Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish guerrilla targets in northern Iraq on Wednesday, Turkey's general staff said, in the fourth such cross-border raid in five days.
Crude oil rose for a third day in New York on concern shipments from Iraq may be disrupted after the Turkish military attacked bases of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy says new measures are being put in place to provide greater protection to children from online pornography and violent websites.
Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.
Online civil libertarians have warned the freedom of the internet is at stake, but Senator Conroy says that is nonsense.
He says the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites.
"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," he said.
"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."
Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.
He says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.
"There are people who are going to make all sorts of statements about the impact on the [internet] speed," he said.
"The internet hasn't ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn't ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it's not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe.
"But that is why we are engaged constructively with the sector, engaging in trials to find a way to implement this in the best possible way and to work with the sector."
Benazir Bhutto claimed three senior allies of Pakistan's president General Musharraf were out to kill her in a secret email to Foreign Secretary David Miliband written weeks before her death.
Astonishingly, one of them is a leading intelligence officer who was officially responsible for protecting Miss Bhutto from an assassination.
The second is a prominent Pakistani figure, one of whose family members was allegedly murdered by a militant group run by Miss Bhutto's brother. The third is a well-known chief minister in Pakistan who is a long-standing opponent of Miss Bhutto.
It was a story CNN's Wolf Blitzer hoped he'd never have to report — an e-mail sent to him through an intermediary by Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto complaining about her security. Conditions of use: only if she were killed.
Bhutto, who was assassinated on Thursday, wrote to Blitzer that if anything happened to her, "I would hold (Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf responsible."
An Islamic militant group said Saturday it had no link to Benazir Bhutto's killing, dismissing government claims that its leader orchestrated the assassination.
Bhutto's aides also said they doubted militant commander Baitullah Mehsud was behind the attack on the opposition leader and accused the government of a cover-up.
No autopsy performed on body; docs say bullet wounds not found
Police abandoned their security posts shortly before Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's assassination Thursday, according to a journalist present at the time, and unanswerable questions remain about the cause of her death, because an autopsy was never performed.
Categories:
Assassination,
Benazir Bhutto,
Pakistan,
Pervez Musharraf,
Saeed Shah,
Wolf Blitzer
#1 No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”
#2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
#3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources
#4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements
#5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
#6 Operation FALCON Raids
#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
#8 KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
#9 Privatization of America’s Infrastructure
#10 Vulture Funds Threaten Poor Nations’ Debt Relief
#11 The Scam of “Reconstruction” in Afghanistan
#12 Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops
#13 Immigrant Roundups to Gain Cheap Labor for US Corporate Giants
#14 Impunity for US War Criminals
#15 Toxic Exposure Can Be Transmitted to Future Generations on a “Second Genetic Code”
#16 No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
#17 Drinking Water Contaminated by Military and Corporations
#18 Mexico’s Stolen Election
#19 People’s Movement Challenges Neoliberal Agenda
#20 Terror Act Against Animal Activists
#21 US Seeks WTO Immunity for Illegal Farm Payments
#22 North Invades Mexico
#23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq
#24 Media Misquotes Threat From Iran’s President
#25 Who Will Profit from Native Energy?
#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo
#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines
#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup
#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US
#15 Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner
#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court
#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda
#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story
#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever
#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem
#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers
#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed
#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe
#24 Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region
Categories:
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AFRICOM,
Blackwater,
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EPA,
GM food,
Halliburton,
ICC,
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Iraq,
KBR,
Steven Jones,
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World Bank,
WTO
The Bush administration is preparing to significantly increase US troop levels in Afghanistan in an attempt to quell growing popular hostility to the US and NATO occupying forces. It is doing so with full confidence that it will face no significant opposition from the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a suicide attack.
Ms Bhutto - the first woman PM in an Islamic state - was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi when a gunman shot her in the neck and set off a bomb.
At least 20 other people died in the attack and several more were injured.
This year's housing bust is shaping up to be one of historic proportions. Sales and construction have sunk to levels not seen since the 1990 savings and loan crisis, while foreclosures and price drops are the largest since the Great Depression — and expected to get worse next year.
New York City police are moving forward on a multimillion-dollar counter-terrorism initiative, installing more than a hundred license plate readers and eventually thousands of cameras in Lower Manhattan. NY1 Criminal Justice Reporter Solana Pyne takes a look at the program in the following report.
As Police officer Michael Gerbasi drives, a camera on the roof of his patrol car photographs license plates. A computer then checks a database to see, for example, if the car is stolen.
"It will notify us with an alert sound on the computer, and then actually there is a voice that speaks out and says, ‘stolen vehicle’ and it will give you a picture of the plate and a description of the vehicle,” says Gerbasi.
