raq was a secular state. Although its intelligence agencies under Sadaam had aided Islamist terrorist groups that target Western interests, there was little or no evidence to indicate that Iraq supported Al Qaeda. Iraq’s support for Islamist and other secular terrorists, as well as various criminal organizations increased during and after the first “Gulf war”. Through the various intelligence agencies of the Hussein regime , using diplomatic facilities ,such as the the diplomatic mailbag (DPL mailbag), they moved money , arms, ammunition and explosives to countries ranging from Thailand, to the Philippines and Sri Lanka with the intention of attacking US and allied interests.
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Stay safe of phishing over phone
Scammers are now trying to make you call them up and divulge your personal and financial details. Watch out before you answer that call.
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Things have just got ‘phishier’ on the Net. Those scammers who have made our lives tough with email phishing have devised a new game. Called ‘voice phishing’, the technique is being used to dig out our details and committing various crimes online.
The scammers set up a fake call center using VoIP (Voice over IP). They send email message claiming to come from a reputed company. But instead of giving a website link to click on, they send a phone number to call. Once you call on that number, what you hear sounds like the company’s telephone queuing system. The unsuspecting user thinks it is the genuine company and gets easily deceived.
The recorded message you hear after dialing the number asks for details like your payment card information (numbers, expiry dates and the last three digits printed on the signature panel), PIN (Personal Identification Number) social insurance number, date of birth, bank account numbers and passport number. Each one of these is valuable information for the phisher as it can give him the control of your financial accounts, help open new bank accounts, transfer bank balances, file loan applications, apply for credit cards and other goods/services, purchase luxury items, conceal criminal activities, receive government grants or secure a passport.
The email can be sent out as “image spam. This means the email carries an embedded image instead of actual words so your spam filter will not be able to catch it.
Voice phishing catches you unawares. The clever scammer has asked you to call on a number. You are well acquainted with the names of your favourite online companies but there are bleak chances that you know their numbers as well. That’s where the scammer outsmarts you, making you call on the number and divulge your confidential account information.
When you smell something phishy
There are ways you can differentiate a ‘phish’ from genuine messages. The message comprises language/information that sounds strange or too exciting. It can demand an immediate response and is not personalised in most cases.
Always be wary of any unsolicited incoming communication. Do not divulge any personal information on phone unless you have called your bank yourself. Always check the number you are calling and tally it with the number listed on your bank’s website. Avoid sending personal information and bank account details over email. In case of credit cards, for verification purposes, use the telephone number printed on the back of the card. Also remember no bank asks you for PINs, passwords or all 16 digits of your credit card number. Once you notice a ‘phish’ do not click on that link. Report it immediatel
Sphere: Related ContentMounting international pressure after 9 /11 finally galvanized the British authorities into action; Abu Qatada’s West London home was raided and 180,00 British pound Sterling in various currencies seized ( until then he been fraudulently claiming social welfare). Abu Qyatada who enjoyed political asylum in Britain , was named by the United Nations as a terror suspect and by the Spanish authorities as Al Qaeda’s spiritual ambassador in Europe. He was also leader of the Takfir Wal Hijra, which was then headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri - later to obtain much greater fame and fortune in noteriety and world media.
Despite intelligence claims and reports that he had not met Osama in the 1980’s , Abu Qatada denies ever having done so. However he is wanted by the Jordanian government in connection with a series of bombings in Amman in late 1998.
Strategic Political Intelligence
Sphere: Related ContentSex Survey On Indian Youth
SEX SURVEY - India today, a leading magazine in India conducted SEX SURVEY in India. Survey was conducted on 2,559 males in the age group of 16-25 years across 11 prime cities of India. Interesting findings of the survey are as follows.46% single 16-25 year old males have had sex. 63% single young men expect the women they marry to be a virgin. 37% single young men have had a homosexual experience. 49% young men had sex with sex workers 50% young men believe women who wear revealing clothes are sexually liberated 58% young men say good grooming is important to attract the attention of the girls 56% made their contact with the girls in friends circle. 83% keep in touch with their girl friend over phone 56% parents do not object to mixing with female friends. 74% do not want to marry a woman who admits to having had pre-marital sex with one or few partners.37% worried about people staring when they out with his girl friend 63% would not like to marry or date a woman much older to him. 55% go with their girl friends to restaurant63% discuss with their female friends about movies 31% say they spend Rs.50-Rs.100/- when they go out with their male friends. 27% say they spend Rs.100-Rs. 250/- when they go with their girl friend. Of all the above findings, I was stuck at the finding “74% do not want to marry a woman who admits to having had pre-marital sex with one or few partners”. This means the inner heart still feels pre-marital sex is wrong. After all we are doing many wrong things in our life. Just like smoking, drinking alcohol, which are proven injurious to health. Casual pre-marital sex is still dangerous to health and to the family. To conclude I say sex with partner gives most pleasure and one will enjoy it to the core when it is done with purity. Avoid pre-marital/extra marital sex for the purest and highest enjoyment.
