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Walmart Lawsuits

Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States after the Federal government with over 925,000 employees. Each year, the company hires 550,000 more employees - three times the number of people the U.S. military recruits every year - replacing those lost to rapid turnover and replenishing its workforce.

WalmartWatch.com is reaching out to small towns and big cities across the country to build a unified movement to oppose Wal-Mart's destructive business practices.


Walmart Lawsuit Information
Hundreds of towns court Wal-Mart. The megastores bring low prices and convenient shopping to rural areas and small towns. They create entry-level jobs and added revenue to local treasuries. Critics say that Wal-Mart creates net job loss in communities, because most of its sales are transferred from existing merchants, resulting in little or no economic gain to the host community.In the United States, close to 100 million shoppers patronize Wal-Mart stores every week. Its scope of operations uses the world's largest computer (surpassing the Pentagon's) and the world's largest fleet of trucks.Wal-Mart's rate of expansion is so rapid that every two days it opens a megastore, and by 2004 it plans to open a store every day. These stores measure over 200,000 square feet in size, include groceries among their 50,000 items and are often open 24 hours a day. In addition, the Wal-Mart Corporation owns smaller Wal-Mart discount stores and SAM'S Clubs.Wal-Mart is considered by many scholars and journalists to be China’s eighth largest trading partner, ahead of Germany and Russia.In spite of its large volume of sales, Wal-Mart's corporate contributions are small. Wal-Mart ranked last among major discount retailers, donating four-tenths of a percent of its earnings, well behind its competitors (U.S. corporations average just over one percent). A cornerstone of the company philosophy is that it "gives something back" by keeping prices low.
Despite a well-publicized "Made in the U.S.A." campaign, 85 percent of the stores' items are made overseas, often in Third World sweatshops. Read more about sweatshops, Wal-Mart and other U.S. retailers.Wal-Mart demands that hundreds of recording artists, primarily alternative rock, hip-hop and rap musicians "clean up" their lyrics as a condition of distribution, imposing what amounts to cultural censorship, and bans all music carrying a warning label. It also pulls magazines off the shelves that are considered too provocative.

Wal-Mart asks appeals court to block suit

Lawyers for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. urged a federal appeals court on Monday to block a sex-discrimination lawsuit against it that could cost the retailer an estimated billions of dollars.

The retailer is seeking to overturn a June 2004 U.S. District Court decision certifying as class-action a lawsuit that now covers more than 1.6 million women and charges Wal-Mart with discriminating against female workers in pay, promotions and training.Attorneys for the six lead plaintiffs say the case is the largest civil-rights class-action in U.S. history ever certified and could cost Wal-Mart billions of dollars in economic losses.But during a hearing in San Francisco, Wal-Mart attorney Ted Boutrous said the appellate judges should overturn the lower court's decision because the charges of the six lead plaintiffs were not typical or common of the entire class.He also argued that the lower court's decision stripped Wal-Mart of its right to defend itself by ruling that the retailer could not call individual store managers to the stand to testify, for example, that there was no bias against women."Simply put, the named plaintiffs' experiences are not common or typical," Boutrous said. "Wal-Mart wouldn't be able to put on the testimony of a manager to say 'I didn't discriminate."'The three-judge panel, whose decision will likely not come for months, grilled both sides during the less than one hour hearing and gave little indication on how they might rule.In one round of questioning, Judge Andrew Kleinfeld asked plaintiff attorney Brad Seligman whether Wal-Mart's decision to leave its hiring up to local managers amounted to a systematic policy of discrimination."I have trouble getting from there to sex discrimination without statistics," the judge said.Seligman, however, told the judges they should let the case proceed as class-action to prevent Wal-Mart from challenging each individual class member on an individual basis.

He argued this would make it more difficult to engender change and said Wal-Mart would not alter its policies until the company lost a nationwide case."What Wal-Mart is saying would lead to a more unjust result," Seligman said.The lawsuit, filed in 2001 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, charges Wal-Mart with discriminating against female employees in pay, promotion and training, and with retaliating against women employees who complain about the alleged abuse.The suit demands a court order directing Wal-Mart to stop its allegedly discriminatory practices as well as compensation for lost wages.The plaintiffs say that women only hold about one-third of the company's salaried managerial positions even though females make up about 65 percent of the U.S. Wal-Mart work force of nearly one million.Wal-Mart has repeatedly denied there is a pattern of discrimination, and argues the number of men in management positions reflects the higher number of applications it receives from men - a defense that has been successfully used in other discrimination cases.The lawsuit comes as Wal-Mart has faced a barrage of criticism for its employment practices. Earlier this year, it agreed to pay a record $11 million to settle a civil probe by U.S. authorities into charges it knowingly hired floor-cleaning contractors who employed illegal aliens.Critics also charge that the Bentonville, Arkansas-company mistreats its workers and that the retailer's low wages force employees to seek government aid for health care, food and housing.

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WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS
Gingrich sees Iran threat
to U.S. like Nazi Germany
Ex-speaker latest official to raise alarm on threat of nuclear EMP attack by Tehran

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Posted: November 20, 2005
10:50 p.m. Eastern


By Joseph Farah
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com



Newt Gingrich

WASHINGTON – The threat posed to the national security of the United States by Iran was likened only to the one posed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s, by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suggested Tehran could be planning for a pre-emptive nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack on America that would turn a third or more of the country "back to a 19th century level of development."

Gingrich made the stunning statements, which echo warning of other congressional leaders and national security experts, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week.


He said the "extraordinary challenge that the current regime in Iran poses to the safety of the United States" requires "extraordinary measures to meet it."

"Not since the failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s to confront the aggression of the dictatorships in Japan, Italy and Germany have we seen the willful avoidance of reality which is now underway with regard to Iran," said Gingrich. "There are lessons to be learned from the 1930s and those lessons apply directly to the current government of Iran."

Gingrich pointed with alarm at a report first published in G2 Bulletin that Iran had tested the firing of ballistic missiles from a merchant ship in which warheads were detonated in midair over the Caspian Sea rather than at a land or sea target. National security experts and scientists commissioned by Congress to study the threat of electromagnetic pulse attacks on the U.S. concluded that Iran was preparing for just such a scenario. So does Gingrich.

"In short, a country with a track record of carrying out its murderous ideology may soon have the capability to deliver on its publicly declared and unambiguously stated intentions to inflict mortal harm on the United States on a massive scale," warned Gingrich last Tuesday at the hearing of the Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security Subcommittee chaired by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "A nuclear tipped intermediate-range Iranian missile launched from a merchant ship off the coast of the United States could do just that. That, or Iran could simply supply its terrorist handmaidens with a small scale nuclear device to use against U.S. targets here at home or abroad."

The threat is compounded by recent disclosures by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is in "non-compliance" with its treaty obligations against developing nuclear weapons.

Gingrich concluded that:


Iran is the most dangerous regime in the world and the "single most urgent threat to American national security."

The threat can only be understood in the context of "The Long War Against the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam, which is a worldwide war in which the United States and its allies are unavoidably engaged, and in which the U.S. has active campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The U.S. cannot be held hostage or rendered impotent by delays of international bureaucracies in dealing with the threat posed by Iran.

One key to preventing or degrading the Iranian nuclear threat is persuading Russia to stop helping Tehran.

The U.S. has no option but to seek regime change in Iran.
Gingrich said there are reasons to believe Iran "is testing the capability to launch a surprise attack on the United States from a merchant ship of our coasts."

"An attack by a single Iranian nuclear missile could have a catastrophic impact on the United States by causing an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) over a portion of the country," he said. "Such an attack could quickly turn a third or more of the United States back to a 19th century level of development. Electrical transformers and switching stations would fall. Without electricity, hospitals would fails, water and sewage services would fail, gas stations would be unable to provide petroleum, trucks would not be able to distribute food supplies, and essential services would rapidly disintegrate."

Gingrich said "this is not idle speculation, but taken from the consensus findings of nine distinguished scientists who authored the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, which was delivered to the Congress on June 22, 2004, the same day the 9-11 commission report was published."

Gingrich pointed out that such a sneak attack – especially if launched from a merchant ship at sea – could have the added benefit of deniability by Iran.

"Contemplating an EMP threat makes more troubling reports that certain Iranian missile tests resulted in missiles that have detonated in flight at or near apogee, which the Iranian press has reported as successful events," explained Gingrich. "Normally, it would be expected that the ability to target specific locations would be the standard for success for ballistic tests. However, if the ability to launch an EMP attack was being tested, detonation at apogee would be the measure of testing success. As noted by the EMP commission, a country with limited nuclear capabilities and few choices as to delivery platforms has only a few options to deliver a deadly blow. An EMP attack would be on such strategy."

Today, Iranian lawmakers approved a bill requiring the government to block inspections of atomic facilities if the International Atomic Energy Agency refers Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

When the bill becomes law, it will strengthen the government's hand in resisting international pressure to permanently abandon uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for either nuclear reactors or nuclear bombs.

Iran resumed uranium-reprocessing activities a step before enrichment at its Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility in August.

