Monday 30th April 2007: -

• Did MI5 miss the London bomber? - Britain's biggest terrorism trial has just ended with the conviction of men who conspired to build a massive homemade bomb. But with the lifting of reporting restrictions, Panorama reveals the truth about what MI5 really knew about the July 2005 London bombers. The public has never been told the full story about the links between the fertiliser bomb plot, known as Operation Crevice, and two of the 7 July suicide bombers. But was there an opportunity to identify them in advance? Did the security services make a serious mistake and was an opportunity missed? Panorama believes the evidence clearly indicates there was - but that it does not necessarily mean that the attacks could have been prevented.   (COMMENTARY: We aren't expecting anything too 'ground-breaking' from the BBC tonight - not least because we have already broken the ground on this one... we have been on the 7/7 bombings from day one.  Learn how 7/7 was a false flag terror attack, see our 7/7 London bombings archive for more info)

• Rice ignored 9/11 warnings from George Tenet - Former CIA Director George Tenet says he warned then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice in the summer of 2001 that "multiple, spectacular attacks" from the al Qaeda terrorist network were imminent and urged a pre-emptive strike on the terrorist network. In an interview aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Tenet said he told Rice that the United States needed "to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan," where al Qaeda was based before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. "Essentially, the briefing says there are going to be multiple, spectacular attacks against the United States. We believe these attacks are imminent. Mass casualties are likely," he said. But he said Rice delegated his request to subordinates. And Tenet said he never brought the issue up with President Bush, whom he briefed nearly every day on the threats facing the United States, "because the United States government doesn't work that way."

• COVER-UP FEARS GROW WITH DELAYS FOR DIANA INQUEST - The fight for the truth about the death of Princess Diana was hit yesterday by fears of a new Establishment plot to delay the inquests. A highly-placed insider warned that the hearings will not go ahead until next year, 11 years after the death of Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed in a Paris car crash, causing Princes William and Harry further anguish. Legal sources warned that last week’s decision by Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to quit as coroner will almost certainly prevent the hearing taking place before a jury this year.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive)

• Australia, U.S. behave tyrannically, says ex-PM - Australia's government and close ally the United States behaved in a tyrannical way and for "evil purpose" by jailing militants at Guantanamo Bay, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said on Monday. Fraser, a conservative and mentor to current Prime Minister John Howard, said Australia seemed to have lost its democratic path under the man who served as his treasurer and centre-right Liberal Party deputy before becoming leader in 1996. In an election year criticism of U.S. influence over political direction in Australia, Fraser said Howard should never have agreed to a citizen and accused Taliban fighter, David Hicks, being locked up for five years at Guantanamo Bay awaiting trial.

• Payments Pioneer Launches Voice Pay - World's First Voice-Verified Payment Processing System: WorldPay Founder Nick Ogden Revolutionises Mobile and Internet Transaction Safety and Security for Consumers and Retailers - Voice Pay, the world's first voice-verified payment processing system, launches today and is set to change the way that mobile and Internet payments are conducted. In a move that will substantially reduce the threat of credit and debit fraud, the Voice Pay system uses the customer's own voice as a means of digitally signing and authorising payments. It incorporates VoiceVault voice biometric authentication technology which is already in use by global banks, insurers and public sector organisations.   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• Britain's first war criminal jailed - The first British soldier ever to be convicted of a war crime was today jailed for a year and dismissed from the army. Corporal Donald Payne brutally mistreated Iraqi hotel worker Baha Mousa, who died of his injuries at the hands of British soldiers, and other civilians held at a detention centre in Basra. He punched and kicked the civilians when they were hooded and handcuffed and conducted what he called "the choir" striking the prisoners in sequence, their groans or shrieks making up the "music".

• Big Brother runs up £350,000 police bill - THE cost of police investigations linked to the reality TV show Big Brother came to about £350,000 over the last six years, it emerged yesterday. A freedom of information request to Hertfordshire Police also revealed that the inquiry into racism allegations in the latest Celebrity Big Brother series cost more than £14,500. In March, police said that no arrests would be made in connection with the racism row. The Crown Prosecution Service decided what occurred was "clearly offensive" but "not criminal".

• Rogue drivers warned: Hat's your lot - Abuse towards lollipop patrol wardens in Oxford has got so bad they could be given special 'camera hats' to film offensive motorists. The suggestion comes after years of harassment of the men and women whose job is to get children safely across busy roads before and after school. Sian Gibbons, the school crossing patrol supervisor for Oxfordshire County Council, said: "We're interested in using the camera hat in an area in Blackbird Leys, where the abuse our lollipop lady receives is particularly bad. We're hoping the cameras could be a way of tackling this problem."

Sunday 29th April 2007: -

• Censorship paper to examine 'terrorist act' classification - Censorship laws could soon be strengthened to ban material advocating so-called 'terrorist acts', with a discussion paper about to be released for public comment. There have been calls for changes to existing laws since a series of DVDs by an Australian-born sheik, calling for the murder of non-believers, was given a PG rating by the Classification Board. The discussion paper proposes the board can refuse to classify films, computer games and publications that advocate so-called 'terrorist acts'.

• Tenet says Cheney had eye on Iraq long before 9/11: In his book, former CIA director says aides to Cheney and Rumsfeld inserted 'crap' into public justifications for war - White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11 attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George Tenet. Although Tenet does not question the threat Saddam Hussein posed or the sincerity of administration beliefs, he recounts numerous efforts by aides to Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to insert "crap" into public justifications for the war. Tenet also describes an ongoing fear within the intelligence community of the administration's willingness to "mischaracterize complex intelligence information."

• Box of condoms leads to evacuation - Several classrooms at Des Moines Area Community College were evacuated after college officials became nervous about a suspicious package. College officials called police and postal inspectors after the box was delivered Thursday. What they found inside wasn't a bomb — it was a box containing 500 condoms. The package was sent to a teacher of a human sexuality class, and was sent by a person who had been a previous speaker at the class, said Rob Denson, the college's president.

• Four students arrested for heckling FBI director - Police arrested four Harvard University students last night for heckling FBI Director Robert Mueller prior to his speech on the "Balance of National Security and Civil Liberties," witnesses said. Harvard spokesman Joe Wrinn confirmed that four Harvard students were arrested outside the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He could not verify their identities or the circumstances under which they were apprehended.

• Fingerprint is school-lunch ticket: Pine Crest Elementary is testing scanners that eventually could be used in all Seminole schools - Fingers are meal tickets for students zipping through the lunch line at Pine Crest Elementary School in Sanford these days. Technology that uses fingerprints to tell who is buying lunch is being tested at the school. Early indications are the finger scanners that record a digital image are speeding up cafeteria operations, which is the goal.

• Saddam's Biometric Spy Files Re-Used by New Iraqi Democracy - Like any dictator worth the title, Saddam Hussein kept good records on his people -- dossiers that included fingerprints. Now the occupying forces in Iraq have digitized his fingerprint files in order to screen potential recruits for the Iraqi police force using Automated Fingerprint Identification System technology, according to reporter David Axe's post at Aviation Week's ARES blog, cross-posted to Wired's DANGER ROOM. AFIS is a widely used technology to compare one print against a database of prints, and is used by local, state, national and foreign law enforcement agencies.

• Worldwide protests over Darfur 'apathy' - Protests are taking place around the world to demand urgent intervention to end the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region. Celebrities such as Bob Geldof and George Clooney are backing the Global Day for Darfur campaign, and have signed a statement accusing the international community of apathy. The UN says some 200,000 people have died since the conflict began four years ago.

• False tales of heroism: Pentagon's lies dishonor service of Lynch, Tillman - It comes down to a question of trust. For the most part, Americans trust the U.S. military. The question is, why doesn't the military trust us? Two incidents in our overseas conflicts, and the Pentagon's spin of each, have us wondering. First came Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the West Virginia soldier rescued from Iraq after she was injured in a 2003 firefight. The story first came out that she went down with guns blazing before she was captured, then heroically rescued. But after she returned home, Lynch was quick to dispel that tale. She didn't fire on the enemy, and was hurt when the truck she was riding in came under attack. Her hospital rescue, in fact, was delayed so that video could be shot and played back home for maximum effect.

• Cop convicted for Taser attack - An Edmonton police officer who zapped a man twice with a Taser after stopping him for jaywalking downtown was convicted of assault with a weapon yesterday. Provincial court Judge Brian Fraser ruled Const. Aubrey Zalaski was not justified and used an "excessive" amount of force when he used his Taser on Paul Cetinski Jr., 35. Court heard Zalaski had spotted Cetinski, the son of a retired city police detective, as he jaywalked downtown. The Taser zapped Cetinski twice in the back, resulting in Cetinski defecating in his pants.

• Pilots spot giant UFOs over Britain - Two UK airline pilots flying in separate aircraft reported seeing a large UFO hovering over the Channel Island of Alderny, in between mainland Britain and France, local newspaper This Is Guernsey has reported. The object was described as being up to a mile wide, with the pilots having spotted it at around the same time, location and altitude 10 miles west of the island and 2,000 feet up. Captain Ray Bowyer of local airline Aurigny, described the UFO. "It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area. It was 2,000ft up and stationary. I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a [Boeing] 737. But it must have been much bigger because of how far away it was. It could have been as much as a mile wide."

Saturday 28th April 2007: -

• Rosie Hosts First Responders On The View - It was refreshing to see this issue get some prime time attention, but it appears that the fact of the EPA deliberately endangering the 9/11 heroes and then engaging in a cover-up in concert with Condi Rice was not stressed strongly enough, but well done to Rosie for getting this past the Neo-Con gatekeepers at ABC: -

• Growing evidence of power line dangers - Evidence of a link between power lines and childhood leukaemia is growing and some scientists believe the cables can cause other cancers as well as raise the risk of miscarriage. In 2002 a report from the California Department of Health Services concluded there was a possible connection between exposure to electromagnetic fields and higher risk of childhood leukaemia, adult brain cancer, motor neurone disease and miscarriage. All three of the scientists who carried out the study said such fields could cause an increased risk of suicide, while one of them said it seemed to raise the risk of adult leukaemia.

• British video cams can read your lips - LIP READING software could be installed as part of the UK's web-cam surveillance system within three years, according to Wired. The software will look to see if anyone mentions any key phrases when talking to their mates and alert the constabulary. If the lip-reading software picks up someone saying 'atom bomb blah, blah, blah' or the name of a famous terrorist or 'Brazilian electrician', the person saying the phrase could be surrounded by gun-toting coppers in seconds.

• Americans must resist Real ID Act - The Real ID Act was signed by Bush in 2005 after being tacked on to another bill and did not have congressional discussion for an up-or-down vote. These ID cards have to be digital and readable in all 50 states. The United Nations was the force behind this as they asked that all nations conform to their standards and now all passports are embedded with a RFID Chip.

Friday 27th April 2007: -

• London hails contactless taxi payments: Barclaycard and Computer Cab hook up on Wave and Pay service - Barclaycard Business and taxi firm Computer Cab have unveiled what they claim to be the first contactless payment system for taxis. Barclays and Computer Cab will fit a concept taxi with Visa's Wave and Pay technology in order to demonstrate how the taxi company can offer customers a secure and efficient way to pay for low value fares. The companies claim that the contactless system is more convenient as it reduces the need to handle cash.

Thursday 26th April 2007: -

• School toilets 'to be observed' to tackle bullying - School toilet facilities should be unisex and open to observation from teachers to stop them being colonised by bullies, the Government recommended today. Fear of bullying leads some children to refuse to go to the toilet all day, causing bladder problems, while others do not drink to avoid using the loo. New design guidelines from the Department for Education set out to make school toilets safer and more attractive.

• Anger over Church abuse cover-up - Campaigners have called the Church of England's failure to tell police about an ex-choirmaster who sexually abused children "totally irresponsible". Peter Halliday, 61, from Farnborough, Hants, was jailed for 30 months after admitting sex offences from the 1980s. BBC News has learned he admitted the abuse 17 years ago, but left the Church quietly on condition he had no further contact with children. Church officials say they now have "robust" child protection policies.

• ABC Told Rosie Not To Talk About Dead U.S. Troops: O'Donnell censored on The View right from the start - Rosie O'Donnell was ordered by ABC not to talk about U.S. casualty figures on The View and was continually censored and blocked in her attempts to feature prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as guests on the show. O'Donnell had met with 9/11 truth crusader and World Trade Center hero William Rodriguez before she went public with her comments on The View questioning the suspicious collapse of Building 7.

• US Senate votes for Iraq pull-out - The US Senate has voted to approve a bill which requires US troops to be withdrawn from Iraq within 11 months. It follows a vote in the US House of Representatives which makes further funding of the war in Iraq conditional on a timetable for a US troop pullout. The Democrat-sponsored bill will now go before President George Bush, but he has said he will veto it immediately. He says he is committed to the "surge" strategy, under which more US troops are being poured into Baghdad.

• New ID card for kids: Scotiabank provides $20,000 in funding for project - A new identification card for children will speed up the process of finding missing children, the assistant director of the Montreal police department said at the card’s unveiling yesterday morning in Beaconsfield. The new ID card, about the size of a medicare card, features the child’s photo, a fingerprint and other vital statistics for police who might be trying to track down a missing child.

• Blair 'unable to pick up US medal due to poodle claims' - Tony Blair has not picked up his US Congressional Gold Medal of Honour, awarded four years ago, partly because of those who claim he is a poodle to the more powerful US president, according to the British ambassador in Washington. In an interview with the Times Sir David Manning said that should the prime minister pick up his congressional award, those who argue he is the puppy dog of US president George Bush will feel their claims have been proved correct. "For those who are convinced that the prime minister is …some sort of poodle, it does not matter what he does," Sir David told the paper.

• Clinton: US might have to confront Iran - Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that it might be necessary for America to confront Iran militarily, addressing that possibility more directly than any of the other presidential candidates who spoke this week to the National Jewish Democratic Council. Clinton first said that the US should be engaging directly with Iran to foil any effort to gain nuclear weapons and faulted the Bush administration for "considerably narrowing" the options available to America in countering Iran.

• Are Rove's missing e-mails the smoking guns of the stolen 2004 election? - E-mails being sought from Karl Rove's computers, and recent revelations about critical electronic conflicts of interest, may be the smoking guns of Ohio's stolen 2004 election. A thorough recount of ballots and electronic files. preserved by a federal lawsuit, could tell the tale. The major media has come to focus on a large batch of electronic communications which have disappeared from the server of the Republican National Committee, and from White House advisor Rove's computers. The attention stems from the controversial firing of eight federal prosecutors by Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales.

• Straw rejects calls for inquiry into anti-terror leaks - Jack Straw today rejected opposition demands for a full Whitehall inquiry into claims that officials leaked details of an anti-terror operation to the media before arrests were made. Meanwhile, it emerged that the home secretary, John Reid, had denied earlier this year that officials from his department were involved in the leaks.

• Sick miners lose 'millions' to solicitors - Millions of pounds earmarked to help sick miners has been siphoned off by unscrupulous solicitors, a report has claimed. The £3.4bn compensation scheme was set up to support 760,000 former British Coal workers, many of whom had suffered chronic lung disease and other injuries as a result of working in the pits. Today, Lord Lofthouse, an ex-Labour peer, will show a report to Government which claims solicitors handling the compensation have exploited the scheme.

• Medical students' personal details leaked - An investigation was announced last night after a serious security breach on the website used by medical students applying for junior doctor positions. A Channel 4 news reporter was able to access applicants' confidential details, including their addresses, telephone numbers, criminal convictions, sexual orientation and religion, following a tip-off from a doctor.

• Fascist America, in 10 easy steps: From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all - Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

• Ron Paul: Government Cannot Protect Us - The senseless and horrific killings last week on the campus of Virginia Tech University reinforced an uneasy feeling many Americans experienced after September 11th: namely, that government cannot protect us. No matter how many laws we pass, no matter how many police or federal agents we put on the streets, a determined individual or group still can cause great harm. Perhaps the only good that can come from these terrible killings is a reinforced understanding that we as individuals are responsible for our safety and the safety of our families.

Wednesday 25th April 2007: -

• Blair rejects investigation into anti-terror leaks - The prime minister has joined in the condemnation of people who leak anti-terrorism intelligence to the media. Anti-terror officer Peter Clarke said those responsible were "beneath contempt", giving as an example the recent anti-terror operation in Birmingham where some journalists appeared to be briefed of the police's plans. Tony Blair told MPs today that he agreed with Mr Clarke's disgust and said he would take the "strongest possible action" against anyone found to be leaking information.

• Scientists find Earth-like planet: European astronomers say it orbits in a 'sweet spot' zone where life could exist - European astronomers announced Tuesday that they had discovered the first planet beyond our solar system that orbits in a "sweet spot" zone where life could exist. The planet, about five times as massive as Earth, orbits Gliese 581, a red dwarf star about 20 light-years from our solar system. The team of Swiss, French and Portuguese scientists who found the planet estimate its surface temperature at freezing to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a range in which water can exist as a liquid.

• Soldier: Army ordered me not to tell truth about Tillman - The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a fellow soldier killed Tillman. O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004 incident in Afghanistan. "I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened, especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I knew that he and the family all needed to know what had happened," O'Neal testified. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."

