Terror Not Suspected in Red Sea Crash

CAIRO, Egypt — A charter airliner carrying 148 people -- mostly French tourists -- crashed into the Red Sea (search) on Saturday shortly after taking off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh (search), officials said. No survivors were reported.

The military sent helicopters and small patrol boats into an area full of floating suitcases and other debris to search for survivors, but only one body had been pulled from the water several hours after the crash.

The Boeing 737 (search) jet, which disappeared from radar after it took off shortly before 5 a.m., was headed to Cairo for a crew change before continuing to Paris. No distress call was made, airport officials said on customary condition of anonymity.

The crash occurred amid a week of heightened concerns about terrorist threats from the air that have led to increased security and canceled flights around the world.

But an initial statement from Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry called the crash an "accident" that may have been caused by a mechanical problem.

A French Embassy official in Cairo, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that he had a list of people aboard that showed 134 French tourists, one Moroccan tourist and 13 crew members.

Airport officials earlier said there were 135 passengers and six crewmembers.

Air Flash, which operated the airliner, said in a statement that the wreckage was found about nine miles from the airport, according to the Egyptian news agency MENA.

Emergency teams rushed to the scene and found the wreckage of the jet close to the coast, MENA reported.

A German who runs a diving center in Sharm el-Sheikh described Egyptian navy ships and helicopters combing the crash site, but he said "nothing has surfaced so far."

posted by Frodgie at 8:49 AM

 

Security Concerns Cancel, Ground More Flights

WASHINGTON — Flights continued to be canceled and grounded Friday as the U.S. government ratcheted up its vigilance against potential terrorism.

British Airways (search) Flight 223 from Heathrow Airport (search) in London to Washington was canceled Friday for the second time in three days on advice from the British government over some sort of intelligence information. Its return flight was also canceled.

The flight was canceled less than two hours before takeoff, and some of the 300 passengers had already begun to check in. It was also delayed Wednesday night.

One British Airways plane landed at Washington Dulles International Airport (search) under military escort Friday afternoon. The reason for the escort was not immediately known.

Also on Friday, British Airways said Flight BA263 to Riyadh, which had been due to leave Heathrow at 8:35 a.m. EST Saturday had been canceled, along with the return BA262 from Riyadh, scheduled to leave the Saudi Arabian city on Sunday.

posted by Frodgie at 8:48 AM

 

Personal server offers painless backup

NEW YORK (AP) -- The computer server, workhorse of the Internet and corporate world, just got personal. And remarkably user-friendly.

That's a very good thing indeed, because the chore we all loathe and too often neglect is backing up our exploding data store, which is worth so much more to us than our various computers.

Intimidating to the non-geek, the server is normally thought of as a machine that's entrusted to network managers. Nothing we can fathom without stacks of manuals and hours to burn.


posted by Frodgie at 8:46 AM

 

'I am the candidate best able to stand up to George W. Bush'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Flush with money after a big fourth quarter of fund raising, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark is mapping out how he can parlay that success into becoming the alternative to Howard Dean.

"It's now clear that I'm one of only two candidates in a position to win the nomination," Clark, a retired Army general, said in a statement Thursday.

"And I'm the only candidate positioned to actually win the election because I am the candidate best able to stand up to George W. Bush and win the debate about who will best be able to make our country secure over the next four years."

Clark said he believes his "fund-raising success will be a leading indicator of the direction this campaign is heading in."


posted by Frodgie at 8:45 AM

 

Death of a Fantasy
Everything Saddam Hussein built up, in utter collapse.

