what appears to be a little slip is not going to help that and is going to put people off recycling and that's bad news."

Environmentalist Howie Watkins said he sympathised with Mr Reeves and Swansea Council, but warned that local authorities should not make recycling appear too complex.

He said: "[The authorities] have developed an infrastructure to allow us to recycle and as part of that there's an element of responsibility on everybody to separate their waste, so it gets recycled in the proper manner.

"But I suppose the other side of the coin in all of this is that we don't want to create the idea that recycling is difficult - recycling is not difficult, it's quite a simple process."

Strict rules

Mr Reeves, a sports writer with the city's Evening Post, was served with a warning notice in April this year when he put his bins out a day early because he was going on holiday.

Then in June a green recycling bag was found outside his ground floor flat in the Mount Pleasant area of the city containing both paper and bottles and cans.

The court heard on Tuesday that the letter, which was addressed to him, "contaminated" the other items put out for recycling.

I have not recycled since I received the summons
Michael Reeve

Magistrates in the city were told under the Environmental Protection Act, councils could impose strict rules on their refuse collection services.

They found him guilty and fined him £100 and ordered him to pay £100 costs.

After the hearing, Mr Reeves described the case as "crazy".

"I don't believe they proved beyond reasonable doubt that I put the paper in the bag - I did not," he said.

"I have not recycled since I received the summons.

"People are not going to recycle if they end up in court and it costs them £200."

Swansea Council said it was increasing efforts to educate people about recycling and the rules.

"Legal action is the last resort and in Mr Reeve's case he failed to comply with an enforcement notice drawing his attention to the existing recycling arrangements," said a spokesman.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

[telegraph] New speed cameras could be ruled illegal

New speed cameras could be ruled illegal

By David Millward, Transport Correspondent

(Filed: 16/10/2006)

Source: Telegraph

The latest generation of speed cameras which record number plates and take pictures of drivers could be illegal, a Government watchdog has warned.

Sir Andrew Leggatt, the Surveillance Commissioner, has said that new laws are needed to prevent the evidence the cameras provide from being successfully challenged in the courts.

According to Sir Andrew, the cameras could be classed as "covert surveillance" and could be declared inadmissable. "It probably also amounts to the obtaining of private information about any such person, whether or not that person has been identified for the purposes of the investigation," he said.

"The procedure will therefore be vulnerable to challenge unless it is authorised."

Sir Andrew warned there could be "human rights" issues if the material was used to build up a picture of the movement of particular people or vehicles.

His reservations could have serious implications for the newest cameras, which aim to stop motorists ducking responsibility for speeding by claiming that somebody else was at the wheel.

"Speed cameras used to be rear-facing but now they look at the front of the car to try to avoid people trying to pervert the course of justice by claiming they weren't driving," said Paul Watters, of the AA Motoring Trust. "I am a supporter but they do have to be legal."

According to Paul Smith, a campaigner against speed cameras, the use of front-facing cameras capable of identifying not only the number plate but also the driver is on the increase.

"They have put 10 in Essex," he said. "This is a growing trend, it is their way of saying there is no escape."

Sir Andrew said that signs telling motorists that cameras are in place would not necessarily prevent a legal challenge because the driver would not have been warned that he or she could also have his picture taken.

Such cameras underpin a raft of Government policies, from tracking the movements of criminals to identifying uninsured vehicles and enforcing speed limits. They are also used by councils and private companies to issue parking tickets.

Transport for London uses them for enforcing the congestion charge and they could form part of the technology employed in any urban or motorway road pricing system.

Even this information could be subject to challenge in the courts unless the law is updated to keep up with the rapid advance of technology, Sir Andrew said.

A Home Office spokesman said last night: "We have noted the comments in the Chief Surveillance Commissioner's annual report. There is a review currently under way."

[Khallji Times] British police want spy planes to fight anti-social behaviour

British police want spy planes to fight anti-social behaviour
(AFP)
15 October 2006

Source: Khallji Times

LONDON - A British police force is considering using unmanned aerial surveillance drones to fly over troubled local council housing estates to help tackle anti-social behaviour in respective areas, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

The police force for Merseyside, in western England, has formed a new Anti-Social Behaviour Task Force which will have a budget of one million pounds (1.85 million dollars, 1.5 million euros), and a staff of 137, drawn from both the local police and fire services.