In the 1960s, Brigitte Bardot was France’s national icon, a pouty-lipped poster girl for the glories of her home country. So it is a sign of how radically times have changed that yesterday’s silver-screen darling is today’s enemy of the people.Bardot’s “crimes,” such as they are, are straightforward: She has committed the sin of speaking frankly and unapologetically about her country’s hostile Muslim immigrant population and – what is evidently worse – questioning the compatibility of some Muslim religious practices with Western society. Common sense, one might think, or least subjects fit for fruitful debate.
Not in modern France. Last week, the erstwhile cinema siren went on trial on the charge of inciting “racial hatred against Muslims.” If convicted, she could face a two-month suspended prison sentence and nearly $24,000 in fines.
The basis for the charge is utterly bogus. It stems from a letter that Bardot wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006, in which she complained about the practices of Islamic immigrants. In particular, Bardot was put off by the ritual of Eid al-Adha, a Muslim feast in which sheep and goats are slaughtered by having their throats slit. A longtime animal-rights activist, Bardot found the practice abominable.
Her mistake was in thinking that she had the freedom to say so. But as France struggles to control a large (Muslims make up nearly ten percent of the country) and increasingly radicalized Muslim population critics of Islamism are finding themselves more actively persecuted by national authorities than the Islamists themselves.
Bardot is a case in point. Her latest legal woes may seem troubling, but they are only the latest battle in a larger war waged by Islamic radicals and their allies to suppress all criticism of Islam and its more militant and anti-Western incarnations. It speaks to the success of these state-backed exercises in intimidation that Bardot has been convicted for “inciting racial hatred” on four separate occasions.
Bardot’s trials, literal and figurative, at the hands of the Fifth Republic’s multicultural enforcers date back to the early 1990s, when she first spoke out against the slaughtering of animals for religious purposes. Although Bardot directed her attacks against Muslims and Jews, it was her criticism of the former that got her branded as a racist. By 1997, Bardot stood convicted on the charge of “inciting racial hatred” after suggesting in the French daily Le Figaro that France was beset by a “foreign over-population,” including with Muslim immigrants.
It was unclear, then as now, how criticism of a non-racial group, in this case Muslims, could be considered “racist.” Nor was it apparent why an issue as fundamental to the welfare of a nation as immigration was suddenly to be deemed off-limits for discussion. But the Orwellian subtext of the case was impossible to miss: There were some things that French citizens simply were not allowed to discuss.
Bardot pointedly ignored the lesson. The following year, she likened the slaughter of animals in Islamic rituals to the throat-slitting favored by Islamic fundamentalists in North Africa, implying that the connection was not coincidental. It was a provocative point, to be sure, but by no means an unreasonable one. Where the world’s leading religions have shed their cruelest tendencies, Islam as practiced in much of the world – one need only recall the gruesome decapitation murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl – retains its more savage elements.
In any case, criticizing religious practices would seem to be entirely consistent with European free-speech statutes, especially in anticlerical France. And, indeed, a lower court initially found Bardot’s comments to be protected by free-speech laws. That was too much for an appeals court, however, and before long it reversed the decision and slapped Bardot with a fine. Free speech was a fine thing, apparently, so long as it didn’t offend Muslims.
It would not be the last time that Bardot incurred the wrath of French censors. In 2000, she was again convicted of “racist” thought crimes for writing what she called an “Open Letter to My Lost France,” in which she raised concerns about Muslim immigration. As on past occasions, the merits of her concerns were not specifically examined, their focus on Muslims being deemed sufficient proof their unacceptability for public discussion – this even as French banlieues, home to unassimilated Muslim immigrants, seethed with the violent hatred that would erupt in riots across France in 2005.