Last week, WND and G2 Bulletin reported most of the U.S. civilian population, military bases and nuclear-weapons assembly plants are within range of missile attacks by terrorists or rogue nations using merchant ships as launching platforms – an increasing concern by counter-terrorism and national security experts.


G2 Bulletin and WND first reported the shocking findings of the U.S. EMP commission that rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, have the capability of launching an undetected, catastrophic EMP attack on the U.S. – and are actively developing plans.

"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the Earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Dr. Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission appointed by Congress to study the threat. "For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico."

The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.

"The electromagnetic field pulses produced by weapons designed and deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which any reasonably advanced society, most specifically including our own, depend vitally," Wood said. "Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the American nation."

The commission concluded in its report to Congress earlier this year: "EMP is one of a small number of threats that may hold at risk the continued existence of today's U.S. civil society.''

For complete coverage of the EMP threat to the U.S., subscribe to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newletter edited and published by the founder of WND.

Related offer:

Get WND Books' blockbuster – "Atomic Iran" – by No. 1 best-selling "Unfit for Command" author Jerome Corsi, who exposes the threat of nuclear terror.

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How terror Scuds
pose threat to U.S.
Intelligence sources say seaborne attack could wreak mayhem, cripple economy

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Posted: November 18, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: The following story is one adapted from the latest issue of Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the weekly, online, premium intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND. Annual subscriptions now available for half price and monthly trials have been slashed to $9.95.
By Yoram East and Joseph Farah
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – Most of the U.S. civilian population, military bases and nuclear-weapons assembly plants are within range of missile attacks by terrorists or rogue nations using merchant ships as launching platforms, warn counter-terror experts.

Both the U.S. military and foreign military forces – including Iran's – have tested missile launches from non-military vessels.

At the top of the risk list is the Russian-made Scud family of missiles, all too often found on the weapons' black market, and, according to counter-terror analysts, undoubtedly on the minds of terror organizations such as al-Qaida, which is known to have shown interest in the Scud maritime option.

A bird's eye view of U.S. coastlines reveals more than 75 percent of the nation’s population, about 290 million people, resides along thousands of miles of shores and up to 200 miles inland.


According to information from the Pentagon and from independent sources, three-quarters of U.S. military assets, from naval bases to nuclear-weapons assembly plants, are within these coastlines, posing highly tempting targets, not only for possibly enemy rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran, but also for global jihadi planners, G2 Bulletin reports.

Sources in the maritime industry say there were about 130,000 merchant ships registered in 195 countries at the beginning of 2005. This huge transport system, crisscrossing the world’s oceans, with many visiting U.S. ports or sailing close to the U.S. coastline, has been described by counter-terror analysts as a major concern to national security.

Undetected merchant vessels have for years been landing thousands of illegal immigrants on Canadian and U.S. shores, proving time and again the vulnerability of North America's coastlines.

Terrorists, who by definition do not respect any law or international agreement, naturally disregard international maritime laws. For them the sea, or a country’s territorial waters, is an open avenue for terrorist actions, although so far having been used only in a few localized instances, such as Palestinian terrorist landings of on the Israeli coastline and the October 2000 case of the USS Cole in Yemen.

In 2004, the Israeli navy intercepted and seized in the Red Sea the Karin-A, a weapons-carrying vessel sailing from Iran, purchased by the Palestine Liberation Organization. This event demonstrates how terror groups can purchase a cargo ship and how easy it is to load it with any type of weapons and explosives and possibly be used even as a huge floating suicide bomb.

However, the option of a Scud-carrying ship seems to pose the more imminent threat. Scud missiles were sold by the Soviets to many countries including Sudan and Egypt, and following the disintegration of the Soviet Union hundreds of these missiles were left unguarded in dilapidated military junkyards. North Korea developed its own Scud version and has supplied the missile to several countries, as was discovered in 2002 when Spanish and U.S. naval units intercepted a North Korean cargo ship carrying a shipment of Scuds en route to Yemen. This dangerous load was later released by the U.S. and apparently reached its initial destination. Some reports indicate the same vessel may have been involved in other delivery missions to unspecific purchasers.

The U.S. military has tested Scuds fired from naval platforms as part of a test for anti-missile systems. Similar tests were conducted by North Korea and Iran.

According to military analysts, should a 700-kilometer-range Scud-D be fired from the ocean toward a U.S. target it will not matter much whether the aiming and guiding mechanisms are of high quality. In reality a missile launched from a cargo ship, in the correct elevation and direction, can hit a densely populated urban environment as deep as 200 miles inland from the coastal strips. It would be irrelevant, they say, to the terrorists whether such a projectile hits New York City or Newark, N.J. in the east, or inside the 200-mile land stretch from the coast of Los Angeles in the west. The effect of such an attack, even with a conventional warhead, would be enormous, including a devastating blow to the morale of the population. Should any type of weapon of mass destruction be used, whether nuclear waste, chemical or biological substances, total havoc could ensue. Events in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina were well studied by terrorists who can now visualize the horrific results in an urban center struck with a Scud, especially one carrying a weapon of mass destruction, G2 Bulletin reports.

Another even more terrifying component of the threat from the sea is the possibility of a rogue nation or terrorist group successfully firing a Scud armed with a nuclear weapon and timed for detonation above a U.S. population center.

As G2 Bulletin and WND reported exclusively earlier this year, government officials are increasingly concerned about the threat of this kind of an electro-magnetic pulse attack that could cripple cities and entire regions of the U.S. by knocking out electrical grids and computer technology.

EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the Earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field.

G2 Bulletin and WND first reported the shocking findings of the U.S. EMP commission that rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, have the capability of launching an undetected, catastrophic EMP attack on the U.S. – and are actively developing plans.

"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the Earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Dr. Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission appointed by Congress to study the threat. "For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico."

The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.

"The electromagnetic field pulses produced by weapons designed and deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which any reasonably advanced society, most specifically including our own, depend vitally," Wood said. "Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the American nation."

The commission concluded in its report to Congress earlier this year: "EMP is one of a small number of threats that may hold at risk the continued existence of today's U.S. civil society.''


Rep. Roscoe Bartlett

"The number of U.S. adversaries capable of EMP attack is greater than during the Cold War," said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett. "We may look back with some fondness on the Cold War. We then had only one potential adversary. We knew him quite well."

Bartlett pointed out that Iran has tested launching of a Scud missile from a surface vessel, "a launch mode that could support a national or transnational EMP attack against the United States."

"Iran has conducted tests with its Shahab-3 missile that have been described as failures by the Western media because the missiles did not complete their ballistic trajectories, but were deliberately exploded at high altitude," he said. "This, of course, would be exactly what you would want to do if you were going to use an EMP weapon. Iran described these tests as successful. We said they were a failure because they blew up in flight. They described them as successful. Of course, they would be, if Iran's intent was practicing for an EMP attack."

Bartlett added: "Potential adversaries are aware of the EMP's strategic attack option. Ninety-nine percent of Americans may not know very much about EMP, but I will assure you ... that 100 percent of our potential enemies know all about EMP. I think that the American people need to know about EMP because they need to demand that their government do the prudent thing so that we will be less and less susceptible, less and less at risk to an EMP attack year by year. The threat is not adequately addressed in U.S. national and homeland security programs. Not only is it not adequately addressed; it is usually ignored, not even mentioned, and it certainly needs to be considered."

"Terrorists could steal, purchase, or be provided a nuclear weapon and perform an EMP attack against the United States simply by launching a primitive Scud missile off a freighter near our shores," he said. "We do not need to be thinking about missiles coming over the pole. There are thousands of ships out there, particularly in the North Atlantic shipping lanes, and any one of them could have a Scud missile on board. If you put a canvas over it, we cannot see through the thinnest canvas. We would not know whether it was bailed hay or bananas or a Scud launcher. You cannot see through any cover on ship. Scud missiles can be purchased on the world market today for less than $100,000. Al-Qaida is estimated to own about 80 freighters, so all they need, ... is $100,000, which I am sure they can get, for the missile and a crude nuclear weapon."

Bartlett revealed Russian, Chinese, and Pakistani scientists are working in North Korea and could enable that country to develop an EMP weapon in the near future.

The congressman also raised the question of retaliation – and how an EMP sneak attack could not only go undetected, but that it might be impossible to find out who was responsible after the fact.

"If it were launched from the ocean, we would not know who launched it," he said. "So against whom would we retaliate? Even if we knew who launched it ...if all they have done is to disable our computers, do we respond in kind, or do you incinerate their grandmothers and their babies? This would be a really tough call. Responding in kind might do very little good. There is no other country in the world that has anything like our sophistication in electronic equipment, and no other country in the world is so dependent as we are on our national infrastructure."

Though an EMP attack would not kill people with a blast or with radiation, over time it would likely result in much more death than a nuclear attack on a major city, he said.

A candid, recently declassified Justice Department report explained that terrorism represents a greater threat to the U.S. than any other the nation has faced in its history.

While the deterrence of mutually assured destruction kept an uneasy peace with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, policymakers have recognized that a MAD doctrine is futile against a terrorist whose greatest weapon is the suicide attacker and the fact that he has no traceable address for retaliation.