More than a hundred of the readers – some on cars, others in fixed places – are about to be deployed en-masse in Lower Manhattan as part of a massive $106 million counter-terrorism initiative years in the planning.
“Starting in January, we'll be putting in our license plate readers. That will be, kind of, phase one of this program,” says Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
The license plate readers are just the tip of the iceberg in what's billed as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative.
“We're looking to put in, ultimately, a thousand cameras in public spaces, link it to 2,000 private sector cameras,” says Kelly.
All the cameras would be monitored by police at one location. Virtually anyone who walks or drives south of Canal Street could be under surveillance.
The plan also includes mobile barriers on streets the department says are key choke points into the area. They could be automatically moved into place, effectively sealing off Lower Manhattan.
“That will enable us to wall off that area in extreme situations,” says Kelly.
It's all modeled on the so-called ring of steel in London, where cameras have helped authorities find terrorism suspects. It’s a first for the US.
"This is the first time that the government and the police in particular will have the ability to track everyone moving around in a public area,” says Chris Dunn of the NYCLU.
Concerned it's an invasion of privacy, the NYCLU has issued freedom of information law requests to get more information about exactly how the program works.
“The police department should not be spending a hundred million dollars of public money to put up thousands of cameras to track New Yorkers without there being some public debate and some public oversight,” says Dunn.
Police say the only information kept long-term will be about suspected law breakers. And that the City Council already approved part of the $40 million dollars the department is using to get the program started.
Top-secret details about hundreds of sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects are to be released for public viewing in response to the nation's continuing fascination with the subject.
The Ministry of Defence will release a total of 160 files dating back to that time to the National Archives in Kew.
The first files will be made available in Spring 2008 and the process is expected to take three years.
Pentagon auditors said they could not account for millions of dollars worth of rocket-propelled grenades, armored vehicles, ammunition and other supplies and equipment that were to be used to train and equip Iraqi security forces, because of inadequate paperwork and a lack of oversight personnel.
A report released last week by the Defense Department's inspector general looked at $5.2 billion in the Iraq Security Forces Fund, which is part of the $44.5 billion U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq.
It found that the command in charge, known as the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, couldn't provide "reasonable assurance" that the money for the Iraqi security forces was used properly and that it was protected from "waste and mismanagement."
The inspector general said the command was unable to prove that it received 12,712 of the 13,508 weapons it bought because the serial numbers were not kept when they were brought to the Abu Ghraib warehouse, and when they were sent out there wasn't adequate paperwork tracking them to a contract. The 13,508 weapons were made up of 7,002 pistols, 3,230 assault rifles, 2,389 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 887 machine guns.
The inspector general's report follows an audit this summer by the Government Accountability Office that said the Pentagon lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. The GAO report looked at weapons in the early part of the training and equipping program.
Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the inspector general, said there was "no way of telling" whether the Defense Department auditors looked at the same weapons as the GAO.
The inspector general's audit also looked at a random sample of equipment purchases, worth $1.1 billion. Of $643.1 million worth of contracts for armored vehicles, weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, garbage trucks and other supplies, the inspector general was able to follow a paper trail for only 12.9 percent -- or $82.9 million -- of it. For another set of purchases, worth $438.2 million, there was an audit trail for only 1 percent.
Tony Blair raised fears about an investigation into a Saudi arms deal days before it was dropped last year, a newly-disclosed document has shown.
The then PM had said the decision to stop the probe into the BAE deal was taken because of national security and was not linked to commercial interests.
But in a letter released during a legal case, Mr Blair refers to "concern" over ongoing business negotiations.
Downing Street has refused to comment on the letter to his attorney general.
The letter from Mr Blair to Lord Goldsmith dated 8 December 2006 was released to the High Court during a case brought by two pressure groups who are challenging the legality of the decision to end investigations into BAE Systems' dealings with Saudi Arabia.
It refers "critical difficulties" that might have affected the major contract for new military aircraft
On the 234th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s supporters have set two fund raising records --- one for the Internet and a second for most raised in 24 hours.
As 24 hours approach on the West Coast, Paul supporters bested John Kerry’s fund raising record from 2004 when $5.7 million was added in 24 hours. After their “Tea Party” money bomb, Dr. Paul has $6.4 million and counting.
EU leaders have signed a treaty in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, that is expected to greatly alter the way the 27-nation body operates.
The treaty creates an EU president and a more powerful foreign policy chief.
The document, signed at a ceremony at the city's historic Jeronimos Monastery, also scraps veto powers in many policy areas.
It is a replacement for the EU constitution, which was abandoned following French and Dutch opposition.
EU leaders insist that the two texts are in no way equivalent.
But the Lisbon treaty incorporates some of the draft constitution's key reforms, and several governments face domestic pressure over the document.