Bardot was undaunted. In 2003, she again ran afoul of “anti-racism laws” when she published A Cry in the Silence, a book decrying what she called “the Islamisation of France,” and pointing out the obvious ties between the September 11 attacks and Islamic extremism. In that book, Bardot also cautioned against the dangers of rubbishing Western freedoms to accommodate political sensitivities. “For 20 years we have submitted to a dangerous and uncontrolled underground infiltration,” she wrote. “Not only does it fail to give way to our laws and customs. Quite the contrary, as time goes by it tries to impose its own laws on us.” As if to demonstrate her point, French authorities proceeded to fine her 5,000 euros for offending Muslims. (Revealingly, Bardot’s views proved far more popular among the French public, which turned A Cry of Silence into a bestseller.)
To understand just how sinister are the attacks on Bardot it is useful to consider the group that repeatedly has brought suit against her, the Movement Against Racism And For Friendship Between Peoples (MRAP). Inaccurately called a human-rights group, the MRAP is in fact an aggressive silencer of free-speech.
Its most famous contribution to French political life was to thwart the sale of the late Oriana Fallaci’s 2002 book, Anger and Pride, on the grounds that it supposedly incited racial hatred against Muslims. Similarly, when Bardot published A Cry in the Silence in 2003, the MRAP pronounced it “unacceptable,” thus appointing itself the arbiter of what French citizens should and should not be allowed to read.
But of course groups like the MRAP would be inconsequential were it not for the dangerous proclivity of the French legal establishment for treating their fictitious allegations of racism with unmerited seriousness. In this context, it was illuminating when a French prosecutor last week called for unusually stiff penalties against Bardot in the current case against the actress because she was a “bit tired of trying Madame Bardot.” How much easier it would be for that civil servant and countless others like her if nuisances like Bardot would simply surrender their right to speak freely.
Bardot may not be the most artful of social commentators, but then she doesn’t need to be. Nothing demonstrates the prescience of her warnings – not least her warning about the dangers of sacrificing Western liberties to accommodate the extreme demands of hostile minority groups – so much as the ongoing efforts of the French state to silence the woman it once hailed as an idol.
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Sphere: Related ContentNinety percent of businesses are struggling to contain the phenomenon of ‘anonymous proxies’, websites used to bypass URL filtering security, according to a new survey.
The survey was carried out by filtering outfit Bloxx, which asked a sample of 146 companies across a range of sectors plus a portion of its own customer base, to assess whether proxies were causing them problems.
Only 10 percent said they weren’t a problem at all, leaving the remainder to describe it as a ‘minor problem’ (37 percent), a ‘fairly serious problem’ (36 percent), and a ‘major problem’ (15 percent).
Nearly 59 percent thought the issue had grown in the last year, with 8 percent claiming it now consumed more than four hours per week of precious IT time. A quarter of those asked reckoned the issue was becoming difficult to contain.
Statistics can’t tell the whole story, but these suggest that the issue has crept up on IT departments which even after years of security investment still have few tools to help them cope. “Anonymous proxies are a huge problem which has grown significantly over the past few years, especially within education,” said Eamonn Doyle, managing director of Bloxx.
“Relying on a URL database web filter alone to quickly detect and block anonymous proxies would now appear to be problematic and can certainly expose an organisation to a high level of risk,” he concluded. No information was gleaned on what is perhaps the most interesting part of the proxy story – what is driving people to use them.
A ‘fight club’ bake-off between a range of URL filtering products held at this month’s RSA security show concluded that when confronted with porn, all URL filters appear to work well. The problem is that it didn’t measure filtering systems against proxies, which one vendor, Watchguard, said few could cope with. Conclusion: URL filtering is obsolete.
Bloxx – which promotes its own Tru-View technology to block proxies – hinted that in the corporate sphere it was social networking and not porn that was creating the demand for proxying websites. One answer might lie with simply permitting access to these sites for the Facebook generation as a policy, in a stroke taking away a user’s motivation for using proxies in the first place.
Sphere: Related ContentWith crude oil prices hitting new all time highs, solar power clearly has the momentum and is helping bring about a transformational shift in corporate energy usage.
Solar’s rapid expansion on the corporate energy efficiency front is good news for companies in the solar food chain – ranging from producers of polysilicon, to the manufacturers of solar cells, to the service firms that install solar systems.
Moreover, this year solar energy may get an additional boost, since U.S. lawmakers appear likely to pass the extension of a key solar-industry tax credit. The bill, if passed, would extend the 30% commercial tax credit by eight years and the residential credit by one year and would remove a $2,000 cap on residential systems. Importantly, utilities would be able to take advantage of the credit for the first time.