The capture of Saddam Hussein draws a line under Operation Free Iraq. It is now possible to concentrate on the task of building the country's future, and discovering whether democracy will take hold in the Arab Middle East, and if so, how and in what form.


posted by Frodgie at 8:43 AM

 

Iraqi rebels down U.S. helicopter

BAGHDAD — Insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter west of Baghdad yesterday, killing one soldier, and U.S. forces said they came under fire with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as they guarded the burning aircraft.
The military said the attackers who fired at U.S. forces after the crash near Fallujah were posing as journalists. But there was confusion over the claim, because Reuters news agency reported that U.S. troops fired at its journalists at the scene and later detained three.
Elsewhere, Arab gunmen fatally shot a Kurd amid rising ethnic tensions in the northern, oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and a Ba'ath Party official was assassinated in an apparent revenge killing in Mosul.
An American tanker truck was set ablaze in western Iraq, and coalition forces raiding a Baghdad mosque arrested 32 suspected insurgents and seized an arms cache.

posted by Frodgie at 8:42 AM

 

Year in Review: Big Wins in War on Terror in 2003

WASHINGTON — The war on terror took a decisive turn in 2003, beginning with the looming prospect of war with Iraq and ending with the capture of dictator Saddam Hussein (search).

In between was a series of events that defined an eventful and emotional year.

The most visible aspect of the war on terror began with Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) appealing to the United Nations to enforce its Security Council resolutions against Saddam's regime.

"Today, Iraq still poses a threat and Iraq still remains in material breach," Powell told the Security Council in early February.

After months of diplomatic haggling, the U.S. was unable to sway permanent member holdouts France, Russia and China. As a result, the United States, Britain and a coalition of more than 35 nations issued a final warning to the Iraqi dictator.

"All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours," Bush said in a March 17 address to the nation.

Saddam's failure to accept the ultimatum sealed the fate of his regime.
posted by Frodgie at 9:23 AM

 

U.S. Team to Visit North Korean Nuclear Facility

SEOUL, South Korea — In a startling diplomatic breakthrough, a U.S. delegation will visit North Korea's main nuclear facility at Yongbyon next week, a South Korean official said Friday.

"The report is true," said the unnamed official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry. "The U.S. side has informed us of the trip."

The visit, first reported in USA Today's Friday edition, would be the first by outsiders to Yongbyon (search) since North Korea kicked out U.N. nuclear inspectors in late 2002.

Washington had approved the trip, USA Today reported, and it had been scheduled for Jan. 6-10.

The delegation, according to the newspaper, would include Sig Hecker, from 1985 to 1997 director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (search), which produced the world's first U.S. nuclear bomb; a China expert from Stanford University; two Senate foreign policy aides who had previously visited Pyongyang; and a former State Department official who had negotiated with North Korea.

The South Korean official confirmed the inclusion of the policy aides but refused to comment further, saying more details would be announced within a couple of days.

Jason Rebholz, spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, said he had no information on the trip and could not comment on the news report.
posted by Frodgie at 9:20 AM

 

Bush: Iran quake relief reflects no policy change

FALFURRIAS, Texas (CNN) -- President Bush says U.S. humanitarian assistance to Iranian quake victims doesn't signify an easing of relations with Tehran, and he demanded the Islamic nation's leaders hand over captured al Qaeda operatives and "abandon their nuclear weapons program."

Bush's Thursday comments about Iran's nuclear program are some of the toughest from the president since Tehran signed an additional nuclear protocol last month to allow U.N. inspectors greater access to Iranian sites.

Although a final death toll may still be several days away, the deputy governor of Bam Thursday said at least 26,500 people were killed in the ancient city when a magnitude-6.6 quake rocked the region December 26, leveling most of the city and leaving tens of thousands homeless. (Full story)

Aid workers from the United States have joined teams from more than 20 countries in forming a massive response to Tehran's calls for aid. In order to expedite disaster relief, Bush Wednesday ordered the temporary easing of some restrictions on sending money and goods to Iran. (Full story)


posted by Frodgie at 9:19 AM

 

Report: Libya Wants Reward for Nuclear Concessions

NEW YORK — Libya's prime minister said his country wants to be rewarded for opening up to nuclear inspections, and stressed that the United States must lift sanctions by May 12 or his government won't have to pay $6 million to each family of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing victims, according to an interview published Friday.

Prime Minister Shukri Ghanim (search) told The New York Times that Libya wants to be paid for turning over nuclear materials. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi (search) pledged in mid-December to give up his unconventional weapons programs and to open weapons sites to inspectors.