Some answers to this acute problem are in the making through research and development in the U.S. and Israel. Lockheed-Martin is in the process of developing counter-measures and warning systems to find and detect nuclear-armed Scuds, which can be launched from a ship.


David Kier, vice president of Lockheed-Martin’s Protection Division, told UPI earlier this month: "They don’t need international ballistic missiles to attack us. An enemy could put a Scud on a tramp steamer and launch it off the coast."

Lockheed-Martin has already received the first part of a Pentagon budget for a five-year development plan. Some analysts say a detection system is important although it should not be limited to nuclear warheads only and that for the time being the U.S. and other nations under terror threat will have to develop an improved maritime reconnaissance system from the air and from the sea. They also suggest a new strategy to deploy more Coast Guard and naval units on "sentry duties" off the U.S. coast should also be undertaken without delay.

Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin reports today that Chinese military strategists are pushing Beijing to pursue electromagnetic pulse weapons and other exotic, high-tech arms to counter and defeat the more technologically developed and technologically reliant U.S. in a potential showdown in the future.

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HOMELAND INSECURITY
Ex-CIA chief warns
of EMP nuke threat
Woolsey calls on U.S. to defend against devastating 'Scud-in-a-bucket' attack

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Posted: May 2, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Joseph Farah
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – Former CIA chief James Woolsey affirms the work of a special commission investigating the threat of a nuclear-bomb generated electromagnetic pulse attack on the U.S. by rogue states or terrorists and is urging the country to take steps necessary to protect against the potentially devastating consequences.

In testimony before the House International Terrorism and Non-Proliferation Subcommittee, chaired by Ed Royce, R-Calif., Woolsey, director of the CIA from 1993 through 1995, referred to the nuclear EMP threat, characterized in intelligence circles, he said, as "a SCUD in a bucket."


"That is a simple ballistic missile from a stockpile somewhere in the world outfitted on something like a tramp steamer and fired from some distance offshore into an American city or to a high altitude, thereby creating an electromagnetic pulse effect, which could well be one of the most damaging ways of using a nuclear weapon," he said.

Woolsey commended the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack for its years of work on the subject and for its dire report concluding that it is a means of attack that could lead to the defeat of the U.S. by a much smaller enemy and utter devastation of the country.

"That is a very serious threat," he told the committee. "And one thing we need badly to do is to figure out ways to harden our electricity grid and various types of key nodes so that electromagnetic pulse blasts of nuclear weapons, or other ways of generating electromagnetic pulse, even if it knocks out our toaster ovens will not knock out, for example, our electricity grid."

Woolsey, like the commission, specifically mentioned the new dimension a nuclear Iran would add to the risk of such an attack.

"We do not have the luxury of assuming that Iran, if it develops fissionable materials, for example, would not share it under some circumstances with al-Qaida operatives," he said. "We don't have the luxury of believing that just because North Korea is a communist state, it would not work under some circumstances to sell its fissionable material to Hezbollah or al-Qaida."


There is increasing concern within the administration and Congress over Iran's missile program, which has been determined by a commission of U.S. scientists to pose a serious threat to U.S. security.

A report first published in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, a weekly, online, premium, intelligence newsletter affiliated with WND, revealed last week that Iran has been seriously considering an unconventional pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S.

An Iranian military journal publicly floated the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the U.S.

Congress was warned of Iran's plans last month by Peter Pry, a senior staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of Sen. John Kyl's subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.

In an article titled, "Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars," the journal explains how an EMP attack on America's electronic infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees.

"Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command- and decision-making center," the article states. "Even worse today when you disable a country's military high command through disruption of communications, you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. If the world's industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults then they will disintegrate within a few years. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot."

WND reported the Iranian threat last Monday, explaining Tehran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure.

Pry pointed out the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea. The missiles were fired from ships.

"A nuclear missile concealed in the hold of a freighter would give Iran or terrorists the capability to perform an EMP attack against the United States homeland without developing an ICBM and with some prospect of remaining anonymous," explained Pry. "Iran's Shahab-3 medium range missile mentioned earlier is a mobile missile and small enough to be transported in the hold of a freighter. We cannot rule out that Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might provide terrorists with the means to executive an EMP attack against the United States."

Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, said yesterday that such an attack – by Iran or some other actor – could cripple the U.S. by knocking out electrical power, computers, circuit boards controlling most automobiles and trucks, banking systems, communications and food and water supplies.

"No one can say just how long systems would be down," he said. "It could be weeks, months or even years."

EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the Earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field.

"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the Earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Wood. "For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico."

The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.

"The electromagnetic field pulses produced by weapons designed and deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which any reasonably advanced society, most specifically including our own, depend vitally," Wood said. "Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the American nation."

[billiardspoolnet]

NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR
Ayatollah warns U.S.
needs punch in mouth
Iran's spiritual leader says nuke plan to continue no matter who is elected

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Posted: May 1, 2005
8:32 p.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

The spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is warning the U.S. to stay out of his country's business – and, in particular, its nuclear program, which is set to resume this week.

Speaking on a tour of southeast Iran, Khamenei called the U.S. "arrogant," "rude" and said the country "deserved a punch in the mouth."

He also said Iran's presidential elections in June would not make any difference to its nuclear policy.

Khamenei said it was not up to the U.S. to decide which countries needed nuclear technology.


Iran announced yesterday it is likely to resume uranium enrichment-related activities next week, following a breakdown in negotiations between the Shiite regime and the European Union.

Tehran's announcement after talks in London with European negotiators yielded no results. France, Britain and Germany, acting on behalf of the 25-nation European Union, were seeking guarantees from Iran that it will not use its nuclear program to make weapons.

Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani was quoted as saying Tehran expects to restart enrichment activities injecting uranium gas into centrifuges at its uranium-conversion facility in Isfahan.

"It's unlikely that uranium enrichment ... which takes place in Natanz, will be resumed, but it's likely that some activities at Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility will restart next week," Rowhani said today.

The central cities of Natanz and Isfahan house the heart of Iran's nuclear program. The Isfahan conversion facility reprocesses uranium ore concentrate into gas, which is then taken to Natanz and fed into the centrifuges for enrichment.


Washington agreed to support the EU effort but signaled that Iran, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month labeled an "outpost of tyranny," should quickly accept it or face harsh Security Council sanctions.

The breakdown in talks between Iran and Europe puts Tehran's nuclear program back in the international spotlight and is likely to force Washington to react.

There is increasing concern within the administration and Congress over Iran's missile program, which has been determined by a commission of U.S. scientists to pose a serious threat to U.S. security.

A report first published in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, a weekly, online, premium, intelligence newsletter affiliated with WND, revealed last week that Iran has been seriously considering an unconventional pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S.

An Iranian military journal publicly floated the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the U.S.

Congress was warned of Iran's plans last month by Peter Pry, a senior staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of Sen. John Kyl's subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.

In an article titled, "Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars," the journal explains how an EMP attack on America's electronic infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees.

"Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command- and decision-making center," the article states. "Even worse today when you disable a country's military high command through disruption of communications, you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. If the world's industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults then they will disintegrate within a few years. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot."

WND reported the Iranian threat last Monday, explaining Tehran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure.

Pry pointed out the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea. The missiles were fired from ships.

"A nuclear missile concealed in the hold of a freighter would give Iran or terrorists the capability to perform an EMP attack against the United States homeland without developing an ICBM and with some prospect of remaining anonymous," explained Pry. "Iran's Shahab-3 medium range missile mentioned earlier is a mobile missile and small enough to be transported in the hold of a freighter. We cannot rule out that Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might provide terrorists with the means to executive an EMP attack against the United States."

Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, said yesterday that such an attack – by Iran or some other actor – could cripple the U.S. by knocking out electrical power, computers, circuit boards controlling most automobiles and trucks, banking systems, communications and food and water supplies.

"No one can say just how long systems would be down," he said. "It could be weeks, months or even years."

EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the Earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field.

"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the Earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Wood. "For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico."

The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.

"The electromagnetic field pulses produced by weapons designed and deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which any reasonably advanced society, most specifically including our own, depend vitally," Wood said. "Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the American nation."

[billiardspoolnet]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Iran military journal eyes
nuclear EMP attack on U.S.
High-altitude missile detonation could be launched from ship, warn top scientists

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 29, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for almost 30 years.
By Joseph Farah
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com


WASHINGTON – In the latest evidence Iran is seriously planning an unconventional pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S., an Iranian military journal has publicly considered the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the world's lone superpower.

Congress was warned of Iran's plans last month by Peter Pry, a senior staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of Sen. John Kyl's subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.

In an article titled, "Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars," the journal explains how an EMP attack on America's electronic infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees.


"Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command- and decision-making center," the article states. "Even worse today when you disable a country's military high command through disruption of communications, you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. If the world's industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults then they will disintegrate within a few years. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot."

WND reported the Iranian threat last Monday, explaining Tehran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure. The report was published first in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, a premium, online intelligence newsletter by WND's founder.

Pry pointed out the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea. The missiles were fired from ships.