‘It’s a cheap way of doing aerial surveillance, it’s a cheap way of doing intelligence and evidence gathering. Put over an anti-social behaviour hotspot, it is quite a significant percentage cheaper than the force helicopter,’ said Superintendent John Myles, the joint-head of the task force.

‘There may be some hurdles. The Civil Aviation Authority may say that it is a no-no, but I don’t think it is at the moment,’ he said.

The newspaper reported that police forces in the United States have used similar drones, which cost about 16,000 pounds each, and circle areas at a height of 250 feet (76 metres), flying at about 30 miles (50 kilometres) per hour.

[times online] Terror suspect escapes from hospital

Terror suspect escapes from hospital

By Times Online

A terror suspect under a control order has been on the run from authorities for two weeks after escaping from a mental health unit, The Times can reveal.

The man, who cannot be named, climbed through the window of a mental health unit at a London hospital, where he has been held since September under mental health laws. He has been on the run since and his family are said to be increasingly concerned for his safety.

The British born man of Pakistani origin is one of six British citizens who were placed under such an order in April. He is accused of planning to travel to Iraq to attack British troops there. Initially, as part of the order, he had to report to the police daily and surrender his passport.

The Home Office said: "We do not comment on individual control order cases. Any breach would be investigated on a case-by-case basis."

The Government introduced control orders under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 to force a curfew on terror suspects who could not be prosecuted in courts. This could be because the evidence against them has been collected by bugging the suspect - and is therefore inadmissible - or because using it could reveal intelligence sources

[ComputerWorld] Alaska Dems Battle State Over E-voting

Alaska Dems Battle State Over E-voting

Marc Songini

October 16, 2006

Source: Computerworld

An examination of the e-voting database and its audit logs from the November 2004 general election in Alaska found that changes were made to thedatabase in the months after the votes were tallied, according to the state’s Democratic Party.

The party contends that a study of the electronic voting database, which it obtained a copy of last month after a long battle with the state, revealed that the database had been accessed as recently as this July.

“The [state's] Division of Elections has not comprehensively explained and corrected the situation,” said Alaska Democratic Party spokeswoman Kay Brown.

The logs were generated by Diebold Election Systems’ AccuVote-OS optical-scan voting systems, which were used statewide in the election.

The party had sought a copy of the AccuVote voting database last December to reconcile apparent discrepancies in voting results compiled by the state after the November election. The Alaska Division of Elections first rejected the request but relented last month.

Democrats had filed a lawsuit in April to force the state to release the documents. That suit remains open in Alaska’s Superior Court.

Meanwhile, the state last week rejected the Democratic Party’s Oct. 5 request for a copy of the database as it stood just after the election in order to determine what manual modifications were later made. The state contended that there is no unchanged version of the database.

Many Manual Votes

Brown said that experts from Black Box Voting, a Renton, Wash.-based nonprofit voter advocacy group commissioned by the party to review the contents of the database, also found an “incredibly high” number of manual votes added to it shortly after the 2004 elections.

According to the Democratic Party, the study by Black Box revealed that 293 votes were entered manually to the database between the election on Nov. 2 and Dec. 2, 2004.

While some manual entries are expected as a result of mismarked ballots, the study’s total was far more than normal, the party contended. “This calls into question the certified numbers,” said Brown.

Annette Kreitzer, chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Loren Leman for the Division of Elections, contended that the Black Box Voting analysis is flawed. Moreover, she said that the number of manual entries was acceptable for a large rural state like Alaska.

“We don’t have anything to hide,” Kreitzer said.

Brown said the study of the database did not resolve what she called huge discrepancies in the vote totals originally tallied just after the election by the elections agency. She said that two separate election reports — overall statewide results and those of individual voting districts — varied by “orders of magnitude.”

For example, Brown said a tally of individual district vote counts gave President George W. Bush 292,267 votes. The statewide count, on the other hand, listed 190,889 Bush votes — a difference of 101,378. The statewide total was the official one in Bush’s easy victory in the state.

Brown also said the count showed that 16 districts had a voter turnout of at least 200%.

Kreitzer said the discrepancies were caused by an erroneous counting process used by the state elections program manager. The elections agency contends that the database log proves that the 2004 statewide vote totals are accurate, according to Kreitzer.

She defended the elections agency’s decision to reject early requests by the party for the database. The party’s request first sought the database file structure, which included sensitive information and violated the state’s contract with Diebold, she noted.