Ghanim told the Times that the North African country wants to "accelerate to the maximum" the dismantling of its unconventional weapons programs so that Libya could be declared free of the weapons in the next few months.

At the same time, Ghanim reiterated that his country won't have to pay the remaining $6 million to each family of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing victims unless Washington lifts the sanctions (search) that it imposed in 1986 by May 12.
posted by Frodgie at 9:18 AM

 

Freeze on terror cash not working

The top senators on the powerful Senate Finance Committee are openly questioning a key federal agency's ability to block terrorist money, citing examples in which U.S. officials failed to freeze the money of people identified as terrorist financiers by American allies.
"Other nations rightly look to the United States for leadership and information in the war on terrorism. We should not be playing catch-up," Sens. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, wrote the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in a letter just before Christmas.

posted by Frodgie at 9:16 AM

 

Tech predictions for 2004

-- A new day, a new year, a fresh white snowdrift we can turn into snowmen or slush. That's right, it's time once again for my annual look at what's ahead for the new year in the world of technology and business.

Before we raise the curtain, however, let's look back at how I fared with my predictions for 2003. I'm proud to announce that I hit even better than a combined Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, getting three out of my four predictions correct. I forecast an up year for the market -- complete with mini tech bubbles -- and that notebook computers would continue their torrid sales pace, stealing market share from desktops (IDC's third-quarter 2003 numbers show notebooks with a 40 percent share of the U.S. computer market, up from 25 percent in the third quarter of 2002).

I also correctly predicted that Blockbuster would have a rough year. Viacom (Blockbuster's parent company) reportedly is trying to sell the company but is having a hard time finding buyers.

What did I get wrong? I said that both TiVo and Sonicblue would go bye-bye, unable to withstand the continued encroachment by cable companies offering personal video recorder functionality in their digital cable boxes. Hmm ... maybe that will happen this year?


posted by Frodgie at 9:15 AM

 

Iranian Futures
Khatami's doublespeak and a hot potato.

"What I say does not definitely reflect what I think. What I do does not necessary reflect what I say. Therefore, not everything that I do necessary contradicts everything that I think." This explanation of "Middle Eastern Logic" issued by the British ambassador in Tehran two decades ago may help clarify the candor and transparency of recent statements coming from countries like Iran and Libya.

Last week, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami voiced his opposition to the death penalty, stating that "he did not even wish for the execution of captive Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein." The very same day, in the northern town of Gonbad-e-Kavoos, an Iranian man convicted of murder was hanged in public, becoming the tenth execution in Iran reported by local press over the past week.


posted by Frodgie at 9:15 AM

 

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year in 2004!!

posted by Frodgie at 8:01 AM

 

Al Qaeda videos found in Iraq weapons raid

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces operating in the so-called Sunni Triangle -- the region of Iraq most loyal to captured former dictator Saddam Hussein -- found a significant weapons cache that included al Qaeda literature and videotapes, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

Members of Task Force Ironhorse 2nd Infantry's Arrowhead Brigade discovered the material Monday morning at a site in Samarra, about 65 miles north-northwest of Baghdad. Some of the items were found hidden in a false wall, the military said.

The troops also found a British-made body armor plate with a bullet hole. U.S. Central Command said it was an indication that insurgents were testing the ceramic plate's ability to withstand expended anti-personnel ammunition.

In addition to the al Qaeda literature and videos, the troops found nearly 8,000 rounds of ammunition; 160 mortar rounds and six mortar tubes; 43 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 79 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs); and 19 AK-47 assault rifles, as well as dozens of other weapons.

The military also said a significant amount of C4 and TNT explosives material was found, as was material to make improvised explosive devices -- the crudely made bombs that have killed or maimed dozens of coalition troops.


posted by Frodgie at 7:00 AM

 

Israeli Helicopter Fires Two Missiles in Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY, Gaza — An Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at a car carrying militants from the Hamas (search) group late Tuesday, wounding at least 11 people and raising fears of an intensification of Middle East violence.