According to Levine, the companies best positioned to ride this solar wave are major photovoltaics manufacturers like First Solar (FSLR), SunPower Corp. (SPWR) and Suntech Power Holdings (STP) – each of whom are leading the solar industry ever closer to the “Holy Grail” of grid parity, thereby driving demand in the corporate, utilities and home markets.
Along with solar power, there is another standout in the corporate race towards greater energy efficiency.
Sphere: Related ContentHuge Shift Occurring in Corporate Energy Usage
· 26% of corporate respondents say their company has used Less energy than normal over the past 6 months
· Only 16% say they’ve used More
Reducing Energy Usage
· 22% report their company is Very Concerned about reducing energy usage
· 35% Somewhat Concerned
Spending on Energy Efficient Products And Technologies – Next 6 Months
· 23% say they will Increase Spending
· 8% say they will Decrease Spending
Top Alternative Energy Technology – It’s Solar Power
· 8% say company currently uses alternative energy technologies
· 21% say they’ll install alt energy equipment in next 5 years
Leading Types of Alt Energy Equipment to be Installed
· Solar (72%)
· Wind (19%)
Biggest Barriers to Installation
· 39% initial capital investment
· 24% unattractive payback period
Top Product Being Purchased Next 6 Months
· 28% Energy efficient lighting
· 13% Solar power
· 13% Energy efficient computer hardware
· 10% HVAC Systems
· 9% Fuel efficient vehicles
· 7% Server Virtualization
LED Has Momentum
Lighting Purchased –
Past 6 Months
· Regular Florescent (42%)
· Compact Florescent (39%)
· LED Lighting (14%)
Next 6 Months
· Compact Florescent (36%)
· Regular Florescent (31%)
· LED Lighting (21%)
Sphere: Related ContentOne can only presume that the previously unpublished revelation that London was a simultaneous target of the 9/11 attacks. At the planning stages of the New York and Washington attacks, Al Qaeda realized that Britain would most likely support any punitive American action against the organization and its Afgan hosts, the Taliban , and so planned a simultaneous attempt to destroy the British Houses of Parliament by crashing into it a British Airways jumbo jet hijacked from Heathrow airport. Muhammad Afroz, an Indian suicide pilot , trained in Melbourne, Australia and Britain was subsequently arrested in Mumbai, India. On the basis of interrogation of suspected Indian agents , Indian intelligence came to believe that Al Qaeda had infiltrated a suicide team into Britain to attack the Houses of Parliament.
Indeed Afroz’s cell was one of three highly trained Al Qaeda teams - the other two being assigned to India and Australia. In addition to striking Westminster in an airborne attack , they also had plans to attack the Tower Bridge on the river Thames, but the latter target was dropped in early September. The suicide team was to hijack a British Airways jet bound from London to Mumbai on September 9 , 2001 ( the original dates scheduled for the Washington and New York attacks), but in an encrypted message received at the last moment from their Al Qaeda operational commander in America, the operation was postponed to September 11 , 2001.
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Sphere: Related ContentThere was less sea ice in the Arctic than ever before listed in recorded records. Melting is continuing. The National Snow and Ice Center has reported “There is at the least sea ice that has ever been seen in the satellite records. “the polar regions are expected to feel the impact of climate change sooner and to a greater extent than other regions of earth.
Sphere: Related ContentWhen Hitler set out to conquer the world, it was American blood, treasure and determination that stopped him. When the Soviet Union set out to subject the world to communism, it was American blood, treasure and determination that stopped it. If the Muslim extremists’ quest to subject the world to radical Islam is to be stopped, it will, once again, take American blood, treasure and determination.
It may be true that the Islamic extremists who call for world domination represent only a minority of the world’s Muslims. Minority or not, it is they who drive the Muslim agenda and unashamedly slaughter untold thousands of people in the name of their Allah. They claim their authority comes from the Quran – the same Quran, and the same Allah, the rest of the Muslim world worships. Consequently, all Muslims must bear the responsibility for the inhumane actions of the extremist minority.
If the extremists are such a minority of the Muslim population, why does the majority not put a stop to the extremists? There can be only two possible answers: either the majority is in agreement with the goals, if not the tactics, of the extremists, or the majority is incapable of controlling the minority. Both answers are probably correct. When a cartoonist published a caricature of Allah, Muslims around the world filled the streets in protest. Were they all extremists, or just in agreement with the goals of the extremists?
By contrast, the image of Christ is desecrated regularly, and the public response is “ho-hum.”
Sphere: Related ContentIs the “War on Terror” Based on a False Hope?