• Dollar slumps as data points to slowing U.S. growth - The dollar fell on Tuesday to a two-year low against a basket of major currencies after soft data on housing and consumer confidence underscored a trend of slowing U.S. economic growth. Reports on existing-home sales and consumer sentiment both came in lower than expected and pushed the dollar down against the basket for the 10th time in the past 11 sessions. The dollar also dropped closer to a record low against the euro.

Tuesday 24th April 2007: -

• THE LATEST ON THE ED BROWN CASE: Convicted tax evaders due in court Tuesday - A federal judge sentenced a convicted tax evader to 63 months in prison on Tuesday morning and was likely to do the same for her husband in the afternoon. Ed and Elaine Brown skipped the court appearances in favor of remaining holed up in their fortress-like Plainfield home. The Browns say federal tax laws don't exist; prosecutors say their theories are "contrary to common sense." "(Elaine Brown) is an intelligent person ... a person of means," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Morse said. "She had no excuse for not paying her taxes." Her husband was scheduled to be sentenced in the afternoon. The two were convicted in January of plotting to conceal their income and avoid paying federal income tax. They say they will stay there despite convictions or arrest warrants.

• Coroner in Diana inquiry steps down as sensitivities grow - A senior former judge appointed to lead an inquest into the death of Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi al-Fayed, withdrew from the task Tuesday, dashing all hopes of a detailed British investigation being completed before the 10th anniversary of Diana's death in August this year. Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who would have come out of retirement to sit as coroner for the inquest, said she had taken her decision to step down after 'a great deal of thought and reflection.' The 73-year-old former top woman judge, who was head of the Family Division at the High Court in London, said she 'lacked the experience' of dealing with an inquest in which a jury was involved.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive)

• IRELAND: Call for ID card to combat underage drinking - A national ID card should be compulsory for everyone over the age of 18, according to a leading alcohol-abuse awareness group. Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society (MEAS) welcomed the launch today of a voluntary new tamper-proof garda age card, but called for the roll-out of a compulsory identification card to combat under-age drinking. The group has also criticised the €10 levy on the card, which it argues will discourage young people from applying.

• Cashless toll tunnel - In a few months time, there will be no fumbling with change for drivers who use the Sydney Harbour Tunnel as it becomes the latest of the city's toll roads to be totally cashless. The New South Wales Government says more than 83 per cent of drivers who currently use the tunnel have E tags and soon motorists who want to pay cash will be forced to use the Harbour Bridge. But there are also plans to make the Bridge a cash free zone. The NRMA says the process of making crossing the harbour with cash not an option, could be accelerated if E tags, which cost about $30, were free.

• If You're a Truther, Go and See Shooter: 9/11, JFK parallel movie is packed with strong anti-government sentiment, feeds into mass awakening cultural zeitgeist - Shooter, starring Mark Wahlberg, is the latest in a burgeoning trend of recent movies that carry a strong anti-government sentiment - the film is both political commentary and a damning expose of how the state stages black-ops in order to achieve political agendas. The film centers around a character called Bob Lee Swagger, played by Mark Wahlberg, a Marine sniper who retires from the military after his friend is killed while fighting in Ethiopia.

• Steven Jones Answers 9/11 Questions About His Research In a Reply to 'Screw Loose Change' - An Open Letter to Dr. Steven Jones by James Bennett, with replies by Steven Jones 

• IN PLACE OF 'AL-QAEDA, READ 'CIA & MI6': Al-Qaeda ‘planning big British attack’ - AL-QAEDA leaders in Iraq are planning the first “large-scale” terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets with the help of supporters in Iran, according to a leaked intelligence report. Spy chiefs warn that one operative had said he was planning an attack on “a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in an attempt to “shake the Roman throne”, a reference to the West. Another plot could be timed to coincide with Tony Blair stepping down as prime minister, an event described by Al-Qaeda planners as a “change in the head of the company”. The report, produced earlier this month and seen by The Sunday Times, appears to provide evidence that Al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq.

• Teacher whose spy camera showed class misbehaviour faces tribunal - A supply teacher who covertly filmed her pupils swearing, fighting and attempting to access pornography on the internet was misusing her professional position, a tribunal was told yesterday. Angela Mason recorded footage in late 2004 and early 2005 at 18 schools in London and the North of England for Classroom Chaos, a documentary shown on channel Five. She arrived at classrooms with a miniature camera disguised as a button that allowed her to record pupils smashing furniture and making false accusations that teachers had touched them.

• Children under three 'should not watch TV' - Children under three should see no television and it should be severely rationed for older youngsters, an expert told MPs yesterday. Parents should restrict them to a recommended daily allowance, said Dr Aric Sigman. He believes too much watching increases the risk of health and learning problems and said the Government must take action. He also believes there should be no sets in children's bedrooms and new mothers should be warned of the possible effects of too much television.

• Cancer clusters at phone masts - SEVEN clusters of cancer and other serious illnesses have been discovered around mobile phone masts, raising concerns over the technology’s potential impact on health. Studies of the sites show high incidences of cancer, brain haemorrhages and high blood pressure within a radius of 400 yards of mobile phone masts. One of the studies, in Warwickshire, showed a cluster of 31 cancers around a single street. A quarter of the 30 staff at a special school within sight of the 90ft high mast have developed tumours since 2000, while another quarter have suffered significant health problems.

• Brain's clock is key to putting on weight - SCIENTISTS today revealed they have identified the part of the brain which co-ordinates the annual biological clock that affects how we deal with seasonal change. The research from Edinburgh University will help our understanding of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), as well as the working of the metabolic mechanisms that make us put on weight. Light could also be shed on the physiological changes that occur when we fly across time zones into different seasons. Dr Gerald Lincoln, of the university's centre for reproductive biology, said: "Our daily body clock is an amazing system. Most of the cells in the body have their own internal clocks - whether in the liver or the brain - yet they are all co-ordinated and nicely synchronised with the outside world.

Monday 23rd April 2007: -

• John Kerry: Building 7 Was Deliberately Demolished: Massachusetts Senator's conclusion directly contradicts 9/11 official story, multi-billion dollar insurance lawsuit - At a recent speaking engagement in Austin Texas, Senator John Kerry responded to a question about WTC Building 7 by concluding that according to his information, the building was brought down as a result of a controlled demolition, directly contradicting the official line that the structure fell as a result of fire and debris damage. WTC Building 7 was a 47-story building in the WTC complex that collapsed at 5:20pm on September 11. The building had been structurally reinforced and was not hit by a plane yet collapsed in a uniform implosion within its own footprint in a matter of seconds after sustaining relatively light debris and fire damage following the collapse of the twin towers. News networks like BBC and CNN were reporting that the building had collapsed before it fell, indicating that the media were being handed a script of events that had yet to even unfold. Ground zero EMT's, firefighters and police were all told hours in advance to clear a collapse zone for Building 7 as it was going to be "brought down." Questioned on WTC 7 by members of Austin 9/11 Truth Now at a Book People event in Austin Texas, Kerry responded, "I do know that that wall, I remember, was in danger and I think they made the decision based on the danger that it had in destroying other things, that they did it in a controlled fashion."

• Chertoff in Washington Post admits 9/11 truth has gone mainstream - Michael Chertoff: "Since Sept. 11, a conspiracy-minded fringe has claimed that American officials plotted the destruction. But when scholars such as Zbigniew Brzezinski accuse our leaders of falsely depicting or hyping a "war on terror" to promote a "culture of fear," it's clear that historical revisionism has gone mainstream." The rest of the article can be summarized thus: "al-Qaeda... terror network... Osama Bin Laden ... kill Americans... islamist ideologues... al-Qaeda... al-qaeda and the Taliban... Sept. 11... Sept. 11... Islamic extremists' plot... horrific consequences... Sept. 11... al-Qaeda... al-Qaeda trained killers... " I think this has to be seen as a measure of how far the 911truth movement has come. For the head of the department of Orwellian irony department to write this article in an attempt to shore-up the crumbling 9/11 myth shows just and how much the perpetrators fear the truth. The tide has turned. The truth will out. It cannot be stopped. Keep up the pressure.

• Are meds to blame for Cho's rampage?: Experts say psychiatric drugs linked to long list of school shooting sprees - Cho Seung-Hui's murderous rampage – during which he killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech – is prompting research into gun laws, resident aliens and graphically violent writings. Investigators also may want to check his medicine cabinet, because psychiatric drugs have been linked to hundreds of violent episodes, including most of the school shootings in the last two decades. The New York Times has reported the killer was on a prescription medication, and authorities have said he was confined briefly several years ago for a mental episode. They also have confirmed that the "prescription drugs" found among his effects related to the treatment of psychological problems.

• Airlines push for biometric scans: 'Enhance security while improving the passengers' experience' - A coalition of Canadian airlines and airports is putting pressure on Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon to adopt a biometric travel screening program that would allow passengers to "fast track" through airport security and avoid hassles such as taking off their shoes and coats and removing laptops from their cases before boarding planes. The voluntary program, which is in place at several major U.S. airports, relies on iris and fingerprint scans to identify passengers and quickly move them through airport security.

• Former Russian Pres. Yeltsin dies - Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who dismantled seven decades of totalitarian rule has died, the Kremlin says. Mr Yeltsin, who won two elections as president, had a history of heart trouble. He had a quintuple heart bypass operation following his re-election in 1996. The exact cause of his death, however, was not immediately available. Mr Yeltsin was 76. He became the first president of the Russian Federation from 1991 to 1999, after Mr Gorbachev resigned as Soviet leader in December 1991. Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov confirmed media reports that the former Russian leader had died but refused to give further details.

• Sainsbury's own-brand drinks plan - SAINSBURY'S will remove all artificial colours and flavours from its own-brand soft drinks, it said today. The move will affect some 120 varieties of squash, cordials, mixers and fizzy drinks. Low calorie drinks will contain sucralose - which is made from sugar - instead of the sweetener aspartame. The use of natural ingredients comes in response to customer demand and concerns about the effect of E numbers on young children. Sainsbury's will use fruit and vegetable extracts as colourings and flavourings.

• Teachers want wi-fi risk research - Teachers want an investigation into whether there are any health risks from wireless computer networks in schools. The PAT teachers' union is writing to the education secretary for a clarification on wi-fi safety. "There's a concern the potential health risk of this technology hasn't been investigated fully," says the union's general secretary, Philip Parkin. The Health Protection Agency says "wi-fi devices are of very low power, much lower than mobile phones".

• McAfee: RFID chips exposing users to danger: As use expands, the technology becomes a very tempting target for hackers - The current generation of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is vulnerable to eavesdropping, cloning and forging. That's according to an April security trends report (download PDF) from security software vendor McAfee Inc. The Sage report is issued semiannually by McAfee Avert Labs based on its research into high-tech threats. The report warns that as RFID technology becomes more pervasive, the risk for users increases dramatically. The study notes that the technology is increasingly embedded in clothing, food and health care products and that some companies are even embedding RFID chips into the bodies of employees. Some states have already passed laws to prohibit forced implantation of the chips.

• Breakfast TV show phone-in 'conned millions of viewers' - Millions of viewers who tried to enter a TV breakfast show's premium-rate phone competitions have been conned, a documentary will claim tonight. Some callers and texters to GMTV stood no chance of winning because shortlists of potential winners were finalised "long before" phone lines closed, according to an investigation by BBC's Panorama. The programme claims the amount of money these people spent trying to enter was an estimated £45,000 a day or £10m a year.   (INFORMATION: Panorama will be broadcast tonight on BBC1 at 8.30pm.)

• Scientists want to put hormones in baby food 'to beat obesity' - FEEDING babies a special infant formula containing hunger-suppressing hormones could stop them getting fat later in life, researchers believe. Scientists are currently studying the prospect of adding leptin to baby and children's foods as part of the solution to obesity. They admitted that their work was still in the very early stages, and larger studies were needed. Concerns have also been raised over the repercussions of tampering with babies' brains - essentially programming them not to overeat.

Sunday 22nd April 2007: -

• 'Envirocrime' snoops paid £30,000 just to check your rubbish - A council is paying plain-clothes snoopers £30,000 a year to track down homeowners who put their rubbish out at the wrong time of the week or in the wrong place. The 'envirocrime' officers are employed to enforce environmental regulations and have the power to fine residents who 'offend'. Ealing Council in West London is spending nearly £150,000 on recruiting and employing four new enforcement patrollers to add to its 23-strong team that already monitors 'waste disposal' regulations. The same council attracted controversy last month when it was revealed it had drawn up plans to use hidden CCTV to catch fly-tippers.

• 9/11 First Responders To Be On "The View" This Wednesday, 4/25 - From John Feal: I hope you all get a chance to watch the 9/11 responders on "The View" on ABC @11.00AM this Wednesday the 25th. One of those responders will be Vito Valenti, a 9/11 volunteer, sick with fibrosis of the lungs and needs a double lung transplant. Vito also sits on the board of directors at the FealGood Foundation. I can only hope Rosie and the others do the right thing for these three heroes that day. Please support these brave souls, Bonnie Giebfried, Alex Sanchez and Vito, and the FealGood foundation.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and our affiliated site 911truthskipton.com)

• 9/11 FIREFIGHTER LUNG AILMENTS ON THE RISE - Twenty-six firefighters who toiled at Ground Zero came down with sarcoidosis, an inflammatory illness that often attacks the lungs, in the five years after 9/11 - a significant increase, a new study has found. The study has angered the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which complains that the NYPD has refused to acknowledge that 9/11 caused sarcoidosis in cops. Half the firefighter cases were diagnosed in the first year after 9/11 - a rate six times higher than the average for the Bravest in the 15 years before 9/11, according to a paper to be published in CHEST, a medical journal. The results "strongly argue for improved respiratory protection" at future fires, disasters and toxic sites, says the report, whose authors include FDNY top doctors David Prezant and Kerry Kelly. The PBA, which has its own registry of ailing WTC responders, counts 19 cops with sarcoidosis.

• AWOL After 9/11: A Skeptical Press? - There's a simple principle underlying "Buying the War," said television journalist Bill Moyers: Be skeptical. "People should read and watch the news with a raised eyebrow," said Moyers, a writer, executive editor and narrator of the 90-minute documentary about U.S. media coverage of claims and information leading to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The "phenomenon of terrorism" and the events of Sept. 11, 2001, shaped press coverage, he said. The film notes: "As the administration organized to strike back at the terrorists, there was little tolerance for critical scrutiny from journalists."

• '50% good' rule is bad news for Russian radio - AT THEIR first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia's largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news. From now on, at least 50 per cent of reports about Russia must be "positive". Journalists working for the Russian News Service were told by the new managers, allies of the Kremlin, that opposition leaders could not be mentioned and the US was to be portrayed as an enemy.

• Venezuela: thousands march in support of freedom of speech - Thousands of Venezuelans from the opposition marched Saturday downtown Caracas in support of the oldest private television station Radio Caracas Televisión, RCTV, which is threatened with removal from the air if the government of President Hugo Chavez does not renew its license next May 27. Waiving Venezuelan flags and placards in support of RCTV marchers called for freedom of speech and democratic rights. Meantime hundreds of Chavez supporters in red caps and T-shirts mounted a rival gathering nearby backing the government`s decision not to renew the license of the station which they accuse of backing a 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez. Chavez`s opponents charge that the former paratroop commander has decided not to renew RCTV`s broadcast license when it expires May 27 in an attempt to silence a fierce government critic and also as a warning to other media outlets.

• Texas Senate waves through cell phone wiretapping bill: Harder to buy pre-paid cell phones, easier to bug - A bill extending wiretapping provisions to cell phones and covering a wider range of crimes - including kidnaping, human trafficking and money laundering - has been approved by the Texas Senate. Only murder, drug-related crimes and child pornography investigations are covered by existing lawful interception laws in Texas, AP reports. Wiretaps authorised by the proposed laws could be used to authorise the tracking of suspect's mobile, land line and online activities in multiple locations; unlike current laws which are location specific.

Saturday 21st April 2007: -

• Suits banned over touting of 9/11 air - An appeals court ruling could spell trouble for New Yorkers suing the Environmental Protection Agency and its former chief for saying that sooty lower Manhattan air was safe to breathe after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other agency officials can't be held constitutionally liable for making rosy declarations about air quality in the days following the World Trade Center's destruction. The opinion, written by the court's chief judge, Dennis Jacobs, said opening EPA workers up to lawsuits for giving out bad information during a crisis could have a catastrophic side effect.

• MORE 'PROBLEM > REACTION > SOLUTION' IN THE WAKE OF THIS WEEKS SHOOTINGS IN THE USA: Smart surveillance could help tighten campus security - Technology certainly could not have stopped the tragic events at Virginia Tech from ever happening, but some developers insist their high-tech creations might have been able to lessen the severity of the tragedy. Take, for example, surveillance cameras that use sophisticated software to spot, on their own, when something's just not right. That technology is being offered by a few companies like NICE Systems, Inc. Company spokesman Ian Ehrenberg said 98.8 percent of all security video is useless, and humans don't need to analyse every second of tape. “Smart technology will look at a scene and determine what is considered normal, dwell or standard. From there, it will identify exceptions that you want to be detected and that will immediately be brought up in real time to make an assessment on,” Ehrenberg said. But just what is an exception?