Israel's military issued a statement saying the targets were "senior Hamas terrorists ... actively engaged in planning terror attacks."

Hamas officials said one of the people in the car was a midlevel commander, Jamal Jara. It was not clear if he was among the wounded.

Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin (search) said Israel would pay a heavy price for the attack. "These massacres and crimes prove that Israel is seeking violence and not looking for peace, security and stability," he told Associated Press Television News.

The strike undermines an informal arrangement in which Israel avoided trying to kill Hamas militants as long as the group halts attacks on civilians inside Israel. Neither side had acknowledged that such an agreement existed.
posted by Frodgie at 6:56 AM

 

States Try Using New Forms of Punishment

LOS ANGELES — Being "tough on crime" used to be a popular political slogan but nowadays it's in fashion to be "smart on crime" instead.



Politicians are also finding that it's cost-effective to implement alternative forms of punishment in the criminal justice system.

States across the country are doing away with mandatory minimum sentences (search), relaxing parole rules and diverting drug offenders to less costly treatment programs.

In states like California, officials say some of those measures are going to help better rehabilitate low-risk offenders while also saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

California corrections officials say the reforms are long overdue, not just because they'll save hundreds of millions of dollars, but because prison beds should be reserved for more serious felons.


posted by Frodgie at 6:55 AM

 

Iraqi council member: Saddam hid $40 billion

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein withdrew $2 billion from Iraqi banks last spring, including a sizable withdrawal a week after the fall of Baghdad, according to a member of the Iraq Governing Council.

Dr. Iyad Allawi -- in an interview with CNN Tuesday -- elaborated on reports published Monday in two Arabic newspapers on what he says interrogators are learning from Saddam since his capture earlier this month.

Allawi said the governing council has possession of documents signed by the former Iraqi dictator two weeks before the war began authorizing the bank withdrawal. It was unclear how the money was taken from the bank after coalition troops took Baghdad.

Allawi said Saddam admitted he invested stolen Iraqi money -- which the Iraq Governing Council estimates at $40 billion -- in Switzerland, Japan and Germany, among others, under fictitious company names.

Saddam's confession also included the names of people involved in terrorist attacks against coalition forces, Allawi said. He said hundreds of Iraqis have surrendered in the days since Saddam's capture because they knew he had given interrogators their names.
posted by Frodgie at 6:51 AM

 

Anglican bishop shuts down church

VANCOUVER, B.C. — The local Anglican bishop, four days before Christmas, closed a small church 40 miles east of here over its opposition to the church's approval of homosexual "marriages."
By the next day, the closing of Holy Cross was one of the top-rated news stories in Canada and the church's pastor, the Rev. James Wagner, spent the entire day on radio and television. "Anglican parish excommunicated," one TV station blared.
Nine other churches in the diocese have protested the bishop's blessing of homosexual unions, but Holy Cross was the only one that the bishop ordered closed. On Christmas, Mr. Wagner defiantly held services in his home for 22 church members.
The situation in far western Canada, both sides in the dispute say, is what the U.S. Episcopal Church - also a member of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion and itself riven over homosexual clergy and same-sex unions - may look like a year from now: dioceses split into liberal and conservative camps with liberal bishops closing conservative churches one by one.

posted by Frodgie at 6:49 AM

 

Tomorrow Is Another Year

It is embarrassingly clichéd to write about New Year's Resolutions, and I apologize, but I ask you to consider: If we didn't have this annual orgy of self-recrimination, followed immediately by a surge of zeal to do better, next year, starting tomorrow, would any of us ever really reform or repent? If there were no January 1st, would you ever say to yourself on New Year's Eve, as I do, "Starting tomorrow I will do 50 sit-ups every day?" Of course you wouldn't.