In a speech before the signing, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called on European leaders to use the treaty to make freedom, prosperity and solidarity an everyday reality for all European citizens.
"From this old continent, a new Europe is born," he said.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the treaty would create a more modern, efficient and democratic union.
"The world needs a stronger Europe," he said.
The leaders signed the treaty, translated into the EU's 23 official languages, using specially engraved silver fountain pens as a choir sang Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
UK signing
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown signed the treaty later in the day after missing the ceremony, citing a prior engagement in the British parliament.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband attended the signing ceremony.
The UK's opposition Conservatives accused Mr Brown of "not having the guts" to sign the treaty, which is politically controversial in Britain, in public.
Having started this year with a celebration of its 50th birthday, the EU hopes the signing of the Lisbon treaty will end the serious mid-life crisis brought about by the death of the constitution, the BBC's Oana Lungescu reports.
There will be a lot of relief, said a senior European diplomat, but also some apprehension about what happens next.
Ireland is the only country planning to hold a referendum, but most voters there seem either undecided or indifferent.
Parliaments in Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark are also expected to give a turbulent reception to the 250-page text.
However, Germany, France and Poland have pledged to be among the first to ratify it, so that the new reforms can come into force in 2009 as planned.
The treaty is a slimmed-down version of the European constitution, with a more modest name and without any reference to EU symbols such as the flag and anthem.
It is meant to ease decision-making, by scrapping national vetoes in some 50 policy areas, including sensitive ones such as police and judicial co-operation.
There will also be a foreign policy chief, controlling a big budget and thousands of diplomats and officials, and a permanent EU president appointed for up to five years.
But some already fear that instead of giving Europe a strong single voice in the world, the new posts will only generate more rivalry, our correspondent adds.
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the architect of the abandoned European Constitution, has admitted that the document has been rewritten by EU leaders in a different order just to avoid the need for referendums.
Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for the US economy, warning of a sharp slowdown in business investment and a "perfect storm" for consumers as the housing slump spreads.
Iran has stopped selling its oil for U.S. dollars, the Iranian ISNA news agency said on Saturday, citing the country's oil minister.
"In line with a policy of selling crude oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, the sale of our country's oil in U.S. dollars has been completely eliminated," ISNA reported Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari as saying.
Regular use of mobile telephones increases the risk of developing tumours, a new scientific study by Israeli researchers and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology revealed on Friday.
An extract of the report seen by Israel's Yedoit Aharonot newspaper put the risk of developing a parotid gland tumour nearly 50 percent higher for frequent mobile phone users -- more than 22 hours a month.
The risk was still higher if users clamped the phone to the same ear, did not use hands-free devices or were in rural areas.
"Analysis restricted to regular users or to conditions that may yield higher levels of exposure (eg heavy use in rural areas) showed consistently elevated risks," said an abstract of the report in the US journal made available to AFP.
The study included 402 benign and 58 malignant incident cases of parotid gland tumour diagnosed in Israel at age 18 years or more, in 2001-2003.
The research was led by Dr Siegal Sadetzki, a cancer and radiation expert at the Chaim Sheba Medical Centre in Israel and as part of a World Health Organisation project.
Don't ever say the Bush administration doesn't take care of its own. Nearly three years after Paul Wolfowitz resigned as deputy Defense secretary and six months after his stormy departure as president of the World Bank—amid allegations that he improperly awarded a raise to his girlfriend—he's in line to return to public service. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel, according to two department sources who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters. The 18-member panel, which has access to highly classified intelligence, advises Rice on disarmament, nuclear proliferation, WMD issues and other matters.
Wolfowitz, now a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, will replace former senator Fred Thompson, who quit over the summer to run for president. Although officials declined to say how Rice came to choose him, Wolfowitz began his government career in the 1970s in the State Department as an arms-control expert; he forged a relationship with Rice during the 2000 presidential campaign, when they both served as top foreign-policy advisers to the then candidate Bush. But his selection has raised more than a few eyebrows within State because he'll be providing advice on some of the same issues that critics say the administration got spectacularly wrong when Wolfowitz was pushing the case for the Iraq War at the Pentagon. (One of the department sources called the appointment "amazing.") At least Wolfowitz, who did not return calls seeking comment, will have like-minded company: other panel members include Robert Joseph, the former National Security Council official in charge of Iraq WMD intelligence, and ex-CIA director James Woolsey, both strong allies during the Iraq debate.
The sources said Wolfowitz has already accepted Rice's offer to fill the part-time position, though it won't be announced until the completion of a standard check for conflicts of interest. But he won't have to worry about any complaints from pesky Democrats. The position doesn't require Senate confirmation. "We think he is well suited and will do an excellent job," said one senior official.