• Fed breach leaks Social Security numbers - The Social Security numbers of 63,000 people who received Agriculture Department grants have been posted on a government Web site since 1996, but they were taken down last week. Free credit monitoring is being offered to those affected. The security breach was only noticed last week and promptly closed, the Agriculture Department and Census Bureau announced Friday. The Agriculture data that included Social Security numbers were removed from the Web on April 13 and similar data from 32 other agencies were taken down April 17 as a precaution, said Agriculture spokeswoman Terri Teuber.

• Huge Credit Card Chip n Pin Scam linked to Tamil Tigers - Motorists across the UK have fallen victim to a huge oraganised credit card skimming scam, that allegedly aims to fund the activities of the separatist Tamil Tiger group in Sri lanka. The scam operates via customers having their cards skimmed when they pay for petrol using chip n Pin cards. The skimming process copies the card and keeps a copy of the pin entered onto the Chip n Pin terminals. These are then duplicated to a new card and used in small purchases or withdrawals over a period time. According to the Sri Lankan High Commission, Maxwell Keegel, the skimmed information is sent to Tamil Tiger operatives via the significant Tamil expatriate community in the UK, who may have been forced by Tamil Tiger agents to operate the fraud. Some 200 petrol stations are under suspicion out of a total base of some 10,000.

• Venezuelan Crime Blimps Patrol Caracas Air Space With Cameras - Venezuela's capital city will be patrolled by three bullet-proof blimps equipped with video and still-photo cameras to survey and stop crime on the ground. The first of the $1.4 million blimps, launched yesterday to patrol high-crime and central neighborhoods of violence-wracked Caracas, will transmit high resolution images to a central police command post and directly to patrol cars. Caracas Mayor Juan Barreto, whose office installed 3,000 security cameras in crowded city plazas, bus stations and high- theft areas last year, said the increased aerial surveillance will bring ``greater tranquility, quiet, peace and security to Caracas homes.''

• Cameras ‘won’t stop’ cab crime - STRONGER policing and not CCTV is what is needed to hit back at the violence against taxi drivers, according to one cabbies' group. Bill Williams, of Bolton Taxi Drivers Association, said he would hand over his cab to police for a night so they can see the problems first-hand - and make some arrests. Two of the town's other taxi organisations had called for CCTV to be introduced in cabs. But Mr Williams said CCTV would not stop violence committed outside the vehicle. "There's no way on earth CCTV is going to stop someone throwing bricks at you," he said.

Friday 20th April 2007: -

• EU police data-sharing plan draws criticism: Supervisor warns plan lacks safeguards to ensure data protection - Plans by several European Union members states to establish a system for sharing police data have drawn criticism from the region's data-protection watchdog. European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Peter Hustinx warns that the proposal, in its current form, still lacks safeguards to ensure sufficient data protection for the public. "The proposal is very open on crucial points," Hustinx said. "We need a framework of common rules before we can move ahead." Under the system, known as the Treaty of Prum after the German town where the accord was signed by seven EU member states in 2005, participating nations allow mutual and automatic access to databases containing DNA and fingerprint records as well as car registration and other personal information. For instance, police can run database searches on suspected individuals and retrieve information within minutes.

• We complain about weather on Earth, but what about Space Weather?: Space weather concerns various environmental conditions that occur in outer space. But, does it affect us on the Earth? - Yes, space weather affects us here on the surface of the Earth. According to the National Academy of Science, “Space weather describes the conditions in space that affect Earth and its technological systems. Our space weather is a consequence of the behavior of the sun, the nature of Earth’s magnetic field, and our location in the solar system.” Space weather deals with weather within planetary atmospheres such as on the planets Mars and Saturn, but also involves radiation and matter within interplanetary space (existing between planets) and sometimes from interstellar space (existing between stars).

• Brown backs off ID card scheme - The momentum whipped up by the government to arm every Briton with an identity card has been setback by an unlikely opponent – the Prime Minister-in-waiting, Gordon Brown. Disclosures obtained by The Times reveal that the chancellor has refused to approve the overall budget for the scheme, thereby leaving the option open to scrap it if he becomes PM. By saying the Home Office can only spend a limited amount to develop it, John Reid, the Home Secretary, will need to seek permission before the issuing of cards can begin. The total price tag for the project, which will exceed the spending limit tabled by the chancellor, is an estimated £5.4billion, with 15% of the costs devoted to IT to run the scheme. Under Section 37 of the Identity Cards Act, the government is required to spell out the programme’s likely cost every six months, over its 10-year life span.

• ADHD drugs concern judge - ATTENTION Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is the most over-diagnosed condition in the community, according to a Wollongong District Court judge. Judge Paul Conlon yesterday questioned whether enough was known about the long-term effects of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) drugs like Ritalin, while issuing his judgment for a 20-year-old man convicted of assault and an indecent act. "I know there are those with the appropriate medical qualifications who are concerned about the effects of these drugs on the mental health of young persons," he said.

Thursday 19th April 2007: -

• Scottish schools set for cashless payments: Scotland to install an extra 3,000 smartcard readers - Scottish councils are to extend their use of smartcards to allow cashless payments in schools, libraries and at leisure facilities. The National Entitlement Card Programme (NECP), funded by the Scottish Executive, began last year when one million pensioners were given smartcards for concessionary travel. Scotland’s 32 councils are now expanding the use of the cards with the introduction of 3,000 smartcard readers over two years, significantly adding to the 1,000 installed so far. Councils are in various stages of implementing smartcard infrastructures, says Sid Bulloch, NECP programme manager. ‘Some councils will be getting kitted out for the first time with this new phase and others are building on the smartcard infrastructure they have, using applications such as cashless catering, registration and controlled access in schools,’ he said. ‘We are always trying to roll out new applications. For example we are considering allowing people to use smartcards to access cultural events.'   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• Cashless zones ... in 30 seconds: Cashless initiatives around the world - In Hong Kong, more than 13 million Octopus smart travelcards have been issued since 1997. The cards can be used to make cashless payments for goods and services at more than 300 locations, including fast-food outlets and parking operators. In Japan, RFID-enabled mobile phones can be used to settle up at restaurants and petrol stations. The scheme is to be extended to include payment for taxis. The phones can also receive a signal from advertising posters and be used to make a purchase immediately. Nottingham University Hospital’s NHS Trust has introduced smartcards that can be used to buy items in its restaurants and staff canteens (Computing, 29 March). The money is automatically deducted from employees’ pre-tax salaries.

• Seung-Hui Cho Was a Mind Controlled Assassin: Deadly accuracy, disturbing revelations suggest outside involvement in VA Massacre, cocktail of brainwashing from prozac, violent video games contributed to carnage - Seung-Hui Cho was a mind-controlled assassin, even aside from clear evidence of influence from outside parties, the fact is that the cultural brainwashing of violent video games and psychotropic drugs directly contributed, as it does in all these cases, to the carnage at Virginia Tech on Monday morning. Gun grabbers are already exploiting the tragedy to disarm future students from the opportunity of being able to defend themselves against deranged killers, but the media circus is completely silent when it comes to the laying blame at the feet of a deadly cocktail of mind-warping drugs and bloodthirsty shoot-em-ups.

• TOTAL PSY-OP!: Virginia gunman sent final video - The student who shot dead at least 30 people at Virginia Tech sent a package to the US TV network NBC News on the day of the shootings, police said. The package contained "disturbing" photographs, video and writings, NBC said, posted from the college campus between the two rounds of killings. Cho Seung-hui is shown pointing guns at the camera, and ranting angrily.

• Tag vulnerable aged, says minister - Elderly people should be "tagged" to enable the authorities to keep tabs on them, a government minister has suggested. Science minister Malcolm Wicks said satellite technology could be used to allow families to monitor frail or elderly relatives, it was reported. According to the Mirror newspaper, Mr Wicks said many families worried about elderly relatives or "what's happening about an 80 or 90-year-old who may have Alzheimer's", and using the technology could let them know their loved one was safe. Mr Wicks said: "Satellites currently monitor the planet in a variety of different ways. "I'm raising this as an issue for discussion. Are there other uses of technology that could benefit society?

• Gregoire signs bill rejecting national ID card: Governor calls it too expensive, threat to privacy - Gov. Chris Gregoire, who is developing a high-tech state driver's license that can serve as a border-crossing document, signed legislation Wednesday rejecting Real ID, a federal identification requirement that would essentially create a national ID card. The legislation is part of a growing rebellion against an expensive federal mandate that the American Civil Liberties Union says would threaten personal privacy. The new state law says Washington will not implement the new Real ID system unless: Uncle Sam foots the bill, the government takes steps to ensure that privacy and data security concerns are addressed, and the system doesn't place unreasonable costs or record-keeping burdens on the average citizen.

• Lawyer outlines a broader conspiracy in search for FBI documents on Oklahoma City bombing - A Utah attorney alleges informants gathering information on Timothy McVeigh or his associates warned the FBI about the plot to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building but the agency took no action to stop the 1995 attack. Jesse Trentadue also says there were others involved in carrying out the bombing besides McVeigh and Terry Nichols, despite investigators' conclusion that they were the only ones responsible for the crime. The allegations are made in a brief filed Monday in a lawsuit by Trentadue, who believes his brother s death in a federal prison was.

Wednesday 18th April 2007: -

• Secret Iraq memo leaked by civil servant - A secret Downing Street memo detailing talks between US President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair was leaked by a civil servant, the Old Bailey has heard. David Keogh passed the memo to a friend, Leo O'Connor, at a local dining club in Northampton. But police were called in when political researcher O'Connor placed it in papers for his boss, Anthony Clarke, Labour MP for Northampton South, to see, the jury was told. David Perry QC, prosecuting, said the reason the memo was leaked was to bring its contents into the public domain. But the record of the April 16, 2004, meeting in Washington was sensitive and was concerned with the US and UK policy towards Iraq.

• 'Families Need Answers' - An investigation will be held into claims that nuclear workers had body parts removed and stored without the knowledge of their families, the Government has confirmed. It is claimed 65 workers at the Sellafield plant in Cumbria in the 1960s and 70s may have had tissue, bones and body parts removed. The investigation will be led by Michael Redfern QC who carried out the inquiry into the Alder Hey children's body parts scandal.

• School row over Al Gore film - Parents who claim that an award-winning film on climate change is inaccurate and politically motivated are threatening a legal challenge over the Government's decision to send it to every secondary school. The film by Al Gore, the former US vice-president, won an Oscar for the best documentary this year and Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, says he wants teachers to use it to stimulate children into discussing climate change and global warming. But a group of parents in the New Forest say the circulation of the film by the Government amounts to political indoctrination and is in breach of the Education Act 2002. Derek Tipp, their spokesman, has urged Mr Johnson to stop the film being sent out.

• Gunman 'had been in mental unit' - The gunman involved in the deadliest shooting in modern US history had previously been accused of stalking two female students and had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005, but no charges were filed, police said. Cho Seung-hui worried one woman enough with his calls and emails in 2005 that police were called, said police chief Wendell Flinchum. He said the woman refused to press charges and Cho was referred to the Virginia Tech disciplinary system. The case was then outside the scope of the police department, he said.

• Police knew of Virginia killer's troubled history - The gunman who went on a deadly rampage at Virginia Tech had been accused of stalking women students and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in 2005 because of worries he was suicidal, university police said today. The new details added to an already chilling portrait of Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student from South Korea who massacred 32 people and then took his own life on Monday in the bloodiest shooting spree in modern US history.

• Neo-Cons To Spin VA Massacre As Terrorist Attack: Propaganda junkies may milk "Ismail Ax" to say bloodshed was spurred by militant Islam - Neo-Con media cheerleaders for the Bush administration's war on terror are set to connect killer Cho Seung-Hui with militant Islam as an excuse to propagandize the notion that Monday's VA Tech Massacre was a terrorist attack. Reports state that Seung-Hui wrote two words on his arm in red ink before carrying out the bloodbath - "Ismail Ax." Explanations as to the meaning of the words vary but according to a Chicago Tribune report, "One popular theory spreading across the web comes from a story in the Koran, the holy book of Islam, about Ibrahim and his son, Ismail. This theory picked up speed because many bloggers wondered if the actions at Virginia Tech could be related to terrorism."

• University 'warned about gunman' - A professor who taught a student whose gun rampage at Virginia Tech left 32 people dead says she warned university officials about his behaviour. Lucinda Roy said she became concerned after Cho Seung-hui wrote disturbing pieces for a creative writing class. The 23-year-old South Korean has been described as a loner and an introvert. Virginia's governor has vowed to review authorities' handling of the shootings amid claims that the US university did not do enough to protect students.

• Brown is accused of £100bn raid on pensions - Gordon Brown was last night accused by the Tories of having "raided people's retirements" to the tune of £100bn by scrapping tax relief on pensions. Moving a rare motion of no confidence in the Chancellor's handling of occupational pensions, George Osborne, his Conservative shadow, accused him of building a reputation on "stealth and dishonesty" and claimed the abolition of dividend tax credits in New Labour's first Budget in 1997 was Mr Brown's "first and worst stealth tax".

• They’re disturbing and addictive, but game violence is no threat - Players of violent video games claim that they recognise the difference between brutality meted out on screen and violence in real life and play mostly to escape the humdrum, according to a new study. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the body responsible for rating new releases, commissioned the research in response to public concern over violent games. Interviews with gamers, parents and industry figures revealed that players often revel in violent scenarios and find killing a character in a game more exciting than passively watching a character being killed in a film. Young boys report that they become addicted to games that they will play from the moment they wake. But gamers told researchers that they rejected the suggestion that playing games makes them violent in real-life or desensitises them to the impact of real scenes of violence.

• Patients 'at risk of malnutrition' - Patients are at risk of malnutrition because there are not enough nurses to make sure they are properly fed, according to a new poll. Almost half (46%) of nurses said there were not enough staff to help patients who may need help with eating and drinking. A similar number (42%) said they do not have enough time to make sure patients eat properly. A report last August from the charity Age Concern revealed that 60% of older patients - who occupy two thirds of general hospital beds - are at risk of becoming malnourished or seeing their health get worse.

• Mom: Baby not the same after Taser incident - A woman whose husband was shocked by a Taser last week while holding the couple's newborn child is considering suing The Woman's Hospital of Texas and the Houston Police Department. "The hospital was irresponsible (and) the officer was irresponsible," attorney Sadiyah Evangelista, who represents Jacqueline Gray, said Tuesday. The couple's infant fell to the ground after Gray's husband, William Lewis, was hit with the Taser fired by D.M. Boling, an off-duty HPD officer working security at the hospital. Lewis, 30, was later charged with child endangerment. "I'm very upset and I'm distraught," Gray said at a news conference organized by the Millions More Movement Ministry of Justice. Hospital personnel checked the baby out and determined she appeared unharmed. But Gray said her daughter, Carla, hasn't been the same.

Tuesday 17th April 2007: -

• More guns, not fewer, would have saved lives - In the wake of the horrific massacre that occurred at Virginia Tech, newspapers throughout the country wasted no time in reporting that Virginia has some of the most lenient gun laws in the United States - According to the International Herald Tribune, "Ownership requires only passing criminal background checks, which can be bypassed by buying from an unlicensed dealer. And unlicensed dealers can sell their wares at gun shows without requiring criminal checks. Guns need not be registered unless the owner wants to carry a concealed weapon." We can expect more of this type of intellectual laziness as reporters, politicians, soccer moms and everyone else who is convinced that guns are bad lines up to offer up the latest "proof" that school shootings are "caused" by the lack of "gun control."

• State Police may hunt for a suspect using kin's DNA: Critics say innocent targeted - The State Police crime laboratory is considering expanding the use of its DNA database to search for close relatives of suspects whose DNA is recovered from crime scenes, a controversial crime-fighting technique that prosecutors say would help them solve more cases but that critics say would target innocent people, many of them members of minority groups. Currently, the lab takes DNA found at crime scenes and compares it with DNA samples from convicted felons in hope of finding a perfect match and a suspect. The lab does not permit employees to seek or report close matches, which could give investigators an important lead by indicating the suspect may be related to a felon in the database, according to officials at the state's Executive Office of Public Safety.

• Boots to ban chequebook payments - Boots will ban cheque payments at its 1,500 UK and Republic of Ireland stores, starting from 1 May. The High Street chemist, and health and beauty products retailer said that the move followed a successful trial of the ban in Surrey and Sussex. Boots added that the use of cheque books had now fallen to around 0.1% of all purchases at its stores. Shell brought in a similar ban in 2005 as customers increasingly used chip-and-pin credit and debit cards.

• Virginia Tech Shooting: Gun Bans Are The Problem, Not The Solution - "When will we learn that being defenseless is a bad defense," asked Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America? "All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last ten years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen -- a potential victim -- had a gun," Pratt said. "The latest school shooting demands an immediate end to the gun-free zone law which leaves the nation's schools at the mercy of madmen. It is irresponsibly dangerous to tell citizens that they may not have guns at schools. The Virginia Tech shooting shows that killers have no concern about a gun ban when murder is in their hearts.

• Anger over US shooting warnings - Survivors of the worst shooting rampage in US history have criticised authorities for waiting too long to alert people a gunman was on the loose. The rampage at Virginia Tech university killed 33 including a suspected gunman. There were two hours between the two separate attacks, the second of which saw 31 deaths, and students have asked why the campus was not locked down.