So let's be grateful. The end of the year is a happy, productive time when we can take stock of our lives, run through our list of personal renovations, resolve to start flossing twice a day, fix those annoying household —

— Wait, I'll be right back. I think I hear someone banging outside.
posted by Frodgie at 6:48 AM

 

U.S. to Have Tight New Year's Security

NEW YORK (AP) - Revelers can expect hovering helicopters and bomb-sniffing dogs with their champagne and confetti as cities hunker down for their most heavily guarded New Year's Eve in memory.

From Times Square to the Las Vegas Strip and California's Rose Parade, police were rolling out unprecedented security measures triggered by a hike in the national terrorism alert to orange, its second-highest level.

In New York, workers sealed manhole covers and removed mailboxes to guard against any potential bomb attack in Times Square. More than 750,000 revelers were expected to gather under the guard of counter-sniper teams and seven police helicopters.

Armed helicopters were also to prowl the Las Vegas Strip, where 300,000 people were anticipated.


posted by Frodgie at 6:46 AM

 

Bomb Kills One Iraqi, U.S. Troops Make Arrests

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Rebels detonated a roadside bomb as a U.S. convoy drove by in Baghdad (search) Tuesday, killing one Iraqi and wounding another, police said. Elsewhere, U.S. troops captured three suspected members of an Al Qaeda (search) linked group and arrested three former army and intelligence officers.

No U.S. troops were injured in Tuesday's bomb attack in central Baghdad, police Maj. Khatan Jabir said.

A U.S. military Humvee was parked askew in the middle of the road shortly after the blast in the densely populated Karrada neighborhood, beside a shattered concrete median.

The explosion cracked windows on the street lined with small shops selling vegetables and groceries. People nearby said the dead man worked in a nearby store.

"They've not killed any Americans, just Iraqis as usual. We consider it terrorism," shopkeeper Karim Abbas said bitterly.
posted by Frodgie at 6:26 AM

 

THE WAR AFTER THE WAR

"Mission Accomplished" read the banner flying from the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, the day President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq. Like his father's pledge of "Read my lips: No new taxes," however, those were words the younger Bush would live to regret.

The mission of removing Saddam Hussein from power had indeed been accomplished in an almost-unbelievable 35 days. But the greater mission—securing the country, writing a constitution, holding democratic elections, restoring basic services, capturing Baath Party leaders, finding weapons of mass destruction, stamping out terrorism, and so forth—continued to dominate the news for the remainder of the year.

In the wake of a quick, successful war, it was, perhaps, understandable that Americans would expect a quick, successful peace. With Iraqi throngs handing flowers to U.S. soldiers and hailing President Bush as a savior, how difficult could the reconstruction possibly be?
more....
posted by Frodgie at 6:24 AM

 

Major Crackdown on Foreign Flights

WASHINGTON — Under the new flight restrictions put in place Monday to prevent a possible Al Qaeda (search) attack, foreign airlines may be denied access to American airspace if they refuse to place armed marshals (search) on flights.



The mandate is effective immediately, according to the Homeland Security Department (search).

"Any sovereign government retains the right to revoke the privilege of flying to and from a country or even over their airspace," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (search) said Monday. "So ultimately a denial of access is the leverage that you have."

Ridge also said the nation would remain at orange alert (search) through the New Year's holiday and perhaps beyond. "We are as concerned today as we were yesterday," he said. "We'll be concerned as much this week as we were last week."


posted by Frodgie at 6:20 AM

 

Dean: Bin Laden guilt best determined by jury

(CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean will not pronounce Osama bin Laden guilty before a trial, he said in an interview published Friday.

New Hampshire's Concord Monitor reported that Dean said he would not state his preference on a punishment for bin Laden before the al Qaeda leader was captured and put before a jury.

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," Dean said in the interview. "I will have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."

Dean added he is certain most Americans agree with that sentiment.

Later, Dean released a statement clarifying, "I share the outrage of all Americans. Osama bin Laden has admitted that he is responsible for killing 3,000 Americans as well as scores of men, women and children around the world. This is the exactly the kind of case that the death penalty is meant for.


posted by Frodgie at 6:18 AM

 

Rivals hit Dean for criticism of Democratic Party boss

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination lashed out Monday at his criticism of party chief Terry McAuliffe for failing to exert the leadership needed to prevent a bloody primary battle.