"A nuclear missile concealed in the hold of a freighter would give Iran or terrorists the capability to perform an EMP attack against the United States homeland without developing an ICBM and with some prospect of remaining anonymous," explained Pry. "Iran's Shahab-3 medium range missile mentioned earlier is a mobile missile and small enough to be transported in the hold of a freighter. We cannot rule out that Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might provide terrorists with the means to executive an EMP attack against the United States."

Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, said yesterday that such an attack – by Iran or some other actor – could cripple the U.S. by knocking out electrical power, computers, circuit boards controlling most automobiles and trucks, banking systems, communications and food and water supplies.

"No one can say just how long systems would be down," he said. "It could be weeks, months or even years."

EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the earth's atmosphere and the earth's magnetic field.

"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Wood. "For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico."

The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.

"The electromagnetic field pulses produced by weapons designed and deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which any reasonably advanced society, most specifically including our own, depend vitally," Wood said. "Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the American nation."


Wood warned of the potential for unprecedented cascading failures of major electronic and electrical infrastructures.

"In such events, a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult and would seriously degrade the overall viability of the American nation and the safety and even the lives of very large numbers of U.S. citizens," he said.

Strategic EMP attacks on the U.S. have also been considered and discussed recently by China and post-Soviet Union Russia, according to the commission. Yet, the more imminent threat, according to William R. Graham, former chairman of the commission, and Wood, comes from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea and their terrorist allies.

"The current vulnerability of critical U.S. infrastructures can both invite and reward such attacks if not corrected," Wood said. "I might add that extreme, sustained vulnerability entices such attack. However, correction is feasible and well within the nation's tactical means and material resources to accomplish. Most critical infrastructure vulnerabilities can be reduced below those levels that potentially invite attempts to create a national catastrophe. By protecting key elements in each critical infrastructure and by preparing to recover essential services, the prospects for a terrorist of rogue state being to impose large-scale, long-term damage on the United States could be minimized."

The commission estimated that major corrections could be made in the next three to five years that would greatly reduce America's vulnerability to an EMP attack. There is concern within the commission, however, that the EMP threat is not being taken seriously by the Department of Homeland Security.

Peter Fonash, acting deputy manager for the National Communications System in the Department of Homeland Security, said the agency has "determined that there is minimal EMP effect."

While the Department of Defense has received briefings from the commission at the highest levels, DHS has not, say commission members.

"We haven't had equivalent briefings like that with the Department of Homeland Security yet," said Pry at last month's congressional hearing.

Since there has never been a large-scale EMP attack anywhere in the world to evaluate, the assessments are based on extrapolation of available data gathered from small-scale nuclear experiments.

Wood said an actual EMP attack on the United States minimally would result in $20 billion in damages, no loss of life and just a great deal of inconvenience. However, on the other end of the scale, it could "literally destroy the American nation and might cause the deaths of 90 percent of its people and set us back a century or more in time as far as our ability to function as a society."

Wood agreed with Graham, who said he could think of no other reason Iran would be experimenting with high-altitude detonations of missiles besides planning for an EMP attack.

Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran," told WorldNetDaily the new findings about Iran's electromagnetic pulse experiments significantly raise the stakes of the mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.

"Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While that threat should continue to be a grave concern for every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its knees."

The commission said hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and – compared with the threat – relatively inexpensive.

[billiardspoolnet]

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Iran plans to knock out
U.S. with 1 nuclear bomb
Tests missiles for electromagnetic pulse weapon that could destroy America's technical infrastructure

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 25, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for almost 30 years.
By Joseph Farah
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com


WASHINGTON -- Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower, say U.S. intelligence sources, top scientists and western missile industry experts.

The radical Shiite regime has conducted successful tests to determine if its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, can be detonated by a remote-control device while still in high-altitude flight.

Scientists, including President Reagan's top science adviser, William R. Graham, say there is no other explanation for such tests than preparation for the deployment of electromagnetic pulse weapons – even one of which could knock out America's critical electrical and technological infrastructure, effectively sending the continental U.S. back to the 19th century with a recovery time of months or years.

Iran will have that capability – at least theoretically – as soon as it has one nuclear bomb ready to arm such a missile. North Korea, a strategic ally of Iran, already boasts such capability.

The stunning report was first published over the weekend in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by WND's founder.

Just last month, Congress heard testimony about the use of such weapons and the threat they pose from rogue regimes.


Iran has surprised intelligence analysts by describing the mid-flight detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea as "successful" tests. Even primitive Scud missiles could be used for this purpose. And top U.S. intelligence officials reminded members of Congress that there is a glut of these missiles on the world market. They are currently being bought and sold for about $100,000 apiece.

"A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead 'on target' with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate in the atmosphere," wrote Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., in the Washington Post a week ago. "No need for the risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters – al-Qaida is believed to own about 80 such vessels – and make sure to get it a few miles in the air."

The Iranian missile tests were more sophisticated and capable of detonation at higher elevations – making them more dangerous.

Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers above the continental U.S., one nuclear warhead could cripple the country – knocking out electrical power and circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications impotent.

While Iran still insists officially in talks currently underway with the European Union that it is only developing nuclear power for peaceful civilian purposes, the mid-flight detonation missile tests persuade U.S. military planners and intelligence agencies that Tehran can only be planning such an attack, which depends on the availability of at least one nuclear warhead.

Some analysts believe the stage of Iranian missile developments suggests Iranian scientists will move toward the production of weapons-grade nuclear material shortly as soon as its nuclear reactor in Busher is operative.

Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran," told WorldNetDaily the new findings about Iran's electromagnetic pulse experiments significantly raise the stakes of the mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.

"Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While that threat should continue to be a grave concern for every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its knees."

Earlier this week, Iran's top nuclear official said Europe must heed an Iranian proposal on uranium enrichment or risk a collapse of the talks.

The warning by Hassan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, came as diplomats from Britain, France and Germany began talks with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva, ahead of a more senior-level meeting in London set for April 29. Enrichment produces fuel for nuclear reactors, which can also be used in the explosive core of nuclear bombs.

"The Europeans should tell us whether these ideas can work as the basis for continued negotiations or not," Rowhani said, referring to the Iranian proposal put forward last month that would allow some uranium enrichment. "If yes, fine. If not, then the negotiations cannot continue," he said.

Some analysts believe Iran is using the negotiations merely to buy time for further development of the nuclear program.

The U.S. plans, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow the EU talks to continue before deciding this summer to push for United Nations sanctions against Iran.

Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired by Kyl, held a hearing on the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, threat.

"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies – terrorist or otherwise," wrote Kyl "And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years."

The purpose of an EMP attack, unlike a nuclear attack on land, is not to kill people, but "to kill electrons," as Graham explained. He serves as chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack and was director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and science adviser to the president during the Reagan administration.

Graham told WorldNetDaily he could think of no other reason for Iran to be experimenting with mid-air detonation of missiles than for the planning of an EMP-style attack.

"EMP offers a bigger bang for the buck," he said. He also suggested such an attack makes a U.S. nuclear response against a suspected enemy less likely than would the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a major U.S. city.

A 2004 report by the commission found "several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapons-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication."

"EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences," the report said. "EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."

The major impact of EMP weapons is on electronics, "so pervasive in all aspects of our society and military, coupled through critical infrastructures," explained the report.

"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of Congress.

The commission report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military forces."

"Briefly, a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United States will interact with the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth," said the report. "EMP effects are both direct and indirect. The former are due to electrical systems, and the latter arise from the damage that 'shocked' – upset, damaged and destroyed – electronics controls then inflict on the systems in which they are embedded. The indirect effects can be even more severe than the direct effects."

The EMP threat is not a new one considered by U.S. defense planners. The Soviet Union had experimented with the idea as a kind of super-weapon against the U.S.

"What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter – they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety," explains the commission report. "Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter."

Graham describes the potential "cascading effect" of an EMP attack. If electrical power is knocked out and circuit boards fried, telecommunications are disrupted, energy deliveries are impeded, the financial system breaks down, food, water and gasoline become scarce.

As Kyl put it: "Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social order."

"American society has grown so dependent on computer and other electrical systems that we have created our own Achilles' heel of vulnerability, ironically much greater than those of other, less developed nations," the senator wrote. "When deprived of power, we are in many ways helpless, as the New York City blackout made clear. In that case, power was restored quickly because adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout caused by a broad EMP attack would create a much more difficult situation. Not only would there be nobody nearby to help, it could take years to replace destroyed equipment."

The commission said hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and – compared with the threat – relatively inexpensive.

"But it will take leadership by the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, and other federal agencies, along with support from Congress, all of which have yet to materialize," wrote Kyl, so far the only elected official blowing the whistle this alarming development.

Kyl concluded in his report: "The Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure was one of 'imagination.' No one imagined that terrorists would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could bring our society to its knees by destroying everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've been warned, and we'd better be prepared to respond."