In the days following 9/11, George W. Bush assured America and the world that Islam was a “religion of peace” and that the violent followers of Osama Bin Laden had twisted the true Muslim faith. Acting on this belief, President Bush and other Western leaders sent troops to the Middle East in an effort to bring freedom and democracy to the Muslim world.
But what if this “understanding” of Islam is based not on fact, but instead on equal parts wishful thinking and Islamic deceit? It would mean that the entire War on Terror is based on a faulty–and increasingly deadly–premise.
In “Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World”, author and filmmaker Gregory M. Davis rebuts the notion that Islam is a great faith in desperate need of a Reformation. Instead, he exposes it as a form of totalitarianism, a belief system that orders its adherents not to baptize all nations, but to conquer and subdue them. Islamic law’s governance of every aspect of religious, political, and personal action has far more in common with Nazism than with the tenets of Christianity or Judaism.
Davis details how Islamic thought divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat: dar al-Islam (”House of Islam,” where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb (”House of War,” the rest of the world). This concise yet thorough book leaves no doubt as to why most of the world’s modern conflicts are connected to Islam–and calls into question why Western elites refuse to acknowledge Islam’s violent nature.
Virtually every contemporary Western leader has expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This widely circulated claim is false.
Relying primarily on Islam’s own sources, “Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World” demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government. Further, it shows that the jihadis that Westerners have been indoctrinated to believe are extremists, are actually in the mainstream.
“Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World” is nothing less than a wake-up call to all civilized
Sphere: Related ContentPakistan’s post benazir scene is becoming more and more dangerous, indeed alarming. Remarkably, like the man responsible for the great and growing turmoil, the recently retired General Pervez Musharraf, his mentor the united states is also tormented deeply. Both are growing in the dark even though the objective of both is to prolong musharraf’s precarious hold on power.
Washington’s relentless drive to arrange a political marriage of sorts between the pakistan people’s party leader, Benazir Bhutto, and Musharraf alone would not be able to stabilize the country, a partnership between him and her might.
This plan dubious at the best of times, now lies buried at the mausoleum Benazir had built for her father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, first toppled and then are executed by an earlier military regime. It is against the backdrop that the latest pakistani developments fall into place.
One of these is Musharraf’s belated and grudging admission that benazir Bhutto might have been shot dead. Up to now he and his administration, run by sycophants and agents, many of them serving or retired spooks and army men had been insisting that no shots were fired. Clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, displayed in slow motion on tv screens across the world has taken the wind out of their sails. Yet, Musharraf still holds that Benazir was repsonsible for her own death because she knew how serious was the threat to her life and should not have risen to the greet the crowd through the sunroof of her armoured car. He doesn’t explain how the assailant, carrying an automatic weapon, could get to the slain leader at point blank range. No wonder a majority of Pakistani believes that the government had a hand in Benazir’s elimination, and both the credibility and acceptance of the Musharraf regime are at an all time low.
It has also gone unnoticed that while Musharraf did not display even the elementary courtesy of making any gesture to the bereaved family, the new chief of the army staff, general Ashfaque Pervaiz Kiyani, conspicuously, sent a wreath. He was in Karachi at the time of the terrible tragedy. He immediatley cut short of his stay and returned to Rawalpindi, and took steps that no one in the army made any comments, publicly, that could be considered improper.
Seasoned observers are watching carefully how the new realationship between the civilian president and the new army chief develops eventually. No one is doing so more keenly than the White House and the Pentagon both of which are speaking highly of General Kiyani closley linked to this and crucially important is the second development.
The dynastic succession to Benazir, so manipulated by the family that the ppp’s leadership has passed from the late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to his daughter’s windower, Asif Ali Zardari via Benazir’s and Zardari’s son, Bilawal, who is to spend some years at oxford, where the Grandpa Zulfi and mama Benazir also studied. During this period Zardari would be a regent of sorts to his son. He has started comparing his role to that of Sonia Gandhi of India. But so maladorous is his image that even in the midst of genuine and widespread grief over Benazir’s assassination, people in pakistan are joking that “Mr 10% would soon become Mr 20%.”
The third major new development, not sufficiently noticed yet, is arguably the most significant is some respects. It is the forced resignation of the governor of the north west frontier province, retired Lieutenant- General Ali Mohammed Jan Orakzai.