Dean is the Democratic front-runner in recent polls nationwide and in New Hampshire, which hosts the party's first presidential primary next month. He has joked about "picking buckshot out of my rear end" in previous campaign appearances, but attacks from his fellow Democrats have begun to dominate headlines and overshadowed his recent policy speeches.

"If we had strong leadership in the Democratic Party, they would be calling those other candidates and saying, 'Hey look, somebody's going to have to win here,' " The New York Times quoted Dean as saying Sunday during a campaign swing in Iowa.


posted by Frodgie at 6:17 AM

 

Nasdaq index pushes past 2,000 barrier

NEW YORK — The Nasdaq Composite Index burst past 2,000 yesterday, and the Dow Jones industrials surged more than 125 points as investors shook off concerns about the effect of mad cow disease and looked optimistically toward 2004.
The market also got a lift from early indications that the holiday shopping season had gone well, including a report from Mastercard that consumer spending was up 6.5 percent. Portfolio managers may be looking for more positive news in January, which is typically a good month for the markets, said Brian Bush, director of equity research at Stephens Inc.
"Even with a heightened terror alert, the onset of mad cow for the first time in the U.S., throughout all of that, the market has continued to move higher," Mr. Bush said. "If you're a portfolio manager, you've had a great year, the first up year in three, and the outlook for '04 looks good ... you're probably looking to make some bets going into the new year."

posted by Frodgie at 6:15 AM

 

The Western Disease
The strange syndrome of our guilt and their shame.

After watching a string of editorial attacks on America both at home and from abroad in the aftermath of Saddam's capture, I thought back to the actual record of the last two years. In 24 months the United States defeated two of the most hideous regimes in modern memory. For all the sorrow involved, it has already made progress in the unthinkable: bringing consensual government into the heart of Middle Eastern autocracy, where there has been no political heritage other than tyranny, theocracy, and dictatorship.

In liberating 50 million people from both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein it has lost so far less than 500 soldiers — some of whom were killed precisely because they waged a war that sought to minimalize not just civilian casualties but even the killing of their enemies. Contrary to the invective of Western intellectuals, the American military's sins until recently have been of omission — preferring not to shoot looters or hunt down and kill insurgents — rather than brutal commission. While the United States has conducted these successive wars some 7,000 miles beyond its borders, it also avoided another terrorist attack of the scale of September 11 — and all the while crafting a policy of containment of North Korea and soon-to-be nuclear Iran.
posted by Frodgie at 6:14 AM

 

Parties Tailor Message to Independent Vote

WASHINGTON — With the nation still deeply divided politically, both parties are developing strategies for reaching out to the critical group of undecided voters who will decide the 2004 presidential election.

"Independents tend to be a little more populist than partisans. They tend to be a little more anti-establishment, but that feeling can be on the right or left or not even political," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics (search).

Because swing voters "don't have as strong a prior commitment to seeing their side as advantaged, these people in the middle are going to be a bit more sensitive and open-minded to new data," said Bruce Buchanan, professor of government at the University of Texas in Austin (search).

Independents make up between 15 and 35 percent of the voting electorate, and while like the rest of the nation, they are focused on such core issues as the war in Iraq and the economy, since they are not a unique interest group, they look at and respond to issues differently, Sabato said.

The catch-phrases used for independent voters -- the "NASCAR Dads" and "Soccer Moms" -- may be well and good, said Patrick Basham, senior fellow at the CATO Institute's Center for Representative Government (search), but they don't get at the heart of the independent voters' concerns. Instead, Basham said, this year's key electorate is the "insecure voter" who can be male or female and from any race or religion.
posted by Frodgie at 6:44 AM

 

U.N. Nuke Experts Tour 4 Sites in Libya

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- U.N. nuclear experts toured four previously secret sites related to Libya's nuclear weapons program, on the second day of a trip to see if Moamar Gadhafi is serious about his pledge to stop pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

No details were given about the sites or what inspection teams with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency found when they visited Sunday. The experts, led by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, spent hours touring the sites, ElBaradei's spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.