[billiardspoolnet]

Officials at Global Conference Say It's Time to Take Action on Global Warming
August 19, 2005 — By Jan M. Olsen, Associated Press

ILULISSAT, Greenland — Near a glacier that's retreating at an alarming pace, environmental ministers and other officials from 23 countries met Thursday and agreed that nations must take action against global warming. The meeting in the Arctic town of Ilulissat came at the end of a three-day trip by the officials through Greenland's spectacular but shrinking expanses of ice and snow. The vast island is one of the prime spots for assessing whether global warming is worsening. Ilulissat sits at the edge of a spectacular glacier, the Sermeq Kujalleq, that has retreated some 110 kilometers (70 miles) since 1960, adding to fears that the planet is on the verge of catastrophic warming. The officials came from both sides of the global warming controversy's fault lines, from countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol -- which aims to counter global warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases -- and those that reject it, including the United States. The dispute over Kyoto has been marked by sharp criticism from both factions -- but the participants in this week's meetings and inspection trips appeared unified in agreeing that the time for such rhetoric has passed. "We have to act, we cannot afford inaction," said Connie Hedegaard, the environment minister of Denmark, of which Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory. She told a news conference that the officials' discussions were "open and free," but the contents of the discussion were kept confidential. U.S. envoy Harlan Watson did not appear at the news conference and was not immediately available for comment. "No one doubts that global warming has consequences on the environment and the people, " South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said. "It now has become mainstream to believe that it has an impact on our globe." The conference took no decisions on how to fight global warming. "We must stop the blaming game. We should present credible visions on how to make their own fair contributions to combatting global warming," Hedegaard said. The United States, which accounts for one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, saying it would harm its economy. Last month U.S. President George W. Bush presented a plan that critics say is a ploy to undo the Kyoto pact. The initiative is aimed at inventing and selling technologies ranging from "clean coal" and wind power to next-generation nuclear fission as a means of reducing pollution and addressing climate concerns. Participants in the Greenland meeting said that the Kyoto Protocol and the U.S. initiative should be regarded as "complimentary, not in opposition," according to British environment minister Elliot Morley. The meeting also included officials from Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, the EU Commission, Germany, the Faeroe Islands, Finland, France, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Morocco, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Sweden and Tuvalu. Source: Associated Press

Greenpeace response to US Asia climate 'pact'
Responding to the recent announcement by the USA of a six nation 'pact' on climate change, Greenpeace Climate Campaigner Stephanie Tunmore said:

The pact, rather than saving the climate, is nothing more than a trade agreement in energy technologies between the countries in question. It is entirely voluntary and does not even mention greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The best option to cope with climate change is to increase energy efficiency and invest in renewable energy.

Unfortunately, it seems likely that Mr Bush and Mr Howard are seeking to protect the interests of their domestic fossil fuel industries and to deflect criticism for their total failure to address climate change. Following such a strategy could wreak untold harm on the most vulnerable - many of whom are living in the very region from which this absurd pact was issued.

Up to 70-80% of global emissions must be reduced by industrialized countries by mid-century in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. Voluntary technology agreements, negotiated by the world's worst polluters, are not going to get us there.

152 countries have now ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which contains legally binding emissions cuts for industrialized countries for the period from 2008-2012 (the first commitment period) and negotiations for the second and subsequent commitment begin in earnest later this year in Montreal. This 'pact' looks like yet another attempt by the US and Australia to derail these negotiations and condemn future generations to a world ravaged by climate change.

[billiardspoolnet]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAITH UNDER FIRE
Plot to burn Christians thwarted
Extremists gave ultimatum to new converts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 24, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Police in northern India thwarted a plot by Hindu extremists who threatened to burn to death more than 60 Christian converts if they refused to return to Hinduism by Sunday.

Members of a Christian movement called Believers Church met peacefully Sunday in the state of Himachal Pradesh, according to Compass Direct, a news service that monitors persecution of Christians.

"We were able to meet without incident," said Ramish Masih Battih, the son of Pastor Feroz Masih.


As WorldNetDaily reported, the radical Hindus severely beat the pastor in a Nov. 4 attack, accusing him of "forcibly converting" Hindus. Masih sustained internal injuries requiring medical treatment and still is recovering.

The pastor's son told Compass Direct the estimated 10 attackers were members of the World Hindu Council and its youth wing Bajrang Dal, which has been blamed for waves of attacks against Christians and other religious minorities since the rise of the Hindu nationalist party BJP in the late 1990s.

A police official said "misconceptions are the root of the problem."

"There are many illiterate people who can easily be misled to believe that Christians are forcibly converting Hindus," he explained.

The Masihs are connected to K.P. Yohannan's Gospel for Asia missionary group.

Yohannan said police tried to arrange a meeting between the pastor and the attackers, but the assailants had gone into hiding.

"One positive outcome of this incident is that people in the area now know that those who come to faith in Christ are doing so because of the power of the Gospel, not the coercion of men," Yohannan said.

At a press conference, he pointed out, "many of the new Christians testified that they had accepted Christ of their own free will – often because they had been healed of their diseases."

Last week, the attackers forced Masih, 62, to sign a document stating his willingness to participate in a ceremony last Sunday in which all of the Christians would convert back to Hinduism.

Refusal to participate would prompt the radicals to burn the converts to death.

The congregation meets in the Masihs' home in the town of Baijnath.



Yohannan said the threat was reminiscent of the brutal murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children in 1999 by Hindu radicals in the state of Orissa, who vowed to burn alive anyone who did not renounce their new faith.

[billiardspoolnet]

Being 'fat' may not be a health risk
IAN JOHNSTON

PEOPLE who are officially classed as overweight are not necessarily putting their health at risk and going on a diet could be dangerous, according to new research.

A row has been raging after a controversial US study earlier this year found that those deemed to be overweight - because of their high weight to height ratio - actually had a lower chance of dying prematurely than people whose weight was "normal".


Now scientists are increasingly supporting the findings and casting doubt on the value of the body mass index (BMI) system of measuring whether someone is too heavy, according to New Scientist magazine.

This is because it does not take fat levels into account. The BMI method would suggest actor Brad Pitt and George Bush, the US president, are overweight, mostly because they exercise regularly and have built up the amount of lean tissue in their bodies. And experts warned that anyone deciding to lose weight after being told they were too heavy because of their BMI could actually damage their health.

Reducing the amount of food consumed lowers weight, but also lowers the amount of lean tissue, which has been linked to an increased chance of premature death.

Katherine Flegal, an epidemiologist from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who led the team behind the controversial study, said: "Although people think there's all this evidence out there showing a high mortality risk associated with being overweight, in fact the literature doesn't show it."

A previous CDC study said overweight and obesity caused 325,000 premature deaths a year in the US, but Ms Flegal's study found that while obesity was the cause of 112,000 early deaths, there were 86,000 fewer deaths a year among those who were overweight compared with those who were "normal" weight.

In Britain, nearly two-thirds of the population are considered to be overweight and about a quarter are obese The NHS Direct website includes a page where people can enter their height and weight and then be given a BMI rating and told whether they are overweight or obese.

But Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at California University whose BMI makes him nearly obese, said: "If correct, all these worries about a huge fraction of the population being overweight just go out the window. It's not a trivial problem, but the focus should now be on the severely overweight. The current definition of overweight is not like the speed of light or pi. What was considered as the normal, desirable weight is too low.

"I just got back from a 350-mile bike trip all over the south-west of the US. I lost no weight whatsoever. I was eating like a pig I was so hungry all the time."

Researchers in Denmark and Finland found people who lose weight by eating less food were more likely to die early.

The theory is that dieting results in a decrease in the amount of lean body tissue as well as fat and that this is damaging to health, although the reasons why this appears to happen remains unclear. Losing weight through exercise avoids this problem as it preserves or increases the amount of lean mass.

Dr David Haslam, the chairman of the National Obesity Forum, told The Scotsman that while BMI was useful for population studies, it was "flawed to say the least" when assessing individuals.

"The best way is to get a tape measure and measure your waist halfway between the crest of the hip and the lower rib at the side," he said.

Men with waists of more than 112cm or 40 inches and women with waists of 88cm or 35 inches are considered to be too fat for their health. These figures can be lower for some ethnic minorities, particularly people from south-east Asia.

Dr Haslam said: "If you've got a low waist size but a high BMI you're probably not at increased risk, so it would be foolish to diet. But there are many confounding factors. What people should not take from this is that having extra fat on the abdomen is a good thing. It's not."

How to work it out

TO FIND out your BMI, multiply your height in metres by itself and then divide your weight in kilograms by the resulting figure.

According to the NHS 24/NHS Direct website, if you have a BMI of less than 18.4 you are underweight and between 18.5 and 24.9 you are an ideal weight.