The agency declined to release the logs even after Diebold approved the request because it feared such a move might compromise the state’s core IT systems, said Kreitzer.

“The situation in the state does make me worry about the integrity of the system,” said Brown. “I’m a lot more suspicious than I used to be.”

A spokesman for Allen, Texas-based Diebold said the company will do what it can to meet the requests of both the elections agency and Alaska’s Democratic Party.

[New york Times] Police want Israeli President charged with rape

Police want Israeli President charged with rape

Greg Myre in Jerusalem
October 17, 2006

Source: New York Time

THE Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, faces calls for his resignation over a sex scandal, while female politicians have threatened to walk out of parliament if he attends.

Police recommended on Sunday that Mr Katsav face charges of rape and sexual assault allegedly committed against several women in his office. The Attorney-General, Menachem Mazuz, must now decide whether to file charges.

Mr Katsav, who has held the mostly ceremonial post since 2000, denies any wrongdoing. He claims that at least one of his accusers was trying to extort money and that his political enemies were behind the investigation.

After an inquiry that lasted nearly two months, police on Sunday handed their findings to Mr Mazuz. It could be weeks before he announces a decision.

A joint statement by the police and the Justice Ministry said there was evidence that Mr Katsav committed "rape, aggravated sexual assault, indecent acts without permission and offences under the law to prevent sexual harassment".

The police inquiry allegedly also found evidence that the President had committed fraud and was engaged in illegal wiretapping. "As far as we're concerned, we've completed the investigation," a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said. "There is hard evidence and hard facts in this case."

Mr Katsav's lawyer, Zion Amir, said in a statement that the Attorney-General had dismissed past police findings into similar charges as insufficient.

But the latest police statement is sure to intensify demands for Mr Katsav's resignation. Parliament was due to open its winter session yesterday, an event Mr Katsav normally attends. His brother, Lior, told Israeli radio the President planned to attend but would not address the parliamentarians.

Several female politicians have threatened to walk out of the session if Mr Katsav is present. "The President must resign," the Education Minister, Yuli Tamir, told Israeli television. "If he doesn't do so, I believe a process will be launched to force him to resign."

As president, Mr Katsav is immune from prosecution while in office. But if he resigns or is impeached by parliament, he would have to face any charges against him, according to legal scholars. Mr Katsav's seven-year term ends next year.

Though the case has received widespread coverage any charges against Mr Katsav are unlikely to have broader political ramifications, as the position is mainly symbolic.

However, the controversy surrounding Mr Katsav comes as the public has expressed widespread disappointment in the country's leadership. Many Israelis say the Government and the military mismanaged the recent war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, a target for much of that criticism, also has been under investigation regarding the sale of his Jerusalem home and the purchase of a new one.

Several other politicians are under investigation or have been charged with wrongdoing, including the former justice minister, Haim Ramon, who resigned in August and was subsequently charged with sexual harassment.

Monday, October 16, 2006

[Times Online] Amateur 'video bloggers' under threat from EU broadcast rules

Amateur 'video bloggers' under threat from EU broadcast rules

By Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
Source: Times Online

THE Government is seeking to prevent an EU directive that could extend broadcasting regulations to the internet, hitting popular video-sharing websites such as YouTube.

The European Commission proposal would require websites and mobile phone services that feature video images to conform to standards laid down in Brussels.

Ministers fear that the directive would hit not only successful sites such as YouTube but also amateur “video bloggers” who post material on their own sites. Personal websites would have to be licensed as a “television-like service”.

Viviane Reding, the Media Commissioner, argues that the purpose is simply to set minimum standards on areas such as advertising, hate speech and the protection of children.

But Shaun Woodward, the Broadcasting Minister, described the draft proposal as catastrophic. He said: “Supposing you set up a website for your amateur rugby club, uploaded some images and added a link advertising your local sports shop. You would then be a supplier of moving images and need to be licensed and comply with the regulations.”

The draft rules, known as the Television Without Frontiers directive, extend the definition of broadcasting to cover services such as video-on-demand or mobile phone clips.

Ministers argue that while television programmes should be subject to minimum standards, the content of websites should not be subject to EU regulation.