As a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Libya is required to declare all sensitive nuclear installations to the United Nations. On arriving in Libya Saturday, ElBaradei said the North African country appeared to be far from producing nuclear arms.

The visit followed Gadhafi's surprise pledge more than a week ago to scrap Libya's weapons programs. It is the latest in a series of moves to end his country's international isolation and shed its image as a rogue nation.


posted by Frodgie at 6:44 AM

 

Democrats criticize administration over mad cow...haha

(CNN) -- Three Democratic presidential candidates criticized the government Sunday for its failure to prevent mad cow disease in the United States and called for federal aid to the beef industry.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, had been found in a cow slaughtered in Washington state.

Since then, several countries have banned U.S. beef exports, and federal officials have scrambled to find the source of the cow -- and where its meat was sold. (Full story)
posted by Frodgie at 6:43 AM

 

Britons told to avoid Saudi travel

The British government yesterday warned citizens against travel to Saudi Arabia amid disputed reports that two small airplanes loaded with explosives were prevented from crashing into a British Airways jet.
Armed sky marshals are also being ordered onto some British airliners as a "responsible and prudent step" in response to U.S. terror alerts, said a top London official. The British Foreign Office travel advisory said terrorist attacks appear imminent.
Meanwhile yesterday, a U.S. congressman criticized French officials for saying too much about the terror-related cancellations of flights from Paris last week, and also said some changes were needed in the U.S. color-coded alert system.
The State Department issued a warning similar to Britain's about Saudi Arabia on Dec. 17, just days before the Homeland Security Department put the nation on Code Orange, or high alert of a terrorist attack.
Free flights out of Saudi Arabia were offered to nonessential personnel and their dependents at the U.S. Embassy and consulates, and American citizens were advised to leave the country.

posted by Frodgie at 6:24 AM

 

Infected Cow Meat May Have Reached Eight States

WASHINGTON — Investigators rushed to locate meat from a Holstein sick with mad cow disease that may have made its way into retail markets in eight states and one territory, but Agriculture Department (search) officials insisted there was no health risk to consumers.

Dr. Kenneth Petersen (search), a department veterinarian, said Sunday that an investigation revealed that meat from the infected dairy cow could have reached retail markets in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho and Montana and the territory of Guam — more locations than originally thought.

Officials had said earlier that most of the meat went to Washington and Oregon, with lesser amounts to California and Nevada, for retail sale.

"The recalled meat represents essentially zero risk to consumers," said Petersen, of USDA's food safety agency.

He said parts most likely to carry infection — the brain, spinal cord and lower intestine — were removed before the meat from the infected cow was cut and processed for human consumption.
posted by Frodgie at 6:21 AM

 

New Read on 'Rings,' Double Standard on Slurs...Ridiculous, do some research on the author.

The deep thinkers at Indymedia have come to the conclusion that the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy paints a "racist stereotypical tapestry" that does a disservice to young viewers everywhere.

Lloyd Hart says people of color are all associated with the Dark Lord Sauron in the movie and the elephant-riding mercenaries too closely resemble the cultures of Africa, Persia and East Asia. The Uruk-hai also too closely resemble Native Americans, which is sure to cause "a great deal of cultural and racial alienation."

The fact that King Theoden, a white guy, calls his troops the "great warriors of the West" clinches it in Hart's eyes.

"Can you imagine how people of skin color, of Persian, Arab and East Asian ethnic background feel when they come out of these films where all the heroes are white and all the 'evil doers' are of dark skin," Hart writes.


posted by Frodgie at 6:19 AM

 

Report: Al Qaeda Targeting Oceanliners

Al Qaeda (search ) has turned its terror sights to the sea, targeting luxury cruise liners in an expansion of its "jihad" against the West.