Whatever the pretence, the reality is that Musharraf’s has had to dismiss Orakzai at America’s Behest this is so because orakzai at America’s behost. This is so because Orakzai, a pushton himself and a former commander of the peshawar corps, has been the author of the policy of negotiating with the tribal leaders with waziristan and other lands along afghanistan- pakistani border. He has been totally opposed to pakistani millitary action in waziristan or elsewhere and this has understandbly annoyed the americans. Interestingly, the mutual dislike of orakzai and americans was heightened when, during a visit to the us, he was strip-searched before being allowed in.
It is not all surprising that orakzai’s removal has coincided with the publication of reports with respected americans newspapers that the us millitary and the CIA are planning to embark on unilateral covert action against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s borderlands. The official spokesmen of the official pakistani foreign office has expected declared that this is not permissible and that the pakistani armed forces alone would have any millitary action considered necessary with pakistan. But all this could be smokescreen for what is really afoot.
American concern about the future of pakistan especially about the danger of islamist fundamentalism spreading from the borderlands to the heartland of the country is genuine. As is their fear that Jihadi terrorists might gain control of the Pakistani’s nuclear weapons. Hilary Clinton, the democratic hopeful for the presidency, was not indulging in loose talk when she pleaded that America and Britain should act jointly to ensure the safely and security of pakistani nukes though she must know that this would infuriate the pakistani’s, including musharraf’s critics, infact the USA should stop considering pakistani’s “discredited dictators” as a key alley in the war or terror but should dump him and let Pakistan freely elect the new democratic government.
Yet the moronic “new-conservatives” in the dying Bush administration continue to regard musharraf as their “best bet”. Even they are aware that musharraf has been playing both ends of the street- keeping the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and occasionally arresting an Al Qaeda leader and handing him over to Americans. Even so while remonstrating with him in private, they have been praising him in public. Now, necessity appears to have made them partners again in interesting crime. The americans realize that in order to get hung national assembly that would enable him to remain dominant as a civilian president acceptable to the army Musharraf would have to be allowed to rig the february 18th election up to a point. Evidently, they would let him do so and ask of a quid pro quo: jointly millitary action in tribal areas by pakistan and US forces jointly.
From all accounts, Musharraf has promised to work with Americans as required. It is certain that he would renage on his promise after his purpose is served. After all, as the respected pakistani commentator, Ahmed Rashid, has pointed out, in realation to the vigorous american campaign to promote a Benazir- Musharraf power sharing compromise, Musharaf “fooled both Benazir and the Americans”, moreover, as there cannot be limited rigging just as there cannot be a limited pregnancy. From Kenya to Georgia, consquences of rigged poles are becoming clear as daylight.
In Pakistan itself Zulfi Bhutto eventually paid for rigging with his life. Musharraf is thus stuck on the horns of a painful dilemma. If he doesn’t rig the election, the new elected assembly would impeach him, if he does rig it, he might invite an explosion in the country that is already on the brink.
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Sphere: Related ContentBeghal’s suspected bombmaker was his former flatmate Damoudi , a second generation North African of French citizenship. Daoudi , who escaped the French police, was arrested in Leicester and promptly deported to France at the end of September 2001. A graduate of Al Qaeda’s Afghan training camps, he is thought to have the group’s European encryption specialist for internet communications and the use of codes and ciphers. Nizar Trabeseli , a former footballer , is suspected of being Beghal’s suicide bomber. A member of Takfir Wal Hijra, he had trained in Afghanistan and apparently believed that a “matyrdom” operation wold cleanse his past sins
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Three radical clerics of a radical persuasion are based in Britain- Omar Baker Muhammad , Omar Mahmoud Othman ( alias Abu Umr al-Takfiri, Abu Qatada) and Moustapha Kamel ( alias Abu Hamza Al- Masri). After listening to their sermons at least 100 British and European Muslims traveled to Afghanistan and are now being held by the Northern Alliance or are in American custody at “Camp X-Ray”.
In addition to preaching in their own mosques, these Islamic Clerics attracted youths from other mosques throughout the U.K. “Richard Reid”, the “Shoe Bomber” and Zacarias Moussaoui, acuused of being the “twentieth 9 // 11 hijacker , both worshiped at the same Brixton mosque in South London headed by Iman Abdul Haqq Baker a “moderate” and respected cleric.