Between 25 and 29.9 you are overweight, between 30 and 39.9 you are obese and over 40 you are very obese

[billiardspoolnet]

HOMELAND INSECURITY
Al-Qaida evidence
along U.S. border?
Senator views Arab personal effects, concerned about possible infiltration


Posted: November 26, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jon Dougherty
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

A U.S. senator says he's been shown "anecdotal evidence" suggesting an Arabic presence along the U.S.-Mexico border, noting the Bush administration has not publicly released the information because it is "a matter of intelligence."
Human Events reported that Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, has seen beverage boxes with Arabic language and other items, including the image of a commercial airliner striking a building.
Cornyn, who is working with other senators to craft legislation that supports President Bush's proposed guest-worker program but adds stricter border and worksite enforcement measures, also told the magazine he thought it plausible that terrorists could easily find their way into the United States because of large, isolated and rural gaps in America's southwest border region.
"The message that America wants to hear, and the message that America needs, is security," Cornyn told the magazine. "We're seeing that now, not just in places like Texas and border states, but also across the nation. People realize instinctively in a post-9/11 world that we have to know who is coming into our country and why they are here. We have no confidence of that now."
Saying he had "no information" as to whether members of the al Qaida terrorist organization, or other similar groups, had already infiltrated through the U.S.-Mexico border, Cornyn said such an undertaking would be "easy to do."
"To me, it's just obvious, because if you have an open door for someone to walk through, why would you climb over the wall. I think, essentially, our border in between our points of entry are – it's the wild, wild West," he told Human Events.
In January, the discovery in Texas of a jacket featuring an Arabic military badge and an airplane headed toward a tower with the words "Midnight Mission" fueled fears of a possible connection to terrorism.


Earlier this month WorldNetDaily reported that U.S. Rep. John A. Culberson, also a Texas Republican, says there has been an increase in apprehensions of so-called "special interest aliens," or SIAs, along the border – many from countries where al-Qaida is known to operate.
In testimony Nov. 10 before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, Culberson – a member of the congressional Immigration Reform Caucus headed by Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo – told the panel, "I am particularly concerned that aliens from countries such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Indonesia and the Sudan are entering our country illegally."
He went on to tell members he questioned FBI Director Robert Mueller Jr. during a hearing before the House Science, State, Justice, Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee in March and asked him specifically "about SIAs entering the United States across the southern border."
"… He testified under oath that this was in fact occurring," Culberson said, according to his testimony transcript, a copy of which was obtained by WND. "Specifically, [Mueller] stated that '[t]he FBI has received reports that individuals from countries with known al-Qaida connections have attempted to enter the U.S. illegally using alien smuggling rings and assuming Hispanic appearances. An FBI investigation into these reports continues.'" During a visit to the border in October, Culberson said he "met with a number of sheriffs from the counties along the border" who then "briefed me in detail on several cases involving terrorist activity, narco-terrorist activity, violent gangs such as MS-13 and the increased violence in their counties."
After returning to Washington, he said he had spoken with a number of colleagues, sharing "stories and pictures."
"I was not surprised to hear that many of them said they felt safer during trips to Iraq than they would have in a pickup truck on our southern border," Culberson told the House panel.
Another member of Congress, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., told the Charlotte Observer newspaper earlier this month U.S. authorities had detained al-Qaida operatives along the southwestern border, but a spokesman from her office later retracted those comments.
"It turns out she was reading information from the previous year," Myrick spokesman Andy Polk told WND. " There is no threat to the border from al-Qaida that we know of, or anything like that."

[billiardspoolnet]

NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR
Tehran to Pyongyang:
Trade oil for nuke help
Intelligence: Iran offers fuel
for North Korea missile assist

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 27, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Western intelligence sources, cited in yesterday's edition of Der Spiegel, say Iran has asked North Korea for assistance with its nuclear missile program in exchange for oil and natural gas.

According to the German daily, a senior Iranian official visited Pyongyang in October to tender the offer. While North Korea's response to the deal was unclear, revelation of Tehran's outreach fuels further suspicion Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

Last week, the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency revealed that Iran had received what appeared to be blueprints for the core of a nuclear warhead in 1987 through the network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear program. During the same week, Tehran announced it had begun converting a second batch of uranium into gas, a necessary step toward enrichment for generation of electricity or development of a nuclear bomb.


As WorldNetDaily has previously reported, Tehran is getting secret help for its Shahib 3 missile program from former Russian military personnel who are acting as go-betweens on a deal struck in 2003 between North Korea and Iran.

The weapons technology, Western intelligence analysts believe, will be sufficient for Iran to develop a missile with a range of 2,200 miles while carrying a 1.2-ton payload – enough to deliver a nuclear weapon to Israel and most of Europe.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to a gathering of military commanders marking the 36th anniversary of the founding of the paramilitary Bassij force, said Iran will continue its nuclear program, despite growing international condemnation.

"In the nuclear realm, when we take the first steps our enemies get angry at our activities because they have grown used to people who retreat with the smallest humiliation and threat. But, today, we are witnessing the emergence of a Bassiji form of culture and spirituality in every arena," Ahmadinejad said. "They say Iran has to stop its peaceful nuclear activity since there is a probability of diversion while we are sure that they are developing and testing (nuclear weapons) every day. They speak as if they are the lords of the world."

Ahmadinejad praised the Bassij voluntary militia, saying it had a part to play in frustrating foreign powers opposing Iran's nuclear program.

"Of course the (foreign powers) get angry when they see the power and spirit of the militia now governs our international policy, diplomatic relations and negotiations," he said. "In reply to their anger say: Go ahead, be angry but die in your anger."

Tehran claims its Bassij forces number over nine million, but that claim is unconfirmed.

The hard-liner also called for President Bush's administration to be tried for war crimes in Iraq, saying the U.S. had a "black record" on human rights for its support of the "corrupt rulers of Israel."

"Who on earth are you to be concerned with our human rights?" demanded Ahmadinejad. "You should be prosecuted in war crime tribunals. Today, you allow the police in your own country to shoot at free will and shed blood under the guise of freedom. ... What do you have to do with human rights? We accuse you. We have a long list of your crimes against us and we will expose you."


A State Department spokesman denounced Iran's latest start up to convert uranium to gas, saying Tehran had "given the world cause for concern."

"If a nation thinks that it's in their interest to tell the rest of the world to go take a leap, they can do that," he said. "But that would certainly be unusual and ill-advised

[billiardspoolnet]

Go to the library and check it out.

NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR
Tehran to Pyongyang:
Trade oil for nuke help
Intelligence: Iran offers fuel
for North Korea missile assist

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 27, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Western intelligence sources, cited in yesterday's edition of Der Spiegel, say Iran has asked North Korea for assistance with its nuclear missile program in exchange for oil and natural gas.

According to the German daily, a senior Iranian official visited Pyongyang in October to tender the offer. While North Korea's response to the deal was unclear, revelation of Tehran's outreach fuels further suspicion Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

Last week, the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency revealed that Iran had received what appeared to be blueprints for the core of a nuclear warhead in 1987 through the network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear program. During the same week, Tehran announced it had begun converting a second batch of uranium into gas, a necessary step toward enrichment for generation of electricity or development of a nuclear bomb.


As WorldNetDaily has previously reported, Tehran is getting secret help for its Shahib 3 missile program from former Russian military personnel who are acting as go-betweens on a deal struck in 2003 between North Korea and Iran.

The weapons technology, Western intelligence analysts believe, will be sufficient for Iran to develop a missile with a range of 2,200 miles while carrying a 1.2-ton payload – enough to deliver a nuclear weapon to Israel and most of Europe.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to a gathering of military commanders marking the 36th anniversary of the founding of the paramilitary Bassij force, said Iran will continue its nuclear program, despite growing international condemnation.

"In the nuclear realm, when we take the first steps our enemies get angry at our activities because they have grown used to people who retreat with the smallest humiliation and threat. But, today, we are witnessing the emergence of a Bassiji form of culture and spirituality in every arena," Ahmadinejad said. "They say Iran has to stop its peaceful nuclear activity since there is a probability of diversion while we are sure that they are developing and testing (nuclear weapons) every day. They speak as if they are the lords of the world."

Ahmadinejad praised the Bassij voluntary militia, saying it had a part to play in frustrating foreign powers opposing Iran's nuclear program.

"Of course the (foreign powers) get angry when they see the power and spirit of the militia now governs our international policy, diplomatic relations and negotiations," he said. "In reply to their anger say: Go ahead, be angry but die in your anger."

Tehran claims its Bassij forces number over nine million, but that claim is unconfirmed.

The hard-liner also called for President Bush's administration to be tried for war crimes in Iraq, saying the U.S. had a "black record" on human rights for its support of the "corrupt rulers of Israel."

"Who on earth are you to be concerned with our human rights?" demanded Ahmadinejad. "You should be prosecuted in war crime tribunals. Today, you allow the police in your own country to shoot at free will and shed blood under the guise of freedom. ... What do you have to do with human rights? We accuse you. We have a long list of your crimes against us and we will expose you."


A State Department spokesman denounced Iran's latest start up to convert uranium to gas, saying Tehran had "given the world cause for concern."