Mr Woodward is proposing a compromise that requires EU states to agree a new definition of what constitutes “television”. He said: “It’s common sense. If it looks like a TV programme and sounds like one then it probably is. A programme transmitted by a broadcaster over the net could be covered by extending existing legislation. But video clips uploaded by someone is not television. YouTube and MySpace should not be regulated.”

British criminal law already covers material that might incite hate or cause harm to children, Mr Woodward added. The Government’s definition of online broadcasting covers feature films, sports events, situation comedy, documentary, children’s programmes and original drama. It excludes personal websites and sites where people upload and exchange video images.

“The real risk is we drive out the next MySpace because of the cost of complying with unnecessary regulations,” Mr Woodward said. “These businesses can easily operate outside the EU.”

Ofcom, the media regulator, is also opposing the proposed directive, which it believes could discourage new multimedia business in Europe.

Mr Woodward is seeking EU member state support for the British compromise. So far only Slovakia has pledged support, but Mr Woodward believes that other nations will come onboard before a key EU Council meeting on November 13.

The influence of “user-generated” websites was demonstrated last week when Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion (£883 million). Launched in February 2005, it has grown into one of the most popular websites. YouTube has 100 million videos viewed every day.

The House of Lords European Union Committee began an inquiry yesterday into the directive, which could also introduce paid-for product placement on UK television for the first time.

Lord Woolmer, the committee chairman, said: “The proposals bring within the regulatory framework areas of the media previously untouched by broadcasting legislation.

“Britain is at the cutting edge of new media and alternative broadcasters in Europe, and we are keen to ensure that the proposals will not damage this growing industry in seeking to incorporate them into EU regulation.”

Thursday, October 12, 2006

[Seattle Times] Military recruiters work hard to leave no child off their lists

Military recruiters work hard to leave no child off their lists

By David Goodman
Special to The Times

Source: The Seattle Times

My daughter just started high school. This milestone was marked by the arrival in our home of a ream of paperwork. Along with the usual bureaucratic permissions, I found tucked into this package a seemingly innocuous form that carries extraordinary consequences: Failing to fill it out might result in my daughter being harassed, assaulted, or being fast-tracked to fight in Iraq.

This form asks us if we want to opt out of having our daughter's contact information sent to the U.S. military. If we overlooked this form, or did not opt out for some reason, our high school is required to forward her information to military recruiters. This is thanks to a stealth provision of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. It turns out that President Bush's supposed signature education law also happens to be the most aggressive military recruitment tool enacted since the draft ended in 1973.

The military recruiting requirement of NCLB has forced many schools to overturn longstanding policies on protecting student records from prying eyes. My local high school, like most in the country, carefully guards its student-directory information from the countless organizations, businesses and special-interest groups that are itching to tempt impressionable teens. Now, parents and schools are being shoved aside, and the military is being given carte blanche access to our kids. Not surprisingly, abuse has followed closely behind.

In August, an Associated Press investigation revealed that "more than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams ... . One out of 200 frontline recruiters — the ones who deal directly with young people — was disciplined for sexual misconduct last year."

Take the case of Indiana National Guard Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy, accused of sexually assaulting six female high-school recruits in 2002 and 2003. According to the Indianapolis Star, Vetesy "picked out teens and young women with backgrounds that made them vulnerable to authority. As a military recruiter, he had access to personal information, making the quest easier."

The NCLB recruiter provision is but one piece of a concerted effort by the Bush administration to reach unwitting teens without their parents' permission. In June 2005, privacy advocates were shocked to learn that for two years, the Pentagon had been amassing a database of information on some 30 million students. The information dossiers on millions of young Americans were to help identify college and high-school students as young as 16 to target them for military recruiting.

The massive database includes an array of personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying. The Pentagon has hired the Massachusetts-based company BeNow to run the database. By outsourcing this work to a private firm, the government is circumventing laws that restrict its right to collect or hold citizen information.

If you are concerned about how this information on your children might be used, you should be: The Pentagon has stated that it can share the data with law enforcement, state tax authorities, other agencies making employment inquiries, and with foreign authorities, to name a few. Students will not know if their information has been collected, and they cannot prevent it from happening.

The main obstacle to getting kids into the military — concerned parents — has at long last been circumvented. Private companies can now harvest data on children, and provide recruiters — some of whom are also now private contractors — with the information they need to contact kids directly.