Sphere: Related ContentHOT-SPOTS AROUND THE WORLD
China
Military observers point to the fact the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has increased the number of its belligerent military drills. These include the ground forces, the air force and the PLA South China Sea Fleet. Chinese officials talking in Beijing to journalists and diplomats said there is no specific definition for the drills but agreed the landing of amphibious forces and rapid deployment of missile batteries near the Straits of Taiwan, are a clear message to the government in Taipei and therefore to its allies China has not abandoned her quest to re-unite Taiwan with mainland China. In Taiwan the military is closely following the events and is demonstrating its readiness to fight in case of a Chinese invasion. Taiwanese historians are reiterating the island’s history, which for generations was either independent or under Japanese control. Comment: It is important to note that most drills took place between the urban centers of Guangzhou and Ningbu. Geographical comparison: total area of China 9,596,960 sq.km. Slightly smaller than the U.S. Chinese borders: Afghanistan 76 km., Bhutan 470 km., Burma 2,185 km., India 3,380 km., Kazakhstan 1,533 km., North Korea 1.416 km., Kyrgizstan 858 km., Laos 423 km., Mongolia 4,677 km., Nepal 1,236 km., Pakistan 523 km., Russia-North East 3,605 km, Russia-North West 40, Tajikistan 414 km., Vietnam 1,281 km. Total borders: 22,117 km. Coastline: 14,500 km. The shortest distance between mainland China and Taiwan is about 200 km. across the Straits of Taiwan.
Afghanistan
According to analysts familiar with the region NATO, the U.S. and the Afghani intelligence had anticipated the latest military developments in Afghanistan. The neo-Taliban are initiating hostile operations as part of their long anticipated spring campaign. The problems faced by NATO forces, the U.S. led coalition and the Afghani security forces are their inability to successfully secure the border with neighboring countries, predominantly Pakistan and Iran. According to a Pakistani official various pockets of tribal militias are scattered along the border of north Vaziristan. The Pakistani army is limiting its operations against these pockets, estimated at anywhere between 600 to 1,000 mixed Pakistani and Taliban fighters. In one clash near the village of Mir Shah Pakistani troops claimed to have killed 11 guerrillas of whom three were not Afghani or Pakistanis. This group was probably linked to an al-Qaeda cell. Careful review of the role Pakistan is playing in the latest developments shows Islamabad, concerned with the high cost in human lives and material, will not risk an all out operation to clear north Vaziristan.
Comment: The total length of the Pakistani-Afghani border is 2,430 km. North Vaziristan is the most troubled area where pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda are active. Other troubled areas are the Northwestern Frontier Province and Balochistan. Afghanistan is divided into tribal groups based on their habitat regions. There are eight major ethnic groups with Pashtun being the majority of about 42 percent. There are 34 provinces known as Velayat. Most of the problems are in the south and the Kabul area with other provinces less involved in the struggle.
Sri Lanka
Spokespersons of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elem, (LTTE) told journalists their four-year long truce with the Colombo government might end any day now. According to an LTTE official “the situation on the ground is that of low intensity war.” Since December 2005 the LTTE have increased the number of attacks on the military and the military has responded with search and destroy operations by infantry and from time to time by launching air raids, especially against targets in the Jaffna Peninsula. Since January of this year more than 250 people lost their lives.
Comment: Sri Lanka is an island nation previously known as Ceylon with India being their closest neighbor. The closest point is at Palk Bay with a distance of less than 100 km. The Tamil rebels are concentrated mainly in the Jaffna Peninsula and archipelago and along the coastline between Jaffna and Batticaloa in the Bay of Bengal. There are five major ethnic groups with 73,8 percent being Sinhalese versus 3,9 percent Tamils and 4,6 percent Indian-Tamil. The main religion is Buddhist. Since the beginning of the civil war in the 80s many Tamils fled the country and became refugees around the world, close to 300,000 Tamils live in refugee camps and a large number of Tamils found refuge in Tamil regions in India. An estimated number of Tamils in Canada and the U.S. amounts to 150,000, many of them in the greater Toronto area.
Comoros
Last week’s presidential elections in the Comoro archipelago off the shores of East Africa, propelled to power a radical Muslim cleric who although being Sunni studied Islam in Iran. Ahmad Mahmoud Sami, nicknamed The Ayatollah, promised to “be fair while adhering to Islamic Shariia law.” Representatives of the African Union monitored the election campaign and ballots were secured by South African troops. Since independence in 1976 the Comoros has been plagued by 19 coups. Comment: The archipelago is made up of three major islands. Total area: 2,170 sq.km. Slightly more than 12 times the size of Washington D.C. Population: 691,000 most of them Sunni Muslims.