"If a nation thinks that it's in their interest to tell the rest of the world to go take a leap, they can do that," he said. "But that would certainly be unusual and ill-advised

[billiardspoolnet]

MUCH ABOUT HISTORY
Mao more lethal
than Hitler, Stalin
Expert says Chinese leader's policies led to death of 77 million countrymen


Posted: November 29, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jon Dougherty
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

A noted expert in calculating the number of deaths caused by authoritarian regimes says the late Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung's policies and actions led to the deaths of nearly 77 million of his countrymen, surpassing those killed by Nazi Party founder Adolf Hitler and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin.
R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science and a Nobel Peace Prize finalist who has published dozens of books chronicling so-called "democide," or death by government, said the new Chinese figure – nearly double his previous estimate of about 38 million – was based on what he believes was Mao's duplicity in China's great famine of 1958 to 1961.
"From the time I wrote my book 'China's Bloody Century,' I have held to these democide totals for Mao: Civil War-Sino-Japanese War 1923-1949 = 3,466,000 murdered; and Rule over China (People's Republic of China) 1949-1987 = 35,236,000 murdered," Rummel wrote in an e-mail to WND.
He said he didn't previously add in the famine totals because he was not convinced those deaths were caused by Mao purposely. Instead, he said he believed:
• The famine was due to the "Great Leap Forward," when Mao tried to catch up with the West in producing iron and steel;
• The factorization of agriculture, forcing virtually all peasants to give up their land, livestock, tools and homes to live in regimented communes;
• The exuberant over-reporting of agricultural production by commune and district managers for fear of the consequences of not meeting their quotas;
• The consequent belief of high communist officials that excess food was being produced and could be exported without starving the peasants (though "reports from traveling high officials indicated that peasants might be starving in certain localities");
• An investigative team was sent out from Beijing and reported back that there was mass starvation, after which the government then "stopped exporting food and began to import what was needed to stop the famine."
"Thus, I believed that Mao's policies were responsible for the famine, but he was misled about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies," Rummel said. "Therefore, I argued, this was not a democide."
But after further review of available data, he said he agreed with other researchers who had counted the famine figures as part of the regime's mass murder figures.
"They were right and I was wrong," he said.
Rummel said he was influenced to revise his figures upward after reading a pair of books, "Wild Swans: Two Daughters of China," by Jung Chang; and "Mao: the Unknown Story," which Jung wrote with her husband, Jon Halliday.
"From the biography of Mao, which I trust … I can now say that yes, Mao's policies caused the famine. He knew about it from the beginning," Rummel said, adding Mao even "tried to take more food from the people to pay for his lust for international power, but was overruled by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members."
"So, the famine was intentional. What was its human cost? I had estimated that 27 million Chinese starved to death or died from associated diseases. Others estimated the toll to be as high as 40 million. Chang and Halliday put it at 38 million and, given their sources, I will accept that," said Rummel. "I'm now convinced that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin."
Mao's butchery "exceeds the 61,911,000 murdered by the Soviet Union 1917-1987, with Hitler far behind at 20,946,000 wiped out (from) 1933-1945," he said.
The Chinese communist leader's toll is higher than the 34.1 million combat deaths in "all wars between 1900 and 1987," including World Wars I and II, Vietnam, Korea, and the Mexican and Russian Revolutions.
"Mao alone murdered over twice as many as were killed in combat in all these wars," he said.
In all, Rummel estimates about 174 million people were killed during incidents of democide in the 20th century, "of which communist regimes murdered about 148 million," he said, adding, "Communists overall have murdered four times those killed in combat."

[billiardspoolnet]

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday Israel could not accept the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, but steered clear of threatening military action against the Islamic Republic.

"Israel, and not only Israel, cannot accept a situation in which Iran has nuclear weapons," Sharon told reporters.

"We are also taking all the necessary preparations to be ready for this kind of situation."

Sharon reaffirmed Israel's support for diplomatic efforts, led by the United States and the European Union, to curb a uranium enrichment programme in Iran, a country that has called for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Iran, the world's fourth biggest oil producer, says its nuclear programme is for energy needs only.

Last week, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board decided not to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions in order to give Europe more time to talk it into abandoning uranium enrichment activities.

Asked about a military option against Iran if diplomacy failed, Sharon said: "I am sure before anyone decides on this, every effort would be made to pressure Iran to halt this activity.

"It appears to me the efforts now being undertaken can definitely be fruitful."

Believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, Israel sent warplanes to bomb an Iraqi atomic reactor in Osiraq in 1981.

Independent experts believe Israel, perhaps with U.S. support, could mount an Osiraq-like strike against Iran, although the latter's nuclear facilities are numerous, dispersed and well-defended.

[billiardspoolnet]

Russia equips Iran for war
Moscow sells Tehran 29 anti-missile systems, cites secret Al Gore agreement as justification

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 2, 2005
6:29 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: The following report is an adaptation of an exclusive report in the latest issue of the premium, online, weekly intelligence newsletter "Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin," published by the founder of WND.

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com



Tor M-1 anti-missile battery
WASHINGTON – Russia has signed a deal with Iran to sell 29 of its Tor M-1 anti-missile systems, a development that will complicate any planned pre-emptive attack on the rogue nation's nuclear facilities, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The system would theoretically permit Iran to intercept some cruise missiles as well as airborne missiles that U.S., Israeli or other western countries might use in an effort to keep the terrorist-supporting nation from developing nuclear weapons or using them.


The sale was confirmed by a source at the Koupol military factory in Russia who claimed the deal would not violate any international agreement. That's because Moscow made a secret 1995 agreement with Washington known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin protocol, which Russian officials believes permits continued military sales to Iran.

Russian sources say the Tor system is "a weapon of defense" and does not represent a danger to the U.S. as long as Washington does not attack Iran.

Another Russian source says Iran only seeks "to defend its nuclear thermal power station" that Moscow is building in Bushehr – set for completion in 2007.

Washington, meanwhile, along with European nations, claims Iran is attempting to develop offensive nuclear weapons under the pretense of civilian activities.

The purchase of the systems Tor M-1 would cost Iran more than $700 million, according to experts on the subject. They say the surface-to-air missiles are capable of knocking down cruise missiles and aircraft bombs launched against a target.

The Gore-Chernomyrdin protocol was first disclosed publicly in 2000. It was the result of secret talks between then Vice President Al Gore and Russia's then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. After the revelations in 2000, the State Department acknowledged Gore assured Russia that, under the provisions of the agreement, the U.S. would not sanction the Kremlin for Russian arm sales to Iran – through 1999.

Critics of the agreement pointed out it was in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Iran-Iraq Non-proliferation Act, sponsored by then Sen. Gore, that required the imposition of sanctions against countries that made destabilizing arms sales to either Iran or Iraq.

Gore's office was not available for comment.

[billiardspoolnet]

OUTBREAK!
Tamiflu 'useless'
against avian flu
Doctor who has treated 41 victims of virus
says 'we place no importance on this drug'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 4, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

After treating 41 victims of H5N1, the deadly form of the bird flu virus, a Vietnamese doctor has concluded Tamiflu, the drug most widely stockpiled around the world to combat a feared pandemic, is "useless."

Dr. Nguyen Tuong Van, who runs the intensive care unit of the Center for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, followed World Health Organization guidelines in her treatment of patients but concluded it had no effect on the disease.

"We place no importance on using this drug on our patients," she said. "Tamiflu is really only meant for treating ordinary type A flu. It was not designed to combat H5N1 ... [Tamiflu] is useless."


Van said bird flu is far worse that SARS, an avian-linked respiratory illness, which she has also treated. Caring for H5N1 victims requires intensive patient "support" with modern technology, like ventilators and dialysis machines, if patients are to be kept alive. Even Western countries with wide access to technology would see there medical infrastructure strained to the limit if the dreaded pandemic comes.

Van did not criticize governments for stockpiling the drug but said doctors had to inform the public about its performance.

Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical, has sold stockpiles of its Tamiflu to 40 countries and insists it's effective if administered within 48 hours of infection. Roche recently licensed Indonesia to manufacture Tamiflu for its own population.

As WorldNetDaily has reported, officials in at least two nations now suspect the avian flu bug has mutated into a virus that is being transmitted from human to human – a development world health authorities have estimated could result in the deaths of tens of millions.

The WHO confirms Van's experience, admitting Tamiflu has not been "widely successful in human patients," but speculates the drug has not been administered until late in the disease in many Asian countries.

"While there is some anecdotal evidence of the build-up of resistance to antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu," one health expert told the London Times, "at present the experience is that these drugs do work."

[billiardspoolnet]

In "CRIMINALIZING CHRISTIANITY," Whistleblower reveals the length, width and breadth of attacks on Christianity – those happening now, and those just around the corner – and not just in Communist and Islamic nations where religious persecution is rampant, but right here in the United States of America.

"This has become more than a seasonal witch hunt by the ACLU," said WND Editor and founder Joseph Farah. "The attacks on Christianity in America are alarming. We are witnessing more than religious bigotry now. We are entering the early stages of what could become persecution and outright criminalization of Christianity if it is not exposed and fought vigorously by all freedom-loving people."


In "CRIMINALIZING CHRISTIANITY," readers will learn how quoting the Bible, especially regarding homosexuality, can make you into a criminal offender. Learn how standing up for heterosexual marriage, espousing Judeo-Christian morality, protesting against radical Islam – even delivering a sermon in church – can get you into serious trouble with the law.

Highlights of this issue include:


"The real grinches who stole Christmas" by Joseph Farah, a penetrating look at the attack on Christmas and childhood innocence.

"The war on Christianity" by Janet L. Folger, an comprehensive and exclusive excerpt from her electrifying new book, "The Criminalization of Christianity," documenting how America's founding religion is slowly becoming illegal .