• Photos of 'tortured' Iraqi's corpse released - Photographs showing the severe beating suffered by an Iraqi civilian who died in British custody were released today as the House of Lords begins a hearing into whether human rights law should apply to British forces abroad. The pictures of 26-year-old Baha Mousa were unveiled by his lawyer and human rights group Liberty, who are calling for an "independent, effective investigation into the big systemic issues" raised by the case. Baha Mousa's case is one of six test cases being examined by the Law Lords, along with five Iraqis who died at the hands of British soldiers in the streets of Basra.

• France warned CIA before 9-11 attacks - Former intelligence officials confirmed to the Associated Press Monday a Le Monde newspaper report that France's foreign intelligent service had heard about an al Qaeda plot which was "likely to involve a US airplane." The French paper also reported that France informed the Central Intelligence Agency prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 were killed. However, it is uncertain whether the intelligence was alluding to the specific plot hatched on 9/11.

Monday 16th April 2007: -

• At least 20 dead in Virginia Tech shooting - police - At least 20 people, including the suspected gunman, were killed in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech university on Monday, police and university officials said. Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said police don't know how the gunman died or if he was a student.   (FLASHBACK TO JAN 2007: VA College Campus Gun Bill Gets Shot Down)

• Rosie Prepares To Strike Back For 9/11 Truth: Insider Scoop: Ground zero heroes Impacted by toxic dust cover-up to appear on The View Tuesday - Contradicting reports that Rosie O'Donnell is set to cease her vocal stance against the Bush administration and the 9/11 cover-up, we can exclusively reveal that Rosie is preparing to strike back by featuring interviews with 9/11 heroes and first responders, themselves victims of a government cover-up that allowed them to breathe deadly toxic dust at ground zero. A headline on the Drudge Report today reads, 'ROSIE: NO MORE 'IMPEACH BUSH ' TALK ON THE 'THE VIEW', which suggests O'Donnell is backing down from her controversial comments that led top Neo-Con free speech haters to call for her dismissal. The story links to Rosie's blog in which she promises to "talk about other things." We now know that those "other things" include the government's criminal cover-up of the ground zero toxic dust scandal that is now killing 9/11 heroes in large numbers.     (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and our affiliated site 911truthskipton.com)

• Bush administration pushes for expansion and deepening of police state - The George W. Bush administration seized the White House in 2000 by way of an openly stolen election, then cemented its criminal power into place with the unprecedented 9/11 mass murder, and its two resulting abominations: the fabricated “war on terrorism” (the pretext for endless global war), and the USAPATRIOT Act (the full-scale destruction of the Constitution, and the militarization of the US homeland). The deepening of the war and security state continues unabated and relatively unopposed, in spite of meager posturing of (largely complicit) congressional Democrats. Nothing has been done to stop, reverse or undo the Bush administration’s boundless criminality, its wide open corruption, or the absolute and systematic rape of law itself. Few if any of Bush’s criminals have been brought to justice.

• Children to help launch Norwich's talking CCTV - A new weapon is to be introduced in Norwich's battle to combat anti-social behaviour in two of the city’s best-known parks - talking CCTV cameras. Loud speakers will be used to directly challenge people caught on camera engaging in vandalism, graffiti-spraying, littering or other forms of anti-social behaviour in Eaton and Waterloo Park. Offenders will hear a voice warning them they are on camera and asked to immediately stop what they are doing by staff working in Norwich City Council’s CCTV control room... Norwich City Council is inviting schools to design a poster to be put up next to the camera. The winning child or group of children in each area will be rewarded by visiting the Talking CCTV control room and being the voice that ‘tells off’ the adults. They will also receive a cinema voucher for the film of their choice.

• Parents Object To Child Fingerprinting For School Biometrics - Parents in Taunton, Conn. have objected to schools fingerprinting to speed up lunch lines, according to The Taunton Gazette in Taunton, Conn. The biometric technology may also be used for taking attendance, using school transportation, and/or library access. The parents are angry they were not asked for permission to obtain their children's fingerprints.

• Time for taxis to be fitted with cameras - IT is surely a question of when, not if, CCTV cameras will be installed in taxis in Bolton. Every night drivers face possible abuse, violence or vandalism when they pick up customers who have been out drinking in the town. Hackney and private hire drivers say weekends are the worst when drunks hammer at windows, kick door panels, refuse to pay and shout abuse at them. When confronted with such behaviour, there is not much a driver can do other than attempt to drop the passenger off without coming to any harm. Bolton Council has now agreed to revisit the idea of installing cameras in cabs, a move that was a success when it was tried in a pilot scheme five years ago, but abandoned due to cost and legal implications.

• U.S. food imports rarely inspected: FDA lacks resources to assure safety of fish and other products, experts say - Just 1.3 percent of imported fish, vegetables, fruit and other foods are inspected — yet those government inspections regularly reveal food unfit for human consumption. Frozen catfish from China, beans from Belgium, jalapenos from Peru, blackberries from Guatemala, baked goods from Canada, India and the Philippines — the list of tainted food detained at the border by the Food and Drug Administration stretches on.

• MPs to debate mental health plans - Controversial plans to allow mentally ill people to be detained against their will, even if they have not committed a crime, are due to be discussed by MPs. The Mental Health Bill, rejected by the Lords in February, is expected to face heavy criticism in the Commons. Ministers say the proposals will help to keep the public safe.

• Benn questions 'War on Terror' slogan - Hilary Benn, the Development Secretary, will today risk angering George W Bush by claiming that the US President's phrase "War on Terror" strengthens extremist groups. Mr Benn is to tell an audience in New York that the term, coined by the White House after the 9/11 attacks, makes small, disaffected groups feel that they are part of something bigger. He will also confirm that British ministers and civil servants no longer refer to the "War on Terror".

• A 9/11 "Smoking Gun" Hidden In Plain Sight - Let's face it, if the 9/11 attacks were "legitimate", they would have been accompanied by "legitimate" statements and claims of responsibility. You don't pull off the most spectacular "terrorist" attack in history, especially against largely symbolic targets, and then hide.

• Cashless parking signals end of the meter - The days of the parking meter are numbered as town halls across the country draw up plans to rip them out. Even the equally unloved pay-and-display machine is facing a bleak future as Britain moves towards cashless parking. They are set to be replaced by equipment which will accept credit card payments. For motorists the demise of the meter will end the frustrating routines of fumbling for the right change and pumping money into a broken machine which merely swallows the cash.   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• Paper or plastic? Might need your ID - I was in the store the other day doing my usual five-minute, afterwork shopping extravaganza when I was stopped dead in my tracks. “Can I see your ID?” I quickly looked over the four items I was trying to purchase. No alcohol. No tobacco. There was no way I was getting “carded” for cooking sherry. What was up? Apparently, my grocer now needs to see my ID before I can purchase something with my credit card. Despite the fact that I am at that store at least three times a week and the afternoon staff knows me, the management still deemed it necessary for me to cough up some form of ID. The cashier apologized and shrugged, so out I ran into the driving rain to fetch my driver’s license.

• Accused Pentagon hacker prosecution could backfire - Analysis Accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon is continuing to fight against extradition to the US after losing an appeal last week. Only the Law Lords now stand between the Scot and a US trial for allegedly breaking into and damaging 97 US government computers between 2001 and 2002 and causing $700,000 worth of damage, in what US authorities have described as the "biggest military" computer hack ever. He allegedly infiltrated networks run by the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, Department of Defense and NASA. US authorities described McKinnon as an uber-hacker who posed a threat to national security in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

Sunday 15th April 2007: -

• Chavez calls 9/11 gift for Bush: Venezuelan President has labeled 9/11 attacks on US as "a gift for Bush," saying it enabled the US government to wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - Hugo Chavez made the statement during a news conference to mark the fifth anniversary of his return to power two days after a 2002 US-backed coup against his rule, AP reported. "If there were another aggression against us, there wouldn't be another drop of oil for the United States ... We're prepared for it," he said outright. Venezuelan leader noted the insatiable US thirst for oil resources led the imperialist regime to attack Iraq and also stage an abortive coup attempt against his leadership.   (FLASHBACK: MARCH 2006 - Venezuelan Government To Launch International 9/11 Investigation)

• A conspiracy theorist's paradise: Cheap editing software and an online audience are changing documentary films, says Chris Stevens - Documentary filmmakers used to edit their footage by manually cutting up giant reels of celluloid with a razor blade. The price for entry was high, and the chances of an audience ever seeing your film were staggeringly low. But now fledgling directors equipped with cheap editing programs such as iMovie have found a new outlet on the internet, and an audience of millions who just can't get enough. The new wave of internet documentaries deal with everything from 9/11 conspiracy theories to skiing in Iran. Young directors have taken advantage of the distribution power of video sites like YouTube and the availability of capable and cheap computers to produce finished films that, at least on the surface, look factual, watchable and authoritative.   (RELATED EXTERNAL WEBSITE: loosechange911.com)

• Hundreds hit in drive for roadside fingerprints: Fingerprint checks have raised 'Big Brother' fears - HUNDREDS of motorists have had their fingerprints checked at the roadside in a controversial pilot scheme that has raised fears of a growing Big Brother culture. Drivers and passengers are among the 4,200 people who just in the past four months have been asked to use a hand-held fingerprint reader. The device checks their identity against 6.5 million recorded prints of convicts and crime suspects. On average 60 per cent of those stopped so far in the voluntary pilot are not on the fingerprint database. In West Yorkshire, which is part of the scheme, 223 drivers and three passengers in Bradford and Wakefield have been checked since it was launched in December. Just three arrests were made for drugs offences and theft.

• Britain steps closer toward a biometric ID card - Toward the end of 2009, the United Kingdom hopes to have a national identity card scheme up and running for citizens and residents. The personal information of millions of people will be included in a computer database, along with biometric details such as fingerprints and facial characteristics. At the beginning, the new scheme will be voluntary from 2008. It will be developed and problems worked out as more people join. The government is estimating that approximately 60% will obtain the card during this phase. Then by 2014 it is planned that it will be compulsory for people to own a card. One of the reasons for the card is that people will be required to present it when obtaining various services.

• Prozac maker introduces drug to calm pets' separation anxiety - Eli Lilly and Co., which built its reputation on insulin and antidepressant Prozac, launched its first prescription medicine for pets on Friday. The company will market Reconcile, a beef-flavoured chewable tablet that helps treat dogs for separation anxiety, in the United States. The medicine is supposed to be used in combination with behaviour management training to help dogs that have difficulty being separated from their owner or family members. "It basically calms the dog and makes it more receptive to the training that's supposed to go along with it," said Steve Connell, a Lilly veterinarian. Lilly estimates that more than 10 million dogs suffer from some form of separation anxiety. Some may whine or bark. Others chew up or destroy things when left alone.

• Property boosts Tesco profits - Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, will this week announce that full-year profits from its fledgling property division are as high as £135m, three times the profitability of entire retail chains such as WH Smith. The huge increase in Tesco's property profit - which will coincide with the company announcing record group pre-tax profits of £2.5bn - underlines how important an asset property has become for retail chains. Tesco's bumper property earnings come one year into a five-year £5bn property joint venture programme. Analysts expect the profit from property to be between £113m and £135m, up to 40 per cent higher than last year.   (RELATED EXTERNAL WEBSITE: boycotttesco.com)

• 9/11 Truth: Daniel Sunjata - Alex welcomes Daniel Sunjata, co-star of the critically-acclaimed FX Network television series, Rescue Me and Tony Award nominated actor who has performed in film, television and in the theater and has recently come forward with his support of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

• Coal burning having a devastating impact on rural Chinese - Zhang Huaixiang's thin wasted frame dangles from his wooden crutches, his bowed legs swelled by a disease contracted from a lifelong reliance on coal. Zhang, 57, a farmer in Guizhou province in the nation's mountainous southwest, has been near bed-ridden for a year, unable to walk properly due to the rotting of his bones and joints from fluoride poisoning. "My knees just hurt too much," Zhang told AFP outside his grey-walled concrete room subsidised by the government. He also receives 50 yuan (6.45 US dollars) a month for food, but his brother-in-law, Li Xiaoxin, also a farmer, said it was not nearly enough. "I work and live one day and then take care of him the next," said Li, 65. Zhang is one of 42 million people in China with fluorosis, a condition caused by ingesting too much fluoride, which corrodes the teeth, pitting them and turning them a rusty brown, in cases of excessive, prolonged exposure. In severe cases like Zhang's, the mineral also weakens the bones and stiffens the joint ligaments, eventually making movement difficult and painful, much like osteoarthritis does. In many developed countries, fluoride, which is often naturally occurring in water and also coal, is added to toothpaste and drinking water. Since the 1960s many medical experts have believed that small amounts of fluoride helps prevent tooth decay and strengthen bones. However, the claimed benefits have increasingly drawn fire from medical experts who say that there are no tangible health advantages to the human body.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

Saturday 14th April 2007: -

• Scholars and Family Members Submit Request for Correction to 9/11 NIST Report - A group of scientists, researchers and 9/11 family members challenging the official reports of the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11/01 has filed a Request for Correction (RFC) with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The Request asserts that the NIST Final Report violates information quality standards, draws inferences that are inconsistent with its own computer simulations and physical tests, and exhibits a significant bias toward a preordained conclusion while ignoring available evidence contrary to it. The Request also says that if this bias is corrected, the NIST simulation clearly indicates that the Towers should not have collapsed due to plane damage and fire. The obvious alternative, which the group says should have been studied by NIST, is explosive demolition.

• Nephew of 9/11 Mastermind Denies Involvement in the Attacks - An alleged high-level al-Qaeda operative who is the nephew of the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States told a military tribunal that he had no ties to the plot and is being held because of his family connection, according to a transcript released yesterday. Ammar al-Baluchi, nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, told a Combatant Status Review Tribunal last month at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he was a businessman who helped his uncle's affiliates but said he did not know they were part of a terror network. In an unusual witness statement entered at the March 30 tribunal, Mohammed said that Baluchi "has never had association with al-Qaeda, Taliban or associated organizations" and that his nephew "had no knowledge of al-Qaeda links."

• One man's legal fight for justice over bank fees - He is the ultimate bank rebel. After months of controversy, Britain's banks face a landmark court challenge over charges as a result of a one-man campaign waged by a barrister who is risking his professional career to prove they are acting illegally. Tom Brennan believes that if he wins his case for exemplary damages against NatWest, the bank will have to reduce penalty fees for all its customers - paving the way for hundreds of thousands of other high street bank customers to launch claims. Banks could lose a chunk of their estimated £4.7bn a year earnings from penalty fees for unauthorised borrowing. But if he loses the case, Mr Brennan risks having to pay the bank's costs, which would make him bankrupt and would disqualify him from working as a barrister. He has been flooded with messages in support of his campaign which he is conducting himself.

• Dollar slide accelerates - The dollar's slide against most of the world's currencies gained pace today as dealers worried over the outlook for the US economy. Sterling and the euro are leading the charge against the embattled dollar, as interest rates are still expected to head higher in both Europe and the UK. After a string of rate increases in the US in the past two years, the Federal Reserve has recently indicated it may pause or even cut borrowing costs. The Bank of England and the European Central Bank, on the other hand, are still widely expected to raise interest rates.

• 75,000 Voter Registration Cards Found in Trash Bin in Atlanta - The Georgia Secretary of State's office has begun an investigation into who threw more than 75,000 Fulton County voter registration cards into a trash bin. The cards contained a voter's full name, address and Social Security number. The office says a random sampling showed many of the cards were for active voters. In a statement, Secretary of State Karen Handel said the finding "represents a significant and serious breach of the personal information of Fulton County voters and an outrageous violation of the trust and integrity of Fulton County's elections."

• China's Big Brother: World's Biggest ID Database: Public Security database with 1.3 billion entries - In a modest 200-square meters enclosure, the National Citizen Identity Information Center (NCIIC) in Beijing hosts the world's biggest ID database, with over 1.3 billion entries. "By collecting the identity information of China's 1.3 billion population in five years, through an investment amounting to tens of millions yuan, we have succeeded in collating the world's biggest ID database in full compliance with international standards," said Lu Subing, vice director of NCIIC.

• Wolfowitz dictated girlfriend’s pay deal: World Bank president who led push for Iraq war assailed for arranging raise - World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz personally dictated the terms under which the bank gave what it called his "domestic partner" substantial pay raises and promotions in exchange for temporarily leaving her job there during his tenure, according to documents released by the bank's executive board yesterday. The board issued a statement saying it will "move expeditiously to reach a conclusion on possible actions to take," amid rising speculation over whether the embattled Wolfowitz will resign or be asked to step down. Board deliberations over his future were suspended yesterday morning as the bank began its spring meeting, an annual rite attended by finance ministers and central bank presidents, and one now being overtaken by the controversy surrounding Wolfowitz.

• Tons of Food Spoiled As FEMA Ran Out Of Storage Space - As many as 6 million prepared meals stockpiled near potential victims of the 2006 hurricane season spoiled in the Gulf Coast heat last summer when the Federal Emergency Management Agency ran short of warehouse and refrigeration space, according to agency officials. In all, hundreds of truckloads of food worth more than $40 million are being thrown away or scavenged for unspoiled contents to be offered to domestic hunger-relief groups, FEMA officials said. Most of the meals were commercial versions of the military's Meals Ready to Eat, which were ruined despite being engineered to withstand the demands of desert and jungle climates.