Should skeptical parents find out that the "Mr. Jones" calling for Johnny is offering their child a free ticket to Iraq, the military is spending millions to learn how best to persuade or bypass these negative "influencers." One Pentagon study is focused exclusively on changing mothers' attitudes to enable recruiters to "exert some influence on mothers who are currently against military service."

Grassroots groups are mobilizing against the Pentagon's massive student-recruitment and data-mining campaigns. Leave My Child Alone (www.leavemychildalone.org) offers online opt-out forms that students and parents can download and submit to schools to keep their names off of recruiter contact lists. The group estimates that as of 2006, 37,000 students have opted out of the No Child Left Behind requirement. Students can also file another form to send to the Pentagon to have their names removed from the giant student database.

I signed my form directing our local high school to withhold my daughter's contact information from military recruiters. Other parents undoubtedly missed it. When military recruiters eventually come knocking at their doors, these families will find out the hard way what President Bush really meant when he promised to "leave no child behind."

David Goodman is co-author of "Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders and the People Who Fight Back," published by Hyperion. He lives in Vermont.

[Infowarsnews] Media Hypes Nutcase Scribblings as "Terror Plot Admission"

Media Hypes Nutcase Scribblings as "Terror Plot Admission"
Admits no funding, no bombs, no vehicles, but still saturates fairy tale story while ignoring biggest explosives find in British history

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | October 12 2006

The British media is feverishly hyping the deranged notes of a screwball Muslim Londoner as evidence of a huge "terror plot admission" in which Wall Street and other prominent buildings were the target - despite the fact that the suspect had no means whatsoever to carry out the attack - meanwhile completely ignoring a report earlier this week where the largest haul of explosives and a rocket launcher were found at a white man's house in Burnley.

"A man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder people in a series of bombings on British and US targets," reports the BBC.

"The plans were for attacks on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank buildings in Washington, the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup buildings in New York and the Prudential buildings in Newark, New Jersey."

According to the latest manufactured monster in the closet fairy tale, Dhiren Barot, of north London, planned to use a radioactive "dirty bomb" as well as blowing up cars in underground UK parking lots using gas cylinders and explosives.

Here's the kicker.

"The Crown could not dispute claims from the defence that no funding had been received for the projects, nor any vehicles or bomb-making materials acquired."

No money, no vehicles, no bombs - just some retarded nutcase scrawling absent-minded empty threats in a notebook. Should he be investigated by the police? No doubt about it. Should his "confession" of scribbling demented ramblings in a paper pad be splashed all over the top of the BBC website and head up the evening news as a major foiled bomb plot?

No. That's outright fearmongering and artificially inflating a nothing story to feed into the public's fear of its own shadow - greasing the skids for Blair to shred the remaining tatters of liberty and blanket the country with more shouting telescreens.

The hype surrounding this nothing story is especially vacuous when you consider that earlier in the week the "largest ever" haul of explosives was found at a house in Burnley - including a chemicals, bio-suits and even a rocket launcher. The find was briefly reported on by a handful of local town newspapers but completely blacked out by the national print and TV press.

Some charge that the BBC were complicit in burying the story.

Why was it nixed and why was the suspect later released? Because he wasn't and Arab or Muslim. He couldn't be stereotyped, pigeon-holed and packaged as another example of how deadly Al-Qaeda cells are running around in our back gardens - but Mr. Limo Bomber (pictured above) can. If this guy had dark skin we would be hearing about the biggest terror bust in British history for weeks.

As it is we've heard next to nothing but the government and media are content to luridly obsess about the alleged fantasies of a crackpot who had no means whatsoever of carrying out his ridiculous "Gas Limos Project" - no gas and no limos for a start.

Compare it with past examples where Muslims were targeted, raided, demonized as terrorists, and salacious stories about their supposed impending massacres were given saturation coverage for weeks - before the evidence vanished into thin air and tiny retractions were issued on page 30.

An alleged Al-Qaeda cell was arrested on suspicion of preparing to poison the London Underground with Ricin in January 2003. The government used the incident as a scare tactic to rally Britons behind the imminent war on Iraq. It was eventually disclosed that no Ricin was ever found and all the members of the supposed plot were released with no evidence or charges against them.