Venezuela
In an obvious attempt to further anger the U.S. administration the Venezuelan government said it is weighing options for the use of U.S. made military hardware. A practical U.S. embargo on weapons and American military know-how is forcing the Venezuelan army to limit training hours and to sharply cut back training and reconnaissance sorties of the country’s 21 U.S. made F-16 fighter jets. The jets were purchased in the late 80s and are the backbone of the Venezuelan air force. The Venezuelan chief of staff said in Caracas: “It is better to sell the jets to a third party rather than being faced with a shortage of spare parts.” He also said Venezuela will soon receive Russian made Sukhoi fighter jets. One option highlighted by government circles is to sell the 21 F-16s to none other than Iran. Venezuela signed an agreement that no American made weapon systems are to be sold to a third party unless approved by the U.S.
Comment: On Friday May 19 the Venezuelan ministry of defense announced a shift from U.S. and western made weapon systems to Russian and Chinese products, which are easier to purchase, as there are not strings attached. It is important to note that President Hugo Chavez’s policies are a source of concern also to the Dutch government because of Chavez’s hint it is about time to end “Dutch colonialism in the Netherlands’ Antilles,” a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea off the shores of Venezuela.
Russia
Former Russian atomic energy minister and top nuclear scientist Yavgeni Adamov was denied bail while appearing in a Moscow court. Adamov was extradited from Switzerland following a legal struggle between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. government accused Adamov of embezzlement by stealing millions of dollars earmarked for helping Russia dismantle nuclear weapons. If tried in the U.S. Adamov could receive a 60 years prison term. Russia argued that since Adamov is a Russian they come first. Moscow accuses the infamous scientist of stealing some 100 million dollars, selling know how to foreign countries and endangering Russian interests around the world. If sentenced in Moscow Adamov could face only 10 years imprisonment. It is obvious Russia was concerned with the prospect of having a man of Adamov’s caliber questioned by U.S. agents. Comment: Suspicions and accusations related to the Adamov case include also a U.S. citizen Mark Kaushansky, a former Westinghouse Electric Corp. nuclear power plant engineer. He is being charged with 20 indictments.
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A recent report on the dire conditions existing in Australia’s largest aboriginal community shocked the nation and prompted a suggestion the army should move in. The area in question is in the northern territories where according a recent survey “1,300 children under the age of 15 in the aboriginal community of Wadeye are at risk of abuse or neglect. Chief Minister Clara Martin quoted by ABC news on-line said in Darwin that Wadeye is not just a northern territory problem but rather a national one. Some reports indicate there is endemic abuse of children including rape cases with the youngest victim being seven months old. Other parts of the report show a systematic abuse of women to the point, as one of the social workers described, of being down right inhumane and shameful. In addition to abuse of girls and women a study of aboriginal men indicates the rate of sexual abuse of boys is 33 percent whereas in the general population abuse of young boys is less than 12 percent. Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough rejected the idea of sending the army saying this it is a police matter. Workplace Participation Minister Sharman Stone visited the remote aboriginal community where she was “impressed by a large shelter for women.” She said: “A big room that has a lot of bars a big sign on the door saying No Man Allowed.” Dr. Stone believes the government should establish many similar centers “certainly there should be a place where women can retreat to when they are in real danger with their kids and their teenage children but of course that’s just a short term band-aid solution… much more has to be done,” she said. Stone’s observation received an angry response from local officials who complained the federal government had cut funding for women’s refuge canters. Officials also doubted whether a proposed emergency summit on aboriginal violence would do any good.
Some of the government’s observations concluded “there’s not enough English teaching for
Observers say it is hard to understand how a prosperous nation such as Australia, with 20 million people of whom only one percent are aborigines, cannot find a solution to a growing human tragedy short of sending the army or the police. The matter will continue to haunt the Australian political scene in the coming years unless the government finally undertakes drastic measures to erase this national disgrace of gross neglect of Australia’s native people.
Sphere: Related ContentA “major” study - a large undertaking and study, expected to be released later this week, is based on an extensive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were seized after the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003.
While there was no link to Al Qaeda, the investigation revealed that Saddam’s regime gave some support to other terror groups in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy on condition of anonymity. But he targeted those he considered his own enemies, including Shiite Muslims, Kurds, exiles and others, the news service reported.
Sponsored by the Pentagon, the report found no “direct operational link” between Saddam’s government in Iraq and bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror ring before the U.S. invasion, an official told McClatchy.
The Bush administration put forth the argument that there was a connection between Saddam and bin Laden when it made the case to go to war with Iraq after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
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