• Consumer Alert: Massive Virus Outbreak: A quick test by PC World shows that many antivirus programs fail to catch today's nasty Storm Worm variant - A huge virus surge of a new Storm Worm variant is flooding e-mail inboxes and evading many antivirus programs. In my tests of 31 programs, only four reported a virus. Postini, an e-mail security company, says that over the last 24 hours it has seen about 55 million virus e-mails, about 60 times the daily average. The first e-mails had romance-themed subjects: "A kiss so gentle," or "I dream of you," for instance. The latest batch attempts to fool readers--with subjects like "Worm Alert!" or "Virus Alert!"--into thinking they are already infected and need to apply a supplied patch--an attached virus. We received one such virus e-mail here at PC World, titled "Worm Alert!" The e-mail included a text message embedded in an image, which makes it easier to evade antispam tools. The attachment was a password-protected archive named 'patch-7594.zip,' with the password contained in the image's text.

Friday 13th April 2007: -

• MoD plotted story sale while hostages were still in cells - Days before the British hostages were freed by Iran, the Defence Ministry was already planning how their stories could be sold. Officials devised a detailed strategy on how to deal with media bids even as Faye Turney and her fellow captors were languishing in cells in Tehran, a senior Whitehall source has told the Daily Mail. The revelation severely undermines claims by Defence Secretary Des Browne that he did not know in advance about the controversial decision to allow the accounts to be sold. Insiders said it was inconceivable that he - and in turn Tony Blair - would not have been aware of the plan.

• Indiana’s health commissioner apologizes for state’s role in developing eugenics - An Indiana official publicly apologized for the state’s role 100 years ago in pioneering state-authorized sterilization of ”imbeciles,” paupers and others it deemed undesirable. Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe expressed regret on behalf of the state Thursday for its passing of the first such eugenics law. She also unveiled a historic marker that will stand across from the Statehouse. ”It is one (law) that we do regret but we should not forget,” she said. In 1907, then-Gov. J. Frank Hanly signed a state law widely regarded as the first in the world to permit sterilization in a misguided effort to improve the quality of the human race.

• Former Bush Speechwriter Hints at 9/11 Inside Job: Says Neo-Cons would have created a false flag to justify war had it not been for WTC attack, questions official story - A GOP insider, former Bush 41 speechwriter and close friend of the Bush family writes in his new book that before 9/11, the Neo-Cons in control of the Bush administration were eager to seize upon a manufactured provocation to go to war - just as LBJ had done with the Gulf Of Tonkin in 1965, and questions the official 9/11 story. Victor Gold is a veteran GOP campaign operative who worked closely with George H.W. Bush on his presidential campaign and also co-wrote his autobiography. He was also tasked with writing the profiles for Dick and Lynn Cheney for the official Inauguration program in 2001.

• Imus-Gate: Tom DeLay To Rosie O'Donnell: 'We're Gonna "Destroy" You!' - The right wing attack dogs have been unleashed. Rosie O'Donnell is about to join Don Imus on the unemployment line, if former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has anything to say about it. "The Hammer" has fired a salvo which has already been answered by The View's Rosie O'Donnell. In a posting on his blog at TomDeLay.com, entitled "If the Left takes Imus, We'll take Rosie," the controversial DeLay has issued a call-to-arms on conservatives to "protest and demand" that Rosie get the Imus treatment at ABC.

• Leahy Says Bush Aides Lied About E-Mails - President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up. 'They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!' Leahy shouted from the Senate floor. 'You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers,' said Leahy, D-Vt. 'Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary.'

• Man charged in gym room shower video - A Roseland man has been charged with secretly videotaping a Monmouth University student who was showering in the locker room of the school's community gym. Anthony Amato, 43, has been charged with invasion of privacy, eluding a police officer and criminal trespass in the April 6 incident at the West Long Branch college.

• Easter Bunny visits Child I.D. Day - It's every parent's worst nightmare. One minute a child is there, the next and he or she is gone. It is not a pleasant topic but the unfortunate and disturbing fact is that 800,000 children are missing in the United States each year, according to the National Child Identification Program. Law enforcement and social service organizations nationwide have increasingly promoted child identification techniques to assist authorities in locating children if the worst should happen, and the Aberdeen Crime Watch Program recently sponsored an event to help local parents record vital characteristics from fingerprints to DNA, all with the goal of making local kids safer.

• Expert says scans should be embraced - The debate over fingerprint scanning technology in city schools has boiled down to simple slice of paper - a permission slip. Two weeks ago, Chairwoman Christine Fagan stood up for enraged parents who have felt their parental and civil rights have been overlooked. She said she had to sign a permission slip for her high school-aged son to participate in an Ides of March celebration, where students wore togas to school. The fact that district schools were going ahead with plans to implement the fingerprint scanning technology, to speed up school lunch lines, without a permission slip-policy, baffled her. There seem to be some discrepancies in promises made by the district administration to an inquiring American Civil Liberties Union attorney, and the actual disclaimers sent home to parents regarding the soon-to-be-initiated program. Parents worry fingerprint image gathering is the first step of a distressing trend in American culture. More than the $52,000 program itself, the parents are angry they were not given a choice, prior to last week's School Committee intervention.

• Kindergarten Girl Handcuffed, Arrested At Fla. School - Police arrested a 6-year-old Florida girl and even handcuffed her when she acted out in class. Police officers said Desre’e Watson, a kindergarten student at Avon Elementary School in Highlands County, had a violent run-in with a teacher on Thursday. “I was scared,” the little girl said. Police claim the little girl got angry and began kicking and scratching. She even hit a teacher attempting to intervene in the disturbance. However, the girl’s mother doesn’t believe the story. “She never fell out. She is very respectful. If I tell her to do anything, she will do it,” Lateshia Wilson said.

• Military Spending Now 40% Of Every Income Tax Dollar - As taxpayers prepare to meet this year's April 16th tax deadline, they may want to consider that almost 40 cents of every tax dollar is spent on past and present military spending, according to a newly released publication by the National Priorities Project (NPP), a non-profit research organization that examines the local impact of federal spending policies. In Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?, NPP offers breakdowns of how the federal government spends the median household's tax payment in each state and over 200 cities. In 2006, according to the National Priorities Project, current military spending accounted for 27 cents of every income tax dollar paid. Additionally, NPP determined that nine cents of every federal income tax dollar paid today could be attributed to borrowing to pay for past wars and military build-ups. Finally, disability payments, health care and other benefits accrued to veterans made up a little over three cents of the federal income tax dollar, bringing total military spending up to close to 40 cents of every tax dollar.

Thursday 12th April 2007: -

• WE ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON AND PLANNING FUTURE PUBLIC EVENTS IN THE UK WITH 9/11 TRUTH CAMPAIGN (UK & IRELAND), PLEASE BEAR WITH US OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS AS WE WILL NOT BE HERE TO UP-DATE THE HEADLINES.

• Square rally: 9/11 was U.S. 'plot' - An energetic group of young people with some radical ideas descended upon Journal Square yesterday to spread their theory that the Sept. 11 attacks were not an act of terrorists, but carried out by the U.S. government. A group of about 15 men and women passed out flyers and tried to convince anyone who would listen that the highest ranking American officials had a hand in the tragic events of 9/11. While onlookers may have scoffed at the conspiracy theorists, these demonstrations are not uncommon, said one in the group. "This is our first demonstration in New Jersey. However, this has been going on at Ground Zero for six years now," said Glenn Zarmanov, 19, of Jersey City. Another member believes their message is catching on. "These rallies are starting to pop up all over the place," said Tom D'Angelo.

• 21/7 suspect's claim 'is amazing' - One of the alleged 21 July bombers must have been "very, very sure" that a device he claimed to have tested in a flat would not explode, a court heard. Expert Hans Michels said Muktar Ibrahim's story of detonating 2kg (4.5lb) of main charge to check no-one would be hurt was "amazing". Prof Michels also told Woolwich Crown Court the devices used on 21 July, 2005, were not capable of exploding. Six men all deny conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions.

Wednesday 11th April 2007: -

• No 10 is accused of masterminding sale of hostages' stories - Tony Blair has been dragged into the "cash for hostages" fiasco as he is accused of allowing the Iran captives to sell their stories as part of a crude Government spin operation. General Sir Michael Rose, one of Britain's most respected former Army officers, said he was convinced the decision to allow 15 sailors and Marines held captive in Iran to cash in on their ordeals had been driven by the Prime Minister's office. MPs from all sides of the Commons said they too suspected a deliberate strategy aimed at hitting back at Iran, widely seen to have won the "propaganda war" during the detainees' time in captivity.

• New Victim's Family Supports Search For 9/11 Truth: Parents of United Airlines 175 flight attendant Alicia Titus on quest to find out what really happened on September 11 - A new 9/11 victim's family have gone public on their doubts about the official story and have firmly placed their support behind the efforts of the 9/11 Truth Movement to search for the truth of what really happened on September 11, belying a common slur on behalf of the establishment press that questioning the government's version of the attacks is somehow insulting to the victims. The family concerned are John and Bev Titus, parents of Alicia Titus, who was a flight attendant on United Flight 175, the plane that crashed into the WTC south tower on September 11, 2001. John and Bev have since devoted their time to activism and have set up a fund for their daughter called The Alicia Titus Memorial, the proceeds from which go to supporting the peace movement.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and our affiliated site 911truthskipton.com)

• "New 9/11 crisis catalyst to merge U.S., Mexico and Canada": North American Union leader says merger just crisis away - Leading intellectual force behind effort toward EU-style unity looks at future - Robert Pastor, a leading intellectual force in the move to create an EU-style North American Community, told WND he believes a new 9/11 crisis could be the catalyst to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Pastor, a professor at American University, says that in such a case the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP – launched in 2005 by the heads of the three countries at a summit in Waco, Texas – could be developed into a continental union, complete with a new currency, the amero, that would replace the U.S. dollar just as the euro has replaced the national currencies of Europe.

• Right Wing Uses Cropped Photo To Downplay Size Of Iraq Protest - After thousands of demonstrators gathered in Najaf, Iraq, yesterday to protest the U.S. occupation, the Bush administration was quick to downplay the size of the gathering. State Department official David Satterfield said, “I think the small size of those demonstrations is an indication of the limited appeal of Muqtada al-Sadr’s rhetoric at this moment.” The right-wing has quickly echoed these talking points, circulating a U.S. Army aerial photo of the protest to support the military’s low-ball estimate that only 5,000-7,000 attended the rally. Gateway Pundit claims “proof” that “Al Sadr and the mainstream media missed the mark on this one” by claiming that the “aerial shot from Najaf, Iraq yesterday shows a protest of 5,000-7,000 Al-Sadr devotees.”

• Google Censors China Olympics Criticism - The motto of next year’s Olympic games in China is “one world, one dream.” Online, the world is actually split up into several countries, each with their own limited view, made possible through national censorship of the web. Human Rights Watch asks: How will China’s pervasive censorship and control of domestic and international media and the Internet play out when thousands of international journalists descend on Beijing? How are the Olympic Games being used to justify the violent forced evictions of thousands of people from their homes? (...) Human Rights Watch hopes that the 2008 Olympics will be an impetus for China to demonstrate greater respect for the human rights guaranteed to all under international law. You got one answer right there on Google when you compare the search results for the query china olympics: the page I quoted from above is available on Google.com’s Chinese search engine, but censored on Google.cn.

• Professor who criticized Bush told added to terrorist 'no-fly' list - A top Constitutional scholar from Princeton who gave a televised speech that slammed President George W. Bush's executive overreach was recently told that he had been added to the Transportation Security Administration's terrorist watch list. He shared his experience this weekend at the law blog Balkinization. Walter F. Murphy, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Emeritus, at Princeton University, attempted to check his luggage at the curbside in Albuquerque before boarding a plane to Newark, New Jersey. Murphy was told he could not use the service. "I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list," he said. When inquiring with a clerk why he was on the list, Murphy was asked if he had participated in any peace marches. "We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," a clerk said.

• RINF.COM Film Screening: A World Without Cancer - The Story Of B17: 13 APRIL, 7.30PM, GREGSON ARTS AND COMMUNITY CENTRE, LANCASTER - There are isolated tribes and peoples around the world who do not have cancer. These include the Abkhazians, the Hopi and Navajo Indians, the Hunzas, Eskimos and the Karakorum. What they have in common is that their diet is rich in vitamin B17. Foods such as wild blackberries and apricot seeds can contain high amounts of the B17 vitamin.

• Not enough youth prescribed Ritalin for ADHD: study - Ritalin may not be prescribed enough to Atlantic Canadian youth who may need it, a new study from a researcher at Dalhousie University suggests. The study by Dr. Christiane Poulin, an associate professor of community health and epidemiology, contradicts the widely held belief that Ritalin is being overprescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and teenagers. Her study was made available in March in the online version of the journal Addiction. The research was funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Canadian Population Health Initiative.

Tuesday 10th April 2007: -

• UK Big Brother's Holiday Campaign April 10 2007: Term-time holidays will be logged…even if they're authorised - Under new government plans, the next time you take your child out of school during term time – even if the school has given you permission – your details will be logged on a special register. It all sounds a bit Big Brother, but the government insists that their new campaign is needed to prevent the growing problem of non-attendance of pupils. Schools are now expected to log all details of holidays taken by pupils, both with and without permission, and submit it in an annual report to the government together with reasons for the absences. News of the new register comes as increasing numbers of families took their Easter holidays earlier to save money. Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents, said; 'I suspect that most families went on holiday last weekend. They think that they are being penalised by higher prices.'

• Schumer proposes employment ID card: Senator, in Queensbury, seeks to reduce illegal immigration - U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer on Tuesday called for a national employment identification card system that would include modern technology such as fingerprint- or retina scanning. Schumer, speaking at an assisted living community in Queensbury, said such as system would reduce illegal immigration by 95 percent. "Everyone who applies for a job has to show the card," Schumer said. "No illegal immigrant will get the card. The only people who will be are citizens or people who are here legally."

• ID replacement costs will rise to $20 - Students who lose their student identification cards will now have to pay an extra $10 for a replacement and need to report the theft immediately. The cards serve as both identification and debit devices for students and can be targets for theft and abuse. Campus Dining Facilities offers an E.Z. Charge function that allows students to use a student ID as a debit card. Students can choose to either deposit money into a prepaid account or charge expenses to the account to be reconciled by a monthly statement.

• Warning on school fingerprinting - The vast majority of local education authorities allow children to be fingerprinted by their schools, new figures have revealed. Data released to the Conservatives under the Freedom of Information Act show that only 39 of the 171 LEAs say they do not allow the practice. This means that up to 17,000 thousand schools covering 5.9 million children may be allowed to request fingerprints, said the party. And it warned that some schools are doing this without asking permission.

• Tommy 'the Chip' Thompson - I won't be voting for recently announced presidential candidate Tommy Thompson for two reasons. The first? Former Health and Human Services Secretary Thompson wants unborn children to be used for spare parts. Slapping pro-lifers who supported him in the face, Thompson promoted embryonic stem cell "research" to the point of insubordination – publicly opposing the policy of his former boss, the president. Destroying the donor. If we did that with blood drives, there wouldn't be a Red Cross. And the research scoreboard at a glance? Adult stem cells success: treating 72 conditions (and counting); embryonic stem cells: zero. It's actually a negative number since embryonic stem cells have a propensity to form cancerous tumors, but that doesn't seem to bother those blinded by their desire to cannibalize the very young. Even Mitt Romney says he "gets" that. (he just wants abortion as a "health benefit.") And, as I've written in previous columns, Rudy Giuliani wants to force us to pay for killing kids up until their birthday. After that, we're supposed to buy them a present. But there is another reason I won't be voting for Tommy Thompson: He wants us all to be "chipped" with Radio Frequency Identification and sits on the board of the VeriChip Corp., a company currently talking to the Pentagon about inserting the grain-sized microchip into American citizens, beginning with our soldiers.

Monday 09th April 2007: -

• 1984 COMES TRUE: ORWELL'S NIGHTMARE IS NOW A REALITY - BIG Brother really is watching you. Last week the government unveiled talking CCTV cameras that allow operators to reprimand anyone misbehaving in the street. Human rights groups complained that the nightmare vision George Orwell laid out in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has become reality, with five million cameras, one for every 12 people, now monitoring our every move. Simon Davies of Privacy International says: "If something is not done soon to reverse this trend, privacy will be extinct within a decade." Orwell's book depicted a world where free speech was illegal, subversive thoughts got you killed and everyone was under constant surveillance from the all-seeing Big Brother.

• Schoolchildren to be fingerprinted in Big Brother-style shake-up - Up to 5.9million children face having their fingerprints taken by schools in another move towards a 'Big Brother' society. Pupils will have to hand over their biometric details simply to borrow library books or gain access to school dinners. A million children's fingerprints are believed to have been taken already, some without parental approval and even by 'con tricks' such as pretend spy games. Freedom of Information data obtained by the Tories reveals a further 4.9 million sets of prints could now be added to school computers after the vast majority of local education authorities sanctioned the practice.

• Shopping list could make you 'a terror suspect' - The European Union's privacy watchdog has given warning that new access for Europol to personal data could lead to individuals being labelled as terror suspects based on hearsay or records of their shopping habits. The warning, from the head of the European Data Protection supervisor, comes amid moves to allow the EU police agency to process so-called "soft data" in search of relevant information for its criminal investigations. Peter Hustinx said that moves to give Europol the power to gather intelligence on "people who have not (yet) committed a crime" are without privacy safeguards.

• Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips: A grim vision of the future - Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups. This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".   (RELATED: See also Government Report: Bio-Weapons Could Be Used To Combat Overpopulation - MoD dossier outlines nightmare vision of new world order, ethnic cleansing, class warfare, brain chips by 2035)

• Police order boy, 5, to stop chalking hopscotch 'graffiti' on the street - A boy of five playing hopscotch with friends looked up to find himself confronted by two police officers. They ordered Ryan Badland and his five playmates to stop because chalking the grids on the road in their quiet cul-de-sac was "graffiti". "I couldn't believe it," said Ryan's mother Lisa, 30, at their home in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset.

• Britain delivers damning verdict on Blair's 10 years: Exclusive poll: public says PM has failed to improve country - A remarkable picture of the way Tony Blair has lost the faith of British voters over his 10 years in power is revealed today by a comprehensive study of public attitudes towards the Prime Minister. As Blair prepares to leave office, the poll of more than 2,000 adults shows that people believe the country is a more dangerous, less happy, less pleasant place to live. There was a negative response to nearly all of more than 40 questions the public was asked about trust in politics, how they felt about their own lives and whether public services had got better.

• Schwarzenegger to guest star at Tory conference - David Cameron is to add some Hollywood glitz to this year's Tory Party conference with a guest appearance by film star-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was announced today. Mr Schwarzenegger, now the Republican governor of California, will join Tories gathering at Blackpool to deliver a keynote address on climate change. Under the governorship of the Terminator star, California became the first state in the US to pass laws imposing a mandatory cap on environmentally damaging "greenhouse gas" emissions.   (COMMENTARY: Kill me now!  Seriously though, if you haven't done so already, check out Arnies dark background in our Schwarzenegger archive or go to the external website arnoldexposed.com)

• Self-defense no longer a British hallmark - ...But Britons aren't just expected to refrain from their own self-defense; they are actively prevented from engaging in such. Since there's obviously no Constitution with a Second Amendment protecting the right of citizens to bear arms in Britain, home-invasion robberies are frighteningly common. By contrast, home invasions in America are relatively low. The logic here is that in America, where anyone could potentially have a gun in his or her house, criminals are less likely to break into a house that is occupied. But in those rare cases when a homeowner in Britain breaks the law by keeping a gun and then uses it to defend himself against robbers, he, not the assailants, is more at risk for prosecution.   (RELATED: See our Disarmed and Enslaved archive)

• Lewisville DNA testing lab offers child ID cards among many services - Lewisville residents in need of DNA testing do not have to go out of town in order to find such a service. Bio-Synthesis Inc., located at 612 East Main Street, is one of only two DNA accredited testing labs in North Texas. It offers DNA testing to people of all regions, races and classes, and offers the services for a wide variety of reasons. Dr. Miquel Castro, who runs the service with a staff of qualified personnel, recently took a much stronger interest in offering child identification cards, complete with DNA information. “With more and more children being kidnapped, it has become increasingly important for children to have all the information possible to prove their identities,” Castro said.

• VeriChip Corporation Installs its 30th Infant Protection System in Puerto Rico - VeriChip Corporation, a provider of RFID systems for healthcare and patient-related needs, announced that it has installed its 30th infant protection system in Puerto Rico. VeriChip's Hugs or HALO infant protection systems are in use in 30 of the 42 birthing hospitals in Puerto Rico listed by the American Hospital Association. Achieving over 70% market share in Puerto Rico is a reflection of VeriChip's strong distribution network on the island, and the high level of awareness of the infant abduction threat. Electronic infant protection systems are now the norm for hospitals of all sizes, encouraged by legislation enacted by the Puerto Rico legislature in 1999 to require hospitals to invest in infant protection measures. Dan Gunther, president of VeriChip, commented, "We applaud the proactive approach to infant protection taken by so many hospitals in Puerto Rico, and we are proud to partner with these hospitals to help protect their smallest patients. Puerto Rico is setting a strong example for infant protection, not only for the United States, but countries around the world."

• What is the point of an ID card at all? - Home Office minister Joan Ryan would be well advised to check her facts in future. Her response on Friday to Geraint Bevan's letter (April 6) not only attempts to put words into Mr Bevan's mouth - a classic politician's move, to fight a "straw man" rather than the facts - but fails to address his key point. The government proposes spending billions of pounds compelling everyone in the UK to register their personal details with the Home Office, fining them or denying them services, benefits or a passport if they fail to comply. Schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Act 2006 lists the personal information that may be recorded on the National Identity Register (NIR), which includes your name and any other names you are known by or have been known by, your address and every other address that you have lived at.

• ‘Millions to rebel’ over ID cards - The government is predicting that some 15m people will revolt against Tony Blair’s controversial ID card scheme by refusing to produce the new cards or provide personal data on demand. The forecast is made in documents released by the Home Office under the Freedom of Information Act. The papers show ministers expect national protests similar to the poll tax rebellions of the Thatcher era, with millions prepared to risk criminal prosecution. Opposition MPs said the new documents proved their case that the programme would never work. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “This will cripple the system. Fifteen million is a massive number. What the Home Office is accepting in private, but refuses to accept in public, is that a massive number of ordinary law-abiding citizens simply will not go along with their scheme.”

• Religion on Indonesian ID cards blamed for deaths - Indonesia's small, plastic identity cards may seem innocuous enough but campaigners who are trying to have the compulsory religion category dropped say they are behind many sectarian killings. "People have been killed in sectarian conflicts because religion is mentioned on the cards," said activist Maya Safira, who heads a non-profit group that seeks to embrace Indonesians of different backgrounds. Safira's National Integration Movement wants religion removed from the cards because Muslim-majority Indonesia has a history of religious conflict.

• Fingerprint foreboding - I WAS JOLTED to read last week that public schools in Taunton are planning to use a fingerprint scan as a way to enable students to pay for lunch. At the cash register, the student will simply tap a finger on an electronic reader, and a pre-stored mathematical formula derived from a fingerprint will bring up the student's account. Some parents, as well as lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, raised objections; in some other states, fingerprints-for-lunch have already been banned. The explicit concern is articulated in terms of worries about identity theft, but a more visceral reaction to fingerprints may account for the skepticism.

• IT workers back 'Nasa hacker' McKinnon: Community service or a fine a better sentence, survey claims - Fewer than half of IT professionals questioned in an online survey want 'Nasa hacker' Gary McKinnon jailed for hacking. A poll carried out by security company Sophos found that 48 per cent feel that jail is the most appropriate sentence if McKinnon is found guilty, while 42 per cent suggested community service and 10 per cent a fine. McKinnon looks set to be extradited to the US to face trial for allegedly hacking into computers belonging to the US Army, US Air Force, Department of Defense and Nasa, having lost his appeal to remain in the UK earlier this week.

• New Memory Implants Make Large Strides: The BrainGate implantCuring debilitating cerebral problems may just be a memory chip away - A new brain implant that could potentially solve a number of brain-related problems, ranging anywhere from Alzheimer’s to memory loss. The research for the brain implant is being headed by Ted Berger from the University of Southern California Los Angeles. A pioneer of his field, Berger earned his Ph.D. in 1976 at the age of 26. From there, though, he parted ways with the thinking of many of his colleagues. “The idea was that you could solve every brain problem with a drug or surgery,” said Berger to Stephen Handelman from Popular Science. Berger instead chose to look at the brain itself as a source to solve brain-related issues.

• YouTube latest victim of Thailand censors - Thailand’s decision to ban the video-sharing site YouTube highlights how aggressively the kingdom has tried to rein in the media since the military coup last year, analysts said. YouTube has been unavailable in Thailand since Wednesday, after Thai authorities blocked it over videos deemed offensive to the nation’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej. In the nearly seven months since the ouster of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the military has also blacked out international news broadcasts, seized a private television station, and blocked political websites.

• Five more years in Iraq, say defence papers - Britain's "overstretched" armed forces will fight in Iraq for at least another five years. A confidential planning document drawn up by defence chiefs called the Operational Tour Plot, parts of which have been disclosed to this newspaper, reveals that troops will be serving on operations in the Gulf until at least 2012. News of the future operations can be revealed just three days after four soldiers, two of them women, were killed in a carefully planned ambush in Basra, taking the British forces death toll in Iraq to 140.

• Ban the Bulb?: "If all 4 billion incandescent sockets were filled with CFLs we'd have nearly 50,000 pounds of mercury spread around every single US household" - In a few weeks the US Congress is likely to vote to phase out the standard incandescent lightbulb within a decade. The frantic race to see who can best appease the global warming alarmists will claim another victim, the friendly glow of the direct descendant of Thomas Edison's filament-based light bulb. Why would the humble lightbulb, a staple commodity that has raised the standard of living throughout the world, be in the bullseye? It was the incandescent electric light bulb that abolished the tyranny of the night. Our 19th and 20th century ancestors believed it one of the greatest gifts of civilization because they had directly experienced life before electric lighting changed everything. In 2002, former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld briefly reminded us of this blessing when he commented on the satellite imagery revealing the nighttime darkness in North Korea, but other than this brief moment, we seem to have forgotten what we owe to Edison's first invention.

Sunday 08th April 2007: -

• Secret paper reveals Labour's lies over ID cards - The Government faces damaging claims of misleading voters over ID cards after documents revealed it always planned to make the controversial scheme compulsory. Whitehall papers, which the Government has fought for two years to suppress, disclose that Labour intended to force the public to sign up to the programme. They appear to contradict commitments given by Labour in its 2005 Election manifesto, which pledged that the cards, and the national identity register containing people's names, addresses, fingerprints and other information, would be 'on a voluntary basis'.

• 9-11 Truth on The View: Rosie O: Another Unexpected Hero - The Truth will not change. Perception of the Truth continuously grows. While Rosie may not get www.911Truth.org on the View, some great nuggets of truth have been leaking out to the people. Rosie O'Donnell is a small test case for the 9-11 Truth movement. If right-wing pressure succeeds in getting Rosie villainized, kicked off the View, and blacklisted for simply asking questions about what really happened on September 11th, then it could have a chilling effect on some other Truth tellers and embolden the real rightwing enemies of freedom and liberty.

• The Eleventh Day of Every Month: The Third Stage - An 84% majority of the American people believe the Bush administration has engaged in a cover-up surrounding 9/11. At least one third of Americans believe the attacks were an inside job. Small groups of vocal individuals have been the only ones in history that have fundamentally changed history. 9/11 truth is alive and kicking!: -

• Hotel hands customers' credit card details to phoney cops - BLUNDERING staff at one of Britain's biggest budget hotel chains handed over thousands of customers' credit card details to conmen posing as police. Some guests at Travelodge - which boasts "Your details are 100 per cent secure" - then became fraud victims. The astonishing bungle happened after a man claiming to be "Detective Constable Sharma" phoned up and demanded all recent credit card invoices. Staff at Travelodge in Skipton, North Yorks, assumed the request was linked to a guest who had fled without paying.

• Pawns in a losing game: Britain's policy in tatters: Fifteen British hostages are freed, at cost unknown. Meanwhile, six soldiers pay with their lives in Basra. Raymond Whitaker, Anne Penketh and Angus McDowall ask: just what are our soldiers dying for? - If anything symbolised the degree to which Tony Blair's adventurous foreign policy has embroiled Britain in dangerous, unpredictable conflicts and wholly unintended consequences, it was the juxtaposition of joy and horror last Thursday. The television news channels ran endless footage of 15 sailors and Royal Marines, freed by Iran after a two-week hostage saga that had taken almost daily twists and turns. But scrolling across the bottom of the screens was the news that four other service personnel, two of them women, and an Iraqi interpreter had been killed by an explosion in southern Iraq, the worst British loss of life in a single incident there for several months. A fifth soldier remains in a critical condition.

• Brown's poll ratings down - More than half of Britons believe Gordon Brown is not fit to be the next prime minister in light of last week's revelations about the impact his 1997 tax reforms had on the pensions system, a new poll has shown. Just 27 per cent of those questioned in the YouGov poll for the Sunday Times said they thought the chancellor was capable of replacing Tony Blair at No 10, compared to 57 per cent who said he was not. The disappointing poll rating comes after it emerged last week that Mr Brown had ignored Treasury warnings that his 1997 decision to scrap tax relief on share dividends could create a £75 billion pensions black hole.

Saturday 07th April 2007: -

• Electronic payments to get the finger - Imagine a day when the only item you'll need to take to the supermarket to complete a transaction is your index finger. The concept is already a reality in a limited capacity in some places around the world but observers believe the technology could become mainstream by 2012. However, using biometric scanning to make transactions is expected to be one of many new methods that are part of a revolution in payments technology already taking place.   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• ID Scanners at Bars Raise Privacy Questions - We're used to giving personal information about ourselves when there's a security issue, maybe using a credit card in a store or getting on an airplane. But new technology tracks us in places we may not even know about. You can now put "going to a bar" on the list. Now when some places check your ID, they've got a permanent record of your information. The next time you request a table or order a round, the bartender might know your age, height, and eye color before you even make eye contact. That's thanks to new scanning equipment that's becoming mainstream. Rockford's Silver Lounge uses scanners to uncover the underage. General Manager Addison Jun says, "It's just pretty much this little scanner that's meant to scan drivers licenses, business cards and it just kind of helps keep track of everybody."

• Idaho School Punishes Kids Who Owe Cafeteria Money By Giving Brown-Bag Lunches - Junior high school students in this southern Idaho town who owe money on past cafeteria lunches have received a firsthand lesson in economics and debt. It came in the lunch room, not the classroom, when students with outstanding balances saw their hot food trays publicly dumped into the garbage and replaced with sack lunches. "It was perfectly legal, and it was not done to set those students apart from the others," Mary Lu Barry, secondary programs director for the Twin Falls School District, told The Times-News. "It was done to send the message to students that if they want regular school lunch they have to pay the fee." About 150 students at Vera C. O'Leary Junior High School ended up with sack lunches on Monday, but were still charged the full price for a hot lunch. Students at the school have accounts that they use with a fingerprint identification system* at the cafeteria's cash register. The cost of lunch is automatically displayed and deducted from a student's account.   (*NOTE: Our emphasis on the 'fingerprint identification system' added... you see how this system works now!?)

• 'Prostate patients' given drugs just to meet targets - Thousands of men with prostate cancer are being given unnecessary and potentially harmful drug treatment to clear hospital waiting lists, according to a leading cancer specialist. Oncologist Chris Hamilton claims the "crazy" system of Government targets means prostate patients often head the queue for radiotherapy treatment - even when they don't need it - ahead of other cancer patients. But hospitals face penalties if cancer patients are not given treatment within four weeks, he said. By giving hormones to some prostate patients, doctors can tick the box saying they've started treatment.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• Shreveport Regional employees subjected to random screening - Nearly everyone must subject themselves to airport security checks at Shreveport Regional Airport. Even the screeners are being screened. Employees at the airport have been undergoing random searches by the Transportation Security Administration for several months as part of the agency's mission to improve security at airports across the nation. "This has been happening at every airport behind the scenes for six months," said Andrea McCauley, a regional spokeswoman for TSA based in the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. "It's part of our multilayered approach to security."

• Fight to save story of 9/11 goes on: State officials try to resolve what WTC records and items can and should be preserved - More than five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, archivists are still grappling with how and what to preserve of public records pertaining to the attacks and recovery efforts. Officials with the State Archives and State Museum participated in a recent conference in New York City headlined by U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein. "Almost every state government agency was involved in some way with the response and recovery following the attacks," said State Archivist Christine Ward, who attended the conference. While the State Archives has systems in place for preserving routine records of each state agency at automatic intervals, some files pertaining to their work after 9/11 don't fall into that category.

• Calif. Woman Sues Patrol, Accuses Officer Of Saying Her 'People' Caused 9-11 Attacks - A woman of Iranian descent is suing the California Highway Patrol, alleging that an officer who stopped her for speeding accused her ``people'' of being responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Zahra Sedaghatpour, 38, of Fremont, alleges her civil rights were violated when Officer Jon Schatmeier, 32, berated her after she asked not to be cited for traveling 79 mph on Interstate 680 last year.

• 9/11 Truth Reaches The Tipping Point: Exponential growth secured by Rosie O'Donnell's public stance - 9/11 truth has reached its tipping point, with the exponential growth of the movement secured following Rosie O'Donnell's brave public stance as well as numerous other high profile individuals, ensuring our numbers and influence expands on a weekly basis. In early February we asked who the next 9/11 superhero would be. Rosie O'Donnell has answered that question and now is the time for more public figures to step forward and overwhelm the cultural zeitgeist to push 9/11 truth over the edge and make it go truly supernova. We know of numerous celebrities by name who have known about 9/11 truth for a very long time and have considered whether to go public or not. Charlie Sheen and Rosie O'Donnell are the canaries in the coal mine and they are still standing. The climate is right for those in the know to flood the media with 9/11 truth.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and our affiliated site 911truthskipton.com)

Friday 06th April 2007: -

• New BBC chairman denies that he will be a government crony - The new chairman of the BBC insisted yesterday that he would deliver "absolute independence and impartiality" from the Government, despite having worked three times for Chancellor Gordon Brown. Sir Michael Lyons' appointment prompted allegations of cronyism even before it was officially announced. Unions questioned why the new chairman of the BBC Trust - one of the most powerful figures in British cultural life - had so little broadcasting experience and warned him against agreeing to a major redundancy programme to ease the corporation's cash woes. Sir Michael, 57, a one-time market trader who went on to become chief executive of three city councils, said: "I don't think anybody needs to fear my appointment."   (COMMENTARY: 'BBC' and 'government crony' in the same sentence?... who would think up such a thing?)