In April 2004 police in Manchester arrested a group of Kurds and subsequent newspaper headlines claimed that they were an Al-Qaeda cell planning to bomb Old Trafford football stadium. Their evidence for such a claim was based on police interviews with one of the individuals who had attended a Manchester United game two years previously. Simply because he had attended a football game because he supported the team, the tabloid newspapers invented the story that he was planning on bombing the stadium. All of the suspects, who ironically had come to Britain to escape the regime of Saddam Hussein, were released without charge and with no evidence against them.

The London Guardian reported,

"Of the 701 people arrested under the Terrorism Act since the September 11 attacks, half have been released without charge and only 17 convicted under the act. Only three of those cases relate to allegations of Islamist extremism."

Despite this fact we are regularly bombarded with screaming headlines about mass terror sweeps, and it goes unmentioned that in nearly every case every so-called 'terrorist' is released with no evidence against them. The arrests are at the top of the evening news for days but there is no clarification or retraction when the suspects are set free. This leaves the viewer with the impression that terrorists are everywhere and that only a draconian police state can protect them against the threat.

In June London Metropolitan police had to apologize for a bungled raid in which an innocent man was shot and no evidence of terrorism preparation was found at a Forest Gate home. The raid, which involved nearly 300 armed police, was based on the testimony of a retarded government informant.

Later the same month, British authorities announced they had foiled an Al-Qaeda plot to fly planes into buildings in Canary Wharf. The fact the this story was thoroughly discredited back in November 2004 as a collusion of imaginative government lobbyists and lapdog media collaborators was completely omitted and the story was recycled and regurgitated to re-fuel the politics of fear.

Then came the infamous "transatlantic bomb plot" in August, discredited by a former British Ambassador as "propaganda" and like the Barot case admitted to have been supported by no concrete material evidence.

The origins of the plot strongly indicate it was concocted from within the Pakistani ISI, British MI6 and the CIA - and was intended to go ahead before being scuppered by good intelligence agents who were doing their jobs.

The constant barrage of hyped phony terror alerts and false raids are becoming increasingly transparent to the British public - with only 20% believing their veracity according to a recent Guardian/ICM poll.

[Infowars.com] Biggest bomb plot in British history - doesn't make news

Biggest bomb plot in British history - doesn't make news

The Truth Will Set You Free | October 11 2006

Why?

Because the suspects are NEITHER ARAB, NOR MUSLIM.

A RETIRED Grange dentist is accused of being part of a bomb plot after a record number of explosives were seized in a Lancashire town.

David Bolais Jackson, 62, of Trent Road, Nelson, was arrested on Friday in the Lancaster area after leaving his Grange practice for the last time.

Jackson was charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. [Notice the absence of terrorism charges]

However, it is unclear who or what the intended target might have been.

Police found rocket launchers, chemicals, British National Party literature and a nuclear or biological suit [!!!] at his home.

The find came shortly after they had recovered 22 chemical components from the house of his alleged accomplice, Robert Cottage, a former BNP election candidate, who lives in Colne.

The haul is thought to be THE LARGEST EVER FOUND AT A HOUSE IN THIS COUNTRY.

Aaah, so what? What's a few rocket launchers and a record number of explosives among friends?

They probably had them 'just in case' some Arab Muslims showed up to sell them falafel or hummus - or worse yet, baklava.

After all, they're white - they would never harm their fellow Brits. Whoops! I could be wrong:
[T]he last London mad-bomber – neo-Nazi David Copeland, who nail-bombed the Admiral Duncan and two other pubs in 1999 – caused far more genuine fear than all these alleged Islamist plots in the alleged "pre-planning" (ie coffee-shop bullsh-t) stage.

Copeland "only" killed three people (and maimed about a dozen more) but not for want of trying – the blast of the last bomb he placed was blocked by a pillar. Targeting places where gay, black and Asian people hang out – ie inner-city pubs with good music and food – he was charged simply with murder.
Let's compare and contrast how Cottage, possessing both rocket launchers and explosives, was treated with how Arab Muslim 'suspects', armed with nothing but their names, were treated:

Unlike the Forest Gate raid in east London in June, which involved 250 police, some of them armed, Lancashire police entered Cottage's home with a handful of unarmed officers.

There was no “air exclusion zone” or assaults on neighbours, no closing down of surrounding streets, and no smear stories about those arrested.

Superintendent Neil Smith instantly moved to reassure residents and stressed, “It is not a bomb making factory.” He was able to add that it was not related to terrorism.

Let's face it - it's just not newsworthy.

Move along, there's nothing to see here.

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