"The illegal sermon: Swedish pastor in his own words" – read the sermon that caused a 70-year-old pastor to be threatened with jail because he criticized homosexuality.

"How 'gay rights' is being sold to America" by David Kupelian, exposing the powerful manipulation techniques behind the radical homosexual agenda.

"Church dissolved over homosexual issue," showing how an Episcopal church's property was seized after it withheld dues in protest of the ordination of an openly homosexual bishop.

"Combat over Christmas," an in-depth expose of who and what is behind the relentless and daily legal attacks on Christian expression in America.

"'Merry Christmas' is not offensive" by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who explains why Jews should protect religious freedom for everyone.

"Christianity flourishing in world's most oppressed nations," by Todd Nettleton, an eye-opening and inspiring look at Christian persecution worldwide, providing insight into the reasons that despite untold suffering – or perhaps because of it – the religion of Christ continues to grow in the most brutal, totalitarian societies on earth.

"Islam and human rights" by Christine Schirrmacher, exposing how Muslim nations justify their mistreatment of Christians.
Perhaps the most stunning revelation in this issue of Whistleblower is the extent of the attacks on Christianity right in the U.S.

"It's chillling," said WND Managing Editor David Kupelian. "Our nation's founding religion is being attacked as never before. The Constitution is being twisted out of all recognition, history is being rewritten, and Christian teachings and observances are being shut out and shut up. And while we sit around watching this helplessly, we're bequeathing a different America to our children. It's time for people to wake up."

[billiardspoolnet]

America's creeping
identity theft

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 3, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Ever have your credit card denied? A check bounce? A computer tell you your credit is no good? Ever find a lot of charges on your card or phone charges on your bill you don't recognize? I have, and I'll bet you have, too.

Twice I've been separated from my billfold, along with every card, my driver's license, even my Social Security card, everything that can identify me – except my face and my white buck shoes – and it's a terrible sinking feeling.


Remember the Bob Dole commercial in which the elderly lady behind the cash register is demanding to see his ID, and though he's a well-known presidential candidate, he has to produce it? Then it turns out she's his mom. It's really not much of a stretch; in today's world, your ID is who you are, and you've got to prove it.

But what happens when your identity, the evidence of who you are, is stolen? Altered? Corrupted? Perhaps ruined beyond compare?

My old pal Tony Curtis told me a true story about the party he threw in Manhattan, in his swank apartment, soon after he hit it big in movies. He'd been raised Bernie Schwartz in Brooklyn, but he was now becoming famous as Tony Curtis, and he wanted to celebrate with all his old friends and his mom, who was to come in from the old neighborhood. The party was a big success, but his mom didn't show up. A couple of times Tony called her home number, but no one answered, and he became worried. Later, as he saw his last guest off in the lobby, he spied his mother sitting on a sofa. He ran over and asked, "Mom, where were you? I kept phoning. What happened? Why didn't you come up?" She answered pitifully, "I forgot your new name. …"

Well, friend, you and I are seeing our beloved America get its identity stolen. If our mothers came looking for it, it's nearing the point where they wouldn't be able to find it.

We who can remember believe there really was a time when the rest of the world saw America as the most blessed country on earth, the champion of liberty, ready to help in time of trouble. We were seen as a society guided by distinct Judeo-Christian principles, a society where families stuck together, communities were safe, the economy was strong, houses of worship were filled, leaders set good examples, and kids were unembarrassed to think about growing up to be president.

The renowned French commentator Alexis de Tocqueville said of our young nation: "America is great because America is good. If she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." He was right. God help us, he was right.

Though the Declaration of Independence enunciated our relationship with a Creator and acknowledged that the very basis of equality, individual worth and liberty itself was that relationship, today we are allowing the likes of atheist Michael Newdow and certain judges who substitute their own political preferences for the clear intents of the Constitution to undermine the foundation of our way of life. There is real risk of their perpetrating identity theft on our country.

It's as if they, in cahoots with the ACLU, People for the American [sic] Way and other ultraliberal pressure groups, are snatching our debit card of voluntary prayer in schools and public ceremonies, the bank checks of "under God" (where our accounts really are), and perhaps the ID card of "In God We Trust" off our currency. In challenging even the definition of marriage, they put our identity at risk along with the very molecular building blocks of our society.

Imagine. One angry atheist, Madelyn Murray O'Hare, prevailed with our Supreme Court to snatch away the freedom for school kids to pray at the start of the day, though that simple free exercise of religion was guaranteed in the very first amendment to our Constitution! How did we let this happen?

And why are we allowing a single Christmas or Hanukkah display to be removed from public view? The Ten Commandments to be chiseled off any building? School officials or local dissidents to prevent even the mention of God or a general opening prayer to be uttered before a single football game or graduation ceremony?

Why should we shop in a store where the clerks are forbidden to say "Merry Christmas"? Where's our backbone? Are we so cowed, our visceral sense of identity already so altered, that we don't notice, don't care or are just afraid to speak up?


Shakespeare offered, "He who steals my purse steals trash; but he who steals my good name takes that which little enriches him but makes me poor indeed." Will we, in the final analysis, settle for being known as Ugly Americans, those wimpy dissolute weaklings who can't even stay married, who abort their young by the millions and who have the highest crime stats in the world? Will our identity be chiefly as the producers and exporters of the filthiest and most decadent "entertainment" since Caligula to the rest of the watching world? Will we be identified as the citizenry who divorced themselves from the very God they used to call on for protection and guidance, and who gave Muslim extremists excuses galore to call us "the great Satan"?

Will we? Or will we gather ourselves while we still can, awaken from our indifference and start using our collective resources to re-establish our national identity – before it is forever lost?

The Bible thunders, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." Our national identity, our good name, is being stolen. We'd better reclaim it while it can still be found in the data banks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pat Boone, descendent of the legendary pioneer Daniel Boone, has been a top-selling recording artist, the star of his own hit TV series, a movie star, a Broadway headliner, and a best-selling author in a career that has spanned half a century. During the classic rock & roll era of the 1950s, he sold more records than any artist except Elvis Presley.

[billiardspoolnet]

Joining hands to defend Christmas

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 3, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

This week, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., wrote a letter to the architect of the U.S. Capitol urging that the so-called "Capitol Holiday Tree" be renamed the "Capitol Christmas Tree," as it was known for many years.

The term for the annual spruce tree apparently changed some time in the 1990s.

In recent years, our nation has been plagued by a series of politically correct decrees that are designed to create a sanitized public square, creating what are essentially religion-free zones. In such a Scrooge-infested environment, even the word Christmas is deemed to be far too distasteful at our nation's Capitol.


Thankfully, Speaker Hastert has drawn attention to this ludicrous effort to totally secularize the American public square.

"I strongly urge that we return to this tradition and join the White House, countless other public institutions and millions of American families in celebrating the holiday season with a Christmas tree," Rep. Hastert wrote to Architect Alan Hantman.

National 'Friend or Foe' campaign

In the most recent issue of the National Liberty Journal, a publication I publish, we highlighted a series of stories on the national "Friend or Foe" movement that has been initiated by attorney Mat Staver and his Liberty Counsel, a 700-attorney religious-freedom firm that is affiliated with Jerry Falwell Ministries.

We featured a story on churches that have purchased ads in their local newspapers announcing that Christmas is still legal in our schools and in the public square, providing a legal memo supporting this fact and offering to provide free attorney representation for any whose religious freedom is challenged. Many churches, including Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church I founded in 1956, and Dr. Jerry Prevo's Anchorage Baptist Temple, have joined in this important effort.

Since publication, my newspaper staff and I have heard from many pastors across the country who have determined to join in this effort by purchasing pro-Christmas ads in their own local papers.

I'm hoping that many other pastors (and others) will still get involved with this effort this year. See the ad many pastors are running [a .pdf file].

Mat Staver and I are planning to help finance an all-out assault in newspapers across the country next year, but we hope to establish a firm foundation with many pastors coming aboard this year.

There really is much work to be done to safeguard Christmas.

Retailers banning 'Christmas'

Thankfully, there is some good news on the horizon.

While many retailers – including Kmart, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreens – have abolished use of the term "Christmas" at many of their stores, The American Family Association reports that Lowe's has adopted a pro-Christmas ruling. Lowe's stores will begin advertising "Christmas trees" instead of the previous "holiday trees."

It may sound like an insignificant victory, but I see it as important.

There's simply no need to ban Christmas in America. And if retailers determine that Christmas isn't for them, then they can expect to lose the support of many Americans.

AFA noted that after "thousands of AFA supporters contacted Lowe's to express their displeasure," Lowe's announced its change in policy.

I believe many Americans are fed up with the endeavors of a small minority of our fellow citizens who are seeking to obliterate Christmas – and other historic religious symbols that have defined our nation for most of our history – from the public square.


Here's a certainty: If retailers comprehend that multitudes of shoppers are shunning them because they have disallowed the word "Christmas," that strategy will quickly fade.

It's time we join together and protect Christmas from the secular Grinches who want to stifle its celebration in public venues throughout our nation. We can easily win this battle if we all join together.