• 9/11 Physicist Contacted To Appear On The View: Agreement tentatively made for Steven Jones to discuss towers, WTC 7 collapse - Physicist Professor Steven Jones has confirmed that Rosie O'Donnell's staff have contacted him regarding a potential future appearance on The View to discuss the improbable collapse of the twin towers and WTC 7. During a debate on The View, O'Donnell promised to feature a physicist as a guest on the show to discuss the physical evidence and the impossibility of jet fuel melting steel. "A person from Rosie's team contacted me by E mail," Professor Jones told the Alex Jones Show, "so I wrote back to them and said I would be glad to appear and I named two other physicists who I trust who could also appear."   (RELATED: See Steven Jones' website - journalof911studies.com)

• Big Country Songwriter Comes out for 9/11 Truth - Dan Tyler's songs have become hits for LeAnn Rimes, Kenny Rogers, The Oak Ridge Boys, Eddie Arnold, B.J. Thomas, Eddie Rabbit, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and many others. Tyler is based in Nashville. "The importance of the 9/11 truth movement cannot be overstated. Like me, millions of patriotic Americans question the official explanation of the attacks. The questions and the number of citizens asking them will increase until a tipping point is reached and a new, aggressive investigation initiated. From this new inquiry truths will emerge which will shake this country to its foundations and, hopefully, restore our constitutional democracy. Until that happy day arrives, however, the powerful forces aligned against 9/11 truth will fight with fury and abandon. We must be strong and resolute and take inspiration from apostles of peace like Gandhi and King. At the most basic level, the struggle is love versus fear.

• Prime News and Popular Mechanics Attack Rosie and 9/11 Truth - They promote stoprosie.com and ask people to sign petition to get her fired. This is Erica Hill's show on CNN Headline News from 04-04-07. James Miegs and Ethan Czahor from stoprosie.com are the guests. James Miegs claims that fire didn't have to melt the steel, it just had to be weakened by it. But it did melt! Look at the pictures, better yet, look at a portion of the FEMA report that was conviently left out of the NIST report. Here is the link: www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf Go ahead, read how he tested steel from the site and discovered that steel was "liquefied".

• 'We Gathered Intelligence' - The captain in charge of the 15 marines detained in Iran has said they were gathering intelligence on the Iranians. Sky News went on patrol with Captain Chris Air and his team in Iraqi waters close to the area where they were arrested - just five days before the crisis began. We withheld the interview until now so it would not jeopardise their safety. And today, former Iranian diplomat Dr Mehrdad Khonsari said if the Iranians had known about it, they would have used it to "justify taking the marines captive and put them on trial".

• 12,000 more Guard troops may be going to Iraq: Deployment order planned to lessen ‘surge’s’ strain on stretched-thin Army - Coming on the heels of a controversial “surge” of 21,000 U.S. troops that has stretched the Army thin, the Defense Department is preparing to send an additional 12,000 National Guard combat forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials told NBC News on Thursday. The troops will come from four Guard combat brigades in different states, the officials told NBC News’ chief Pentagon correspondent, Jim Miklaszewski. They said papers ordering the deployment, which would run for one year beginning in early 2008, were awaiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ signature.

• Nine Inch Nails: Entire 'Year Zero' Album Available For Streaming - Nine Inch Nails' entire new album, "Year Zero", is being streamed at the YearZero.nin.com web site (free e-mail registration required in top right hand corner of page). Due on April 17, "Year Zero" is reportedly the first of two concept albums, the second of which mainman Trent Reznor hopes to finish next year. Reznor recently told Gigwise.com that the concept behind "Year Zero" was partially inspired by his feelings toward the Bush administration. Reznor explained, "I really wanted to focus on something that was at the forefront of my consciousness which is, as an American, I'm appalled by the behavior of our government, the direction that it has taken and the direction that it's taken everyone else in the world and its arrogance. I decided to write an essay about where the world might be if we continue down the path that we're on with a neo-con-esque government doing whatever it pleases."

• Dangers of the Big Brother state - THE BRITISH government is to introduce security cameras fitted with loudspeakers to allow security staff to berate people spotted engaging in anti-social behaviour. While ministers insist the scheme will help cut crime, critics say this is another step down the road to a Big Brother state. And it’s hard to disagree with them. Britain is the most watched country in the world, with an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras, or one for every 14 people. Special devices fitted to police cars can scan all number plates within a given radius at any time and simultaneously match them to databases identifying anything from a criminal connection to a parking fine. Millions of shoppers unwittingly have their spending habits sold to businesses, through software analysing retail patterns obtained from loyalty cards. In some councils, tiny cameras have been fitted to recycling bins to catch people putting rubbish in the wrong bin.

• Cameras Being Installed on NLV Police Taser Guns - Lots of questions have been raised about Tasers and now a new video camera may answer some of them. Cameras are being installed on Taser guns to record the situation as it unfolds. It's actually something the North Las Vegas Police Department is excited about. Adding video cameras to Tasers is an idea that has been tossed around among law enforcement agencies for the last year, but in a couple of days, the NLVPD will start using the cameras, and many are hoping the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department follows suit.

• FCC Seeks to Reform 911 Call Tracking - People make more 911 calls from cellular telephones than landlines these days, and police and firefighters increasingly worry about finding those callers in distress. Contrary to what is portrayed on television crime shows, the accuracy of the technology that guides rescuers to cell phone callers can range from a few yards to several miles, even though federal law requires providers to guarantee that their callers can be located in emergencies. Aiming to improve accuracy, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press this week that he will propose significant changes in the 911 system.

• Proposed butt ban reeks of Big Brother - The Ontario Tobacco-Free Network wants to take the ban on smoking in public places to a new level - high rise apartment buildings, and rather than dismissing the idea outright, Health Minister George Smitherman says he is interested in having the proposed ban debated in the public forum. The proposal is to have the provincial government make it illegal for high-rise apartment dwellers to light up in their own homes. While the argument against smoking in public places is weak, at best, crossing the threshold of a person's residence smacks of the Big Brother syndrome.

• British Embassy starts biometric data collection - The British Embassy has introduced biometric data collection as part of the visa application process that requires their biometric data for collection (finger scans and digital photographs) while submitting the applications. The British Embassy, in a statement Thursday, said that the embassy has also opened a new Visa Application Centre at Nagpokhari Road near Lazimpat, in partnership with VFS Global. The new visal application centre will start from April 26 and the new visa application process will also start from the same date. The embassy said that the collection of biometric data from all applications for UK visas was a key part of the British Government's five-year Asylum and Immigration Strategy.

• Biometric IDs deserve the finger: I personally don't feel comfortable with the idea of sharing my unique, irreplaceable and unchanging physical data for identification purposes - Nowadays, hospitals take your finger, toe, hand and footprints sometime between your entrance into the world and exit from the maternity ward. The Texas Department of Public Service records your thumbprint when you get your driver's license, and your booking officer inks your hands whenever you go to jail. If bills heard this week before the House and Senate transportation committees pass muster and become law, Texans could soon be using their "involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of a finger" for age-verification purposes, i.e. to buy tobacco, liquor and tickets for the Lotto or R-rated movies. Lobbyists from biometric company Pay By Touch likened their electronic fingerprint identification system to having a "virtual wallet" that can be accessed with the touch of a digit to a scanner. Rather than getting carded for booze, you get fingered instead. Even more unsettling is that electronic fingerprints could be linked to people's bank accounts or credit cards, for the dissemination of welfare funds from the state or the purchase of a candy bar at the neighborhood Albertson's (or Piggly Wiggly).

• European Union Action Now - David Noakes and Brian Gerrish founding the Action Now New Battle for Britain project describes what serious danger their country is in and ... all » how to fix the situation. This is a recording of a live presentation in England: -

(David has a website: eutruth.org.uk)

• Don't be too quick to embrace HPV vaccine - The misconceptions of the HPV vaccine are widespread, not just by families but doctors who seem to have a never-ending faith in a drug safety system that brought us Vioxx and 70,000-plus related deaths. It is disturbing that the maker of the current HPV vaccine, Merck, which is accused of lying to the FDA and to the medical community about Vioxx safety, is being given a blank check of trust by professionals. The Gardasil studies are similar to Merck's Vioxx work - Merck funded all of them, the authors include patent holders, Merck employees - 41 percent - and those that receive money from Merck - 80 percent.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• County clerk: Watch for fraud, absentee voters - With less than two weeks before Election Day, Cook County Clerk David Orr forwarded two cases of possible vote fraud in Harvey and Chicago Heights to the state's attorney's office. The allegations involve potential improprieties with absentee voting, which is reserved for voters who cannot get to their polling place on Election Day. Voters who will be out of town or are homebound often rely on mail-in absentee ballots, which campaign workers are not supposed to handle. Voters who would like to vote absentee must apply for a ballot through Orr's office.

• New Jersey School Stages Practice Hostage Drill: Portrays Killers as Fundamentalist Christians: Superintendent says, “We need to practice under conditions as real as possible” – On Thursday, March 22, officials at Burlington Township High School enlisted the help of two local policemen to carry out a mock ‘hostage situation’ drill at their school. The drill invoked disapproval from Christian students as the student body was told that the alleged gunmen were “members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the 'New Crusaders' who don't believe in separation of church and state.” According to a report in the local paper, The Burlington County Times, the mock gunmen pretended to gun down several students in the hallways before taking 10 students hostage in the school’s media center. Given that the drill was intended to test the disaster response of students, faculty and local emergency personnel, county officers were dispatched during the drill to realistically execute an emergency evacuation of the building.

• Solar Bursts May Threaten GPS - The Global Positioning System, relied on for everything from navigating cars and airplanes to transferring money between banks, may be threatened by powerful solar flares, a panel of scientists warned Wednesday. "Our increasingly technologically dependent society is becoming increasingly vulnerable to space weather," David L. Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, said at a briefing. GPS receivers have become widely used in recent years, using satellite signals in navigating airplanes, ships and automobiles, and in using cell phones, mining, surveying and many other commercial uses.

Thursday 05th April 2007: -

• Benefit cheats face telephone lie detector tests - Lie detector technology will be used by the Government to help identify and deter benefit cheats, John Hutton, Work and Pensions Secretary, announced today. Voice-risk analysis (VRA) software, already used by the insurance industry, will be used to monitor telephone calls by claimants. It can detect minute changes in a caller's voice which give clues as to when they may be lying. VRA analyses changes in voice frequency and performs thousands of mathematical calculations, identifying different categories of emotional content which enable it to identify genuine callers.

• Help Defend Rosie & Save Free Speech In America: Sign the petition! - Rosie O'Donnell has been savagely attacked by talking heads on major news networks and others simply for exercising her first amendment right to ask questions about 9/11, questions that are shared by the majority of family members of the victims. A relentless campaign on behalf of anti-American haters of free speech is underway to force ABC to fire O'Donnell from her position as host of The View. This petition was created to show that a significant and vocal number of Americans recognize and support Rosie O'Donnell's stance in displaying the highest form of patriotism - asking questions of government and demanding the truth about what really happened on 9/11.   (EXTERNAL WEBSITES: Sign the petitions at defendrosie.com & keeprosie.com and also help spread these links!)

• Some see scans for lunch as taste of Big Brother: Taunton schools to use fingerprints - Taunton schools this spring could become the first in Massachusetts to have students pay for lunch by scanning their fingerprints, a plan that is triggering an uproar among parents and ACLU officials worried about privacy and possible identity theft. Under the plan, which is voluntary, schools will scan two fingerprints from each student, which will be converted into an individual number linked to a meal account. When they buy lunch, students will tap their finger on a reader that brings up the account. The cashier will enter the items and deduct the cost. School officials say the new system will speed the cafeteria line, possibly let parents monitor what children eat, and lift the stigma from poor students who receive free or reduced-price lunches. They say the system is secure because the fingerprint image is never stored, only a numeric representation of it.

• Officials defend schoolboy drug tests - Anti-doping officials have targeted schoolboy rowers in Sydney, sparking anger from headmasters after students had to strip and provide urine samples. Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) officials demanded samples from Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore) rowers three weeks ago at an inter-school regatta, a News Limited newspaper reports today. But when the officials returned for more samples last Saturday at Sydney's Head of the River Regatta they were refused permission to test the mainly 17-year-old boys.

• Study: Police abuse goes unpunished - More than 10,000 complaints of police abuse were filed with Chicago police between 2002 and 2004, but only 19 resulted in meaningful disciplinary action, a new study concludes. The study contends the Chicago Police Department should not be allowed to police itself. Instead, an independent civilian oversight board should monitor and investigate police abuse reports to ensure accountability for every officer’s conduct. The study was conducted by University of Chicago law professor Craig B. Futterman and the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based company that works on social justice projects. “The way in which CPD investigates police abuse is a joke,” Futterman said. “If the CPD investigated civilian crime in the same way it investigates police abuse, they’d never solve a case.”

• Retail trade groups team up with FBI to launch online data base to fight organized theft - Two leading retail industry associations have teamed up with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to create a national online database that will allow merchants to share information to fight organized retail theft in the United States. The database, scheduled to debut Monday with 40 retailers, consolidates efforts made by the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. Both organizations had launched their own password-protected online national crime data bases last year. Previously, merchants had never shared information, so organized rings could hit various stores in one area without being detected.

• Beijing Female Falun Gong Practitioner Critically Beaten - On June 14, 2005, Beijing Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Lianying was kidnapped by a dozen of local police who broke into her home. On June 30, she was sentenced to two-and-half-year re-education through labor. From August to mid-October 2005, Zhang suffered ceaseless beatings, insults, torture and other maltreatment at the 9th Brigade of the Tuanhe dispatch division in Beijing. On March 20, 2007, for persisting in practicing Falun Gong, she was beaten to the point of suffering massive hemorrhage in the bilateral cerebrum of her brain. As a consequence, she was sent to Renhe Hospital in Beijing's Daxing District and has been under emergency treatment ever since.

• Kelly to unveil anti-extremism plan - An action plan for forging a new coalition against violent extremism is to be unveiled by Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly. Proposals include strengthening governance in mosques, extending citizenship education in madrasas, and measures to boost civic and theological leadership. Launching the strategy in London, Ms Kelly will say that the Government must focus as much on "winning heart and minds" as on a robust security response.

• US Homeland Security chief fears Briton could stage next 9/11 - The United States fears that the next September 11-style attack on America could be launched by Muslims from Britain or Europe. According to a report in The Telegraph, US Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said Washington is determined to build extra defences against so-called "clean skin" terrorists from Europe. Chertoff, who arrives in Britain this week for talks with Home Secretary John Reid, is reportedly concerned about a European threat "We need to build layers of protection, and I don't think we totally want to rely upon the fact that a foreign government is going to know that one of their citizens is suspicious and is going to be coming here," he said.

Wednesday 04th April 2007: -

• Iran releases 'pardoned' British sailors - Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced at a press conference today that he would pardon the naval crew as a gift to the British people. He called on the British government not to punish the seven sailors and eight marines for their "confessions". The UK has maintained throughout the crisis that the 15 sailors were taken from Iraqi waters where they were operating under a UN mandate. Iran insists the personnel were trespassing in Iranian waters and has recorded "confessions" from each of the 15 detailing where they were.

• A third 'will refuse ID checks' - One in three people are expected not to cooperate with identity card checks, Home Office papers from 2004 suggest. Papers revealed under information laws show officials have worked on the basis 60% of people would carry a card if and when it becomes compulsory to own one. They assume 10% will happily confirm their ID via fingerprint or eye scans, but 30% "will refuse" to voluntarily show their card or biometric data. The Home Office said the documents were "incredibly out of date".

• Shouting CCTV camera scheme extended: Government spends £500,000 to install cameras with loudspeakers which let security staff berate people in public for littering and fighting - CCTV cameras are set to become a little more proactive. A half-million-pound scheme to fit the ubiquitous devices with loudspeakers - which let security staff tell-off people on the spot for littering, fighting or vandalising property - is to be expanded, the UK government said today. Home Secretary John Reid said the shouting cameras will help cut crime, but critics countered the idea is another lurch towards Britain becoming a "surveillance society". The government has given nearly £500,000 to pay for the new cameras in 20 areas after trials around the country.

• 'Stop Rosie' Website, Petition: Because they can't debate us on the facts, Neo-Con bootlickers use mob intimidation tactics to shut down free speech - Anti-American enemies of free speech have launched an official campaign to have Rosie O'Donnell fired for asking questions about 9/11 and the Iranian hostage crisis, setting up a website and a farcical poll - a sizable portion of whose signatories consist of fake names and joke entries. "We would like to make it very clear that we support Miss O’Donnell’s right to say whatever she deems appropriate. This is a free country and she has the right of free speech. We are not demanding that government or Disney-ABC censor anything she, or anyone else, says," states the website, obviously worried that if Rosie were to be fired, legal consequences would inevitably follow.