Owners of the recently launched $1.3 billion Queen Mary 2 (search ) yesterday confirmed threats of terror hang over its maiden voyage early next year.

[A spokesman for QM2 owner Cunard (search) told Foxnews.com that reports of threats against the ship are unsubstantiated, and that the company is working with authorities on both sides of the Atlantic to monitor the situation.]

The Usama bin Laden terrorist group is also adopting new tactics to destroy commercial aircraft.

British MP Patrick Mercer (search) has revealed Saudi authorities arrested two Islamic suicide pilots. He said the pilots were preparing to crash two light aircraft into a packed British Airways passenger jet while it was still on the tarmac at the airport in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

Both light planes had been crammed with explosives. And Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (search) said he had received reliable intelligence of a Christmas Day plan to assassinate the Pope and destroy the Vatican by flying a hijacked plane into it.
posted by Frodgie at 6:16 AM

 

Hope of Fools
Tolkien's trilogy of good and evil.

Lo! (Cue heraldic music here.) Out of Hollywood rises an epic of courage and hope so thunderously wonderful that it is almost enough to redeem a year's worth of pop-culture detritus, to make us forget endless reality-show hot-tub scenes, Gigli, and even Paris Hilton as we marvel at what can be wrought by the entertainment industry when it uses its powers for good.

The occasion for such effusion is The Return of the King, the third installment of the movie adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It is (with apologies to Elf and Bad Santa) a perfect Christmas movie. Its themes of sacrificial love and redemption reflect Tolkien's Christianity and point to a Providence. But The Lord of the Rings is not a sectarian work. Some 50 million people have bought the books, and millions more will watch the movies, beguiled by the tale's artistry and its statement of human longing and purpose.

The story's outline is familiar: A great battle rages in Middle Earth over a Ring of Power. Two hobbits, Frodo and Sam, seek to destroy the ring to deny it to the Dark Lord, who fights to establish a reign of darkness throughout the land. For all the fantastic creatures — elves, dwarves, giant spiders, etc. — that prompt eye-rolling from cynics, the story has a ring of truth. Tolkien believed that fantasy was only a vehicle for a deeper reality, and grounded his work in what he thought were the fundamentals of our existence.
posted by Frodgie at 6:15 AM

 

Khaddafi's "Conversion"

The moment the meek and disheveled image of the Iraqi tyrant appeared on TV screens around the world, an old friend of mine announced that he got the message and said he would disclose his weapons of mass destruction.

As chief of Romanian foreign intelligence, I worked closely with Libya's Muammar Khaddafi before I became, in 1978, the highest-ranking spy from the Soviet bloc to defect to America. I was Khaddafi's handler as he was gearing up these same weapons programs. Moscow had decided in 1972 to use three leftist Arab governments — Libya, Iraq, and Syria — plus Arafat's PLO, to wreak terror against our prime enemy, "American imperial-Zionism." Yuri Andropov, then head of the KGB and soon to be the Soviet leader, assigned Libya to Romania because we already had close intelligence connections with Khaddafi, who, along with Kim Il Sung, had long been eager for chemical weapons, and to acquire Romanian technology for "dirty" suitcase-sized radioactive bombs. Moscow kept charge of Iraq for itself. Andropov told me then that Syria would be next, if our Libyan experiment proved successful; President Hafez Assad's brother was already our well-paid agent.
posted by Frodgie at 6:14 AM

 

Soros, groups target Bush

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Bush's most-feared political opponents for now may not be Democratic presidential candidates, but a billionaire financier and anti-Bush advocacy groups with big-spending plans.

"Liberal special interests, led by billionaire currency trader George Soros, are raising millions in soft, unregulated money to defeat President Bush," the Bush campaign says in an Internet posting.

Bush has already raised more than $110 million for his primary campaign, in which he has no challenger, far outstripping any Democratic rival.

Campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said anti-Bush groups threaten to spend as much as $400 million, justifying the Bush primary-season goal of raising a record $170 million, largely through a network of major supporters who funnel donations to the campaign.
posted by Frodgie at 6:11 AM