• Bill O'Reilly reports on JFK Assassinations Committee - Bill O'Reilly, when he was on Inside Edition, reports on Oswald's association with the CIA. Gee Bill, here you are spouting a conspiracy theory! That's unamerican. Why do you hate this country, you two-faced hypocrite? I'm not saying that you should be fired. I'm saying that Fox News has a BIG problem. Just when was it that you turned to the dark side?: -

• 9/11 facts on the Sudden Implosion of WTC Building 7 are inconsistent with official Muslim conspiracy scenario - Everyone remembers the Twin Towers exploding at 9:59AM and 10:28AM EDT on September 11, 2001. Comparatively few people can recall that there was a third massive skyscraper, also a part of the World Trade Center, which fell very rapidly to the ground on that day. This was World Trade Center Building 7.1 One reason that few remember WTC Building 7’s collapse is that after September 11th it has been treated, both in the media and in The 9/11 Commission Report, as if it didn’t happen.

Tuesday 03rd April 2007: -

• Hypocrite O'Reilly Milks Rosie "Feud" To Rescue Failing Show: Abandons rhetoric of ignoring "lunacy" to exploit brief ratings surge - Despite calling for the whole issue to be marginalized little over a week ago, hypocrite Bill O'Reilly has decided to throw his weight behind creating a feud with Rosie O'Donnell in a desperate attempt to boost ratings for his failing Fox News show. During a radio interview with billionaire Mark Cuban on the Friday March 23 broadcast of O'Reilly's Radio Factor show, O'Reilly argued that the 9/11 truth movement should be marginalized and that "lunacy shouldn't be given legitimacy" by affording it any attention. Yet since that broadcast, O'Reilly has given Rosie O'Donnell's 9/11 stance prime coverage on no less than three more occasions alone on his TV show and also discussed it further on his radio show.

• O'Reilly's America: Who Is The Real "Hater"?: A place where the right to disagree = the right to be locked up - Bill O'Reilly's torrent of attacks upon Rosie O'Donnell, Charlie Sheen and Mark Cuban over the past few days in regards to their outspoken views on 9/11 is a prime example of why the First Amendment should never be presided over by those in power. In what has been described by many as a crude attempt to piggyback on the spiking of viewers to O'Donnell's show The View, O'Reilly has gone on the extreme offensive, suggesting that O'Donnell has "crossed a line" and should reprimanded for being a "hater".

• The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis: How a bid to kidnap Iranian security officials sparked a diplomatic crisis - A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines. Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds. In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

• U.S. army refugee in Canada warns Canadians about North American Union agenda: by Captain Jack, Former American Military Officer - The SPP-NAU cited in the article "Canada's political parties stake their positions on North American Union" is nothing more than a way to undermine the Canadian economy and the safety of the citizens of Canada. If you accept SPP-NAU, you are accepting the troubles that plagues the U.S. will be committing Canada's resources to perpetuated problems in the U.S. that will only grow under the prevailing greed-driven leadership of that country.

• Diana police files 'to be shown' - All "underlying material" used to compile a police report into Princess Diana's fatal crash has been requested by the coroner investigating her death. The move came after lawyers for Mohamed Al Fayed, whose son Dodi also died in the Paris crash, asked to see the material ahead of an October inquest. Coroner Baroness Butler-Sloss said she would control access to the documents.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive)

• Shots fired at CNN HQ in Atlanta - Atlanta police described the incident as a "domestic situation" involving a man who shot a woman after a row, the Associated Press news agency reports. The armed man was shot by a CNN security guard, police said. It was not immediately clear which person died. The CNN.com newsroom and other areas in the complex were evacuated. No-one within the newsroom was hurt.

RELATED VIDEO: Gary McKinnon on the Richard and Judy show - 21/07/2006: -

• RFID Enabled Credit Cards Make Their Way to Cashless Payments at Cold-Drink Vending Machines at the Atlanta International Airport - SkyeTek, Inc. announced the first consumer application resulting from its partnership with Isochron Inc., a leader in intelligent, networked vending technology for the food and beverage industry. Together, the companies have enabled cashless payment at vending machines located throughout the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Consumers equipped with RFID enabled credit cards can now make a purchase by just waving a card within a few feet of the new vending machines. In October, Isochron selected SkyeTek's M2 contactless payment module as the embedded RFID reader to enable secure, cashless payment at vending machines. Since then, Isochron has unveiled several vending machines at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport where consumers can now use RFID-enabled credit and debit cards issued by financial institutions such as Bank of America, Citizens Bank, Charter One, Chase and Key Bank to purchase cold drinks quickly, conveniently and securely.   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• Biometric cash machines bring joy - These days Mahendra Sahni, a daily wage worker in India's most backward state of Bihar, struts up to a gleaming new cash machine in his village to withdraw his hard earned money. The middle-aged, illiterate fish farmer from Vaishali district makes about 2,000 rupees a month ($44). For years he used to waste nearly a day getting to the bank and queuing up to get his wages. Now, when he inserts a cash card into the machine, he is greeted with an voice instruction in Hindi: "Please put your thumb on the specified space." When he does that, crisp currency notes roll out of the machine with the voice saying, "Your cash is ready. Please accept it."

Monday 02nd April 2007: -

• Police send four police officers to tackle boy, 11, who called schoolmate 'gay' - When two policemen turned up unannounced at Alan Rawlinson's home asking to speak to his young son, the company director feared something serious had happened. So he was astounded when the officers detailed 11-year-old George's apparent crime - calling one of his schoolfriends 'gay'. They said primary school pupil, George, was being investigated for a 'very serious' homophobic crime after using the comment in an e-mail to a 10-year-old classmate.

• Wash. to pilot biometric card: Project with DHS to test license that could meet Real ID and passport card standards - The debate over biometric credentials has moved into new territory now that Washington state and the Homeland Security Department have agreed to pilot a secure biometric driver’s license that also would serve as proof of citizenship at border crossings. The pilot would create a license that is compliant with the controversial Real ID program and could be used as a passport in some situations. State and federal lawmakers, as well as the National Governors Association, have blasted the federal Real ID program, which is aimed at fostering secure biometric driver’s licenses that also would serve as proof of citizenship or legal residence. Various states have threatened to opt out of the supposedly voluntary Real ID program, and Maine and Idaho have done so.

• O'Reilly Mafia Threatens O'Donnell Over Sex Scandal: Fox News host promises to "go after" The View host and her colleagues - Rosie O'Donnell, currently under attack after she questioned the official story behind 9/11, has revealed that Fox News bully Bill O'Reilly threatened to "go after" her and her colleagues after they mentioned O'Reilly's sex scandal on The View. ABC has now gagged O'Donnell from mentioning the subject on all future broadcasts.

• Rosie Calls O'Reilly an "Imbecile," Murdoch "Big Brother" - Rosie O'Donnell spat back at conservative talk-show pugilist Bill O'Reilly after he called for her firing from ABC last week, comparing him to a character in George Orwell's "1984" who is "a fattish ... man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms." She didn't reserve her fire for O'Reilly, however. On her blog at Rosie.com, Ro accused O'Reilly of being a totalitarian puppet of News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, as she put it, in her lower-case verse, "like 1984/molding the facts/2 suit the needs/of big brother rupert." And Rosie also revealed that when she and co-host Joy Behar made reference on "The View" to a sex scandal involving O'Reilly, they were told they had to can it about O'Reilly or else "bill o would 'go after' all the hosts" of their show.

• Sailors row solutions signalled - Iran and Britain have signalled possible ways out of the stand-off over 15 detained British sailors. Tehran promised to stop airing video confessions and Britain said it was willing to discuss ways to avoid future boundary confusion in the Persian Gulf. The somewhat conciliatory tones from both capitals raised hopes the 11-day stand-off might be solved soon. But it remained unclear how long the crisis might drag on. Optimistic signs have emerged before, only to be followed by a hardening of positions and tough rhetoric.

• Will Iran War Start On Friday?: Russian Intelligence claims widely reported by media - Last weekend saw widespread reports in the mainstream media that the United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps "from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6." An AP report printed in the Jerusalem Post, amongst others, stated on Sunday that Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Russian intelligence sources say the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.

• Monty Python member Terry Jones slams UK, US over prisoner policies - Comedian and film director Terry Jones blasted the UK and US over the way they treat prisoners, comparing their policies to what he views as civilized treatment of British sailors by Iran. "I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace," he wrote in a satirical editorial published in The Guardian. "We would never dream of treating captives like this -- allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills."

• British DNA Workers Accused Of Espionage - Five employees of Britain's national DNA database agency have been suspended amid allegations they had engaged in industrial espionage. The Mail on Sunday said the five Forensic Science Service workers are thought to have attempted to create their own database using copies of confidential data from the DNA service. The FSS has since filed a High Court lawsuit against Athar Agha, Azim Akhtar, Zaheer Akhtar, Nisar Ahmed and Sultan Mahmood over their alleged actions. Civil rights activist Shami Chakrabarti said the alleged theft from the database, which houses DNA samples from nearly 4 million people, was cause for concern.

• Fluoride and infants: not a good mix - The American Dental Association has issued an interim guideline cautioning parents not to mix liquid concentrate or powdered baby formula with water containing fluoride. Of the remaining dental offices that were contacted (nine in all), either the dentists were out of the office for the rest of the day or for the week or did not return the telephone call. According to the American Dental Association’s Web site, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now allows bottled water manufacturers to claim that fluoride reduces the risk of dental decay but that manufacturers are not allowed to make that claim for bottled water products marketed for use by babies.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• Green light for big brother scheme - THOUSANDS of frail pensioners across Warwickshire will be given hi-tech minders after a £1million 'big brother' scheme was given the go-ahead. The county council has agreed to launch the revolutionary project using advanced monitoring equipment. Under the scheme, movement detectors, temperature monitors and fall alarms will be installed in the homes of some of the most vulnerable people in the county. And even more sophisticated equipment, including possible in-home cameras, will be made available as the technology becomes viable.

• Towers point to ancient Sun cult - The oldest solar observatory in the Americas has been found, suggesting the existence of early, sophisticated Sun cults, scientists report. It comprises a group of 2,300-year-old structures, known as the Thirteen Towers, which are found in the Chankillo archaeological site, Peru. The towers span the annual rising and setting arcs of the Sun, providing a solar calendar to mark special dates. The study is published in the journal Science.

• BBC denies 'dumbing down' claims - The BBC has denied reports it plans to "dumb down" its shows after discovering lower-income families aren't tuning in. Several UK papers claim BBC research shows high earners are more likely to watch its channels, while staff feel shows like Panorama are "too serious". As a result, executives are said to have ordered more populist programmes like Fat Men Can't Hunt and Doctor Who.

• Terri Schiavo's Death Was Just the Beginning: The Euthanasia of a Nation - Saturday, March 31, will mark the two-year anniversary of my sister Terri Schiavo's death by dehydration. Not a day passes that my family does not think of my sister and relive the horrific images of her needless and brutal death at the hands of those who deliberately set out to kill her. As hideous as it was, the truth is, long before Terri's case made headlines, the removal of basic care – food and water – was becoming commonplace. It continues to happen every day across our country oftentimes in cases, like Terri's, where the patient does not suffer from any life-threatening condition. Much of the problem that exists stems from a blind acceptance of misinformation that has moved us from a firm belief in the sanctity of life to a "quality of life" mindset, which says that some lives are not worth living.

Sunday 01st April 2007: -

• How I know Blair faked Iran map: By CRAIG MURRAY, Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Head of the Foreign Office's Maritime Section - Like most senior Royal Navy officers, Commodore Nick Lambert has great reserves of professional expertise and common sense. The Coalition task force commander was aboard HMS Cornwall when 15 Royal Navy personnel serving on the frigate were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces on March 23. The Navy states the 14 men and one woman were on a routine patrol in rigid inflatables off Iraqi shores - Iran insists they were in its waters illegally. A few hours after the 15 were seized, Cdre Lambert said: 'There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated.'

• For Blair, it's child's play to make us all criminals: From identifying potential miscreants in childhood to fingerprint-activated iPods, Labour's new crime review takes the theft of our liberty to new extremes - Years ago, I asked some well-known people to write their obituaries for publication during their lifetime. The wonderful Lord Longford said that he was cowardly and had failed to serve his country properly in the war. Robert Maxwell claimed the fall of communism as one of more important personal successes. Both men were wide of the mark. The thing about writing your own obituary, whether accurately or not, is that nobody is going to believe it anyway. Reputation, like political legacy, is not the possession of the individual to fashion how he or she likes. It is public property and each one of us has to live with that. Even Tony Blair.

• Yorkshire cases to test DNA sampling policy - LAWYERS challenging the right of UK police to keep DNA samples from innocent people on the national database are to take two South Yorkshire test cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Police take DNA samples after those suspected of most crimes have been arrested and they are entered onto a national database which now holds details of more than four million people. But the details are not removed if charges are dropped or the suspects are proved innocent at court and human rights specialist solicitors practice Howells, based in Sheffield, has been fighting to have that position overturned.

• Common Purpose: The Unseen Invasion - Brian Gerrish: -

(RELATED: See our archive The 'Nazi' Takeover of the East Riding and also the external website eutruth.org.uk)

• Germany unveils controversial anti-terror register - Germany activated on Friday a controversial anti-terror register that would allow the country's police and secret services access to the personal information and records of criminal suspects and terrorists. The names of around 13,000 people are included in the anti-terror bank of which only one-fourth of them are actually residing in Germany. Authorities can also gather information from the bank on other issues like family links, religious affiliation, bank accounts and Internet and telecommunications data. According to German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, the anti-register is aimed at thwarting terror plans.

• Brown accused of conning the country over pensions - The revelation that Gordon Brown defied official advice on the effects of his policies on pensions led yesterday to calls for an inquiry by the independent financial watchdog. The Conservatives sought to step up the pressure on the Chancellor in the wake of the disclosure of warnings over the effects of a £5-billion-a year raid on pension funds in 1997. Officials told him that the scrapping of tax relief on dividends paid into pension funds risked driving many into insolvency, as £75 billion pension fund assets would be instantly wiped out. The warnings have been borne out as tens of thousands of pensioners have lost out. The Treasury maintains that the decision was taken on the "best advice" of civil servants, who had advised that pension funds would be better off in the long term. But the release of the papers - presented to Mr Brown in 1997 - provoked fury from pension campaigners.

• George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house - The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home. It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here. According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily. Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.

• Families participate in free child-identification program - Khamula Willis, 50, said the three hours her 5-year-old son was missing were among the most frightening of her life. Ultimately, Willis would discover that he had decided to walk to his grandmother’s house. Willis said she called the police and she had a photo and she gave a description. A waitress at a Joplin restaurant recognized the boy was lost and called police and mother and child were soon reunited. Willis said her son is now 27, and his two children and her daughter’s son were waiting Saturday to be processed through the Missouri Child Identification Program that the Scottish Rite Valley of Joplin offered for free at 505 S. Byers Ave. The identification program includes digital photographs, digital fingerprints, dental-bite impressions, child information and emergency contacts. Parents also receive two laminated identification cards that parents could have in their possession in case a child were missing or abducted.

• 'Children should be taught to walk and talk' - Children should be taught "life skills" instead of facts and figures because they can look up all they need to know on the Internet, teachers' leaders claim today. A classroom union launched its own blueprint for the school curriculum - with no tests, GCSEs or even subjects. Children should be taught 'life skills' not facts and figures, teachers' leaders claim today. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said members should be able to decide what pupils learn in lessons instead of the Government as long as "essential skills" are passed on.

• Bush ex-strategist says loses faith in president - The chief strategist of George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign said he had lost faith in the U.S. president over Iraq and other issues, in a high-level rupture of Bush's famously loyal inner circle. Matthew Dowd, a polling expert who switched parties to become a Republican and also served as a senior strategist in Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, told The New York Times in an interview on Sunday that Bush must face up to Americans' growing disillusionment with the war.

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• Another laptop goes AWOL: Paedophiles will love this one - A LAPTOP with details of 11,000 children aged between eight months and eight years has been stolen from a Nottingham hospital. The laptop was one of three taken from an office at King's Mill Hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield last week. Nottinghamshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) has now informed the families affected and police have launched an investigation. The laptop contains the names, addresses and dates of birth of children from the Newark, Mansfield and Ashfield areas. The PCT said the matter was being taken "extremely seriously" and reassured the public that the theft was being fully investigated and that steps were being taken to prevent it happening again.

• Virus disguised as Internet Explorer 7 download: Fake beta download advertised on email link - A new virus is disguised as a test version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 web browser. Security experts have warned of a virus spread via email with the subject line "Internet Explorer 7 Downloads". The emails, which appear to come from admin@microsoft.com, include a convincing graphic purporting to be from Microsoft and offer a download of a beta 2 version of IE 7 – despite the fact that the final version of the browser was released last October. The virus is delivered when recipients click on a link in the graphic rather than in an attachment. Clicking the graphic will download an executable file called IE 7.exe. The file is actually a new virus called Virus.Win32.Grum.A

• CARRIED OVER FROM FRIDAY'S HEADLINES: ANOTHER MAJOR DEVELOPMENT FOR 9/11 TRUTH AS MORE PREDOMINANT FIGURES GO PUBLIC! - This week, Rosie O'Donnell discusses 9/11 truth on her TV show The View and in her video blog. See below for clips. Please help spread these links: -

9/11 Clip from The View (Part 1 of 2): -

9/11 Clip from The View (Part 2 of 2): -

Rosie O'Donnells Video blog: -

***CLICK HERE TO SEE HEADLINES FROM MARCH 2007***