Thursday 31st August 2006: -

• Pupils’ prints scanned - Campaigners have expressed anger that children as young as five have had their fingerprints recorded at three local primary schools. The youngsters' prints were taken for a new system in place at the schools' libraries whereby pupils have their thumb prints scanned, instead of using a card, to take out books. Opponents of the use of biometric records have warned that it is a massive invasion of privacy and a step towards a database state'. Brockholes Wood Primary School, Brant Road; Longridge CE Primary, Berry Lane and Little Hoole Primary, Walmer Bridge, are currently the only schools in the area to have the Micro Librarian system installed.

• Police strip-search has children in tears (South Africa) - Pupils at Sastri College in Durban were furious after they were pulled out of classes and strip-searched by police during a drug raid on Tuesday. Speaking to the Daily News after the incident the pupils, mostly girls, said they felt violated as they were asked to strip down to their underwear in the presence of policewomen and other pupils. The pupils, who were called out during their lessons, said while they were not frisked by police, they "felt very uncomfortable" by the search.

• President Bush 'assassinated' in new TV docudrama - This is the dramatic moment when President George Bush is gunned down by a sniper after a public address at a hotel, in a gripping new docudrama soon to be aired on TV. Set around October 2007, President Bush is assassinated as he leaves the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago. Death of a President, shot in the style of a retrospective documentary, looks at the effect the assassination of Bush has on America in light of its 'War on Terror'.

• Relatives lose right to block organ donations - Families will lose the right to block their relatives' wish to donate their organs under reforms which come into force on Friday.  Currently families can stop doctors from taking their loved ones' organs even if they carried a donor card. About one in 10 planned donations is blocked at present. "There is a critical shortage of donated organs," said Chris Rudge, Managing Director of UK Transplant, the NHS department which runs the country's organ donation system. "The wishes of the deceased must be put first." Doctors have been told to urge families to change their minds if they try to stop the planned organ donation.

• Europe pushes for study of biometrics to screen passengers - Europe is stepping up efforts to explore the use of eye scans and other biometric technology to screen airline passengers who volunteer for background security checks. The goal is to see whether airport security can be enhanced and congestion eased by encouraging frequent fliers to undergo pre-screening. In return, cleared passengers could pass through immigration and security checkpoints more easily by identifying themselves through biometric scans of their irises or fingerprints.

Wednesday 30th August 2006: -

• How NAFTA superhighway is built under radar screen: Officials say they see no budget 'earmarks,' because they don't know where to look – Ask some members of Congress about plans to build a "NAFTA superhighway" connecting Mexico and Canada via the U.S. and you might hear snickers. Some officials will tell you they have seen no "earmarks" for such a plan and question whether it even exists. But the plan does exist and the NAFTA superhighway is being built – under the radar screen.

• UNH provost says no students complained about prof's 9-11 views - A University of New Hampshire professor who thinks government officials orchestrated the 9-11 attacks said he doesn't impose his opinions on students, but teaches them to discuss and debate differing viewpoints. Psychology professor William Woodward belongs to Scholars for 9-11 Truth, whose members believe that Bush administration officials either planned the attacks or allowed them to happen in order to get public opinion behind their policies. Governor John Lynch says Woodward's beliefs are crazy and offensive. He has asked the university system's trustees to investigate Woodward's teaching practices. U-N-H Provost Bruce Mallory says no students have complained about Woodward's presentation of his opinions, and that after reviewing course materials and student evaluations, he does not believe Woodward imposed his opinions on students. He says the university doesn't see any reason for a formal review.

• THE TOTALITARIAN TIP-TOE: And now, vending machines that take plastic - Charge! You're at a vending machine, you have no change, and the bill slot keeps spitting back your dollar bill for being insufficiently crisp. A modern tragedy, we know. But coming to a vending machine near you: credit card access! MasterCard and Coca-Cola recently rolled out 1,000 cashless vending machines in the Philadelphia area, the Chicago Tribune reports. And that's not all. Houston is installing about 1,500 parking meters that will accept credit cards. In June, all 8,300 parking meters in Vancouver, B.C., began allowing drivers to use credit cards, through cell phones, to pay for parking.

• Doubt cast over brain 'God spot' - There is no single "God spot" in the brain, Canadian scientists say. A University of Montreal team found Christian mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions. Researchers asked 15 nuns to recount mystical experiences while studying them on MRI scanners, the journal, Neuroscience Letters reported. There has been much debate about how the brain reacts during connections with God among religious followers.

• Pope's Exorcist: Harry Potter Satanic - The Vatican's chief exorcist is no fan of Harry Potter. Father Gabriele Amorth, who is Pope Benedict XVI's "caster out of demons," told Vatican Radio: "Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil." According to the Daily Mail newspaper, he said that author J.K. Rowling's books contain innumerable positive references to magic, "the satanic art" and added the books attempt to make a false distinction between black and white magic, when in fact, the distinction "does not exist, because magic is always a turn to the devil."   (RELATED: See our section The Occult in Your Living Room)

Tuesday 29th August 2006: -

• Finger scan for school lunch worries some parents - Instead of using a meal card to pay for lunch, students at Morrow County schools will be using something a little more futuristic - a finger scanner. The "Touch n' Go" device reads students' fingerprints with an optical sensor and relays the information to a computer, where students' accounts are charged. Such biometric technology, which measures physical characteristics and uses them as a form of identification, are being used at a growing number of school districts. Some use finger scans to dispense medicine, take attendance, check out books in the library or ensure that bus-riding students get off at the right stop.

• Australia photo ID card for benefits due by 2010 - In a bid to replace up to 17 separate cards currently required for Medicare benefits, family tax, child-care and unemployment payments, pensions, Austudy and pharmaceutical and transport concessions, Australia is rolling out a biometric identity card plan. Persons may begin applying for the card in 2008, and they project is expected to be implemented by 2010. While Australians will need a photo identity card within four years to receive Medicare and welfare payments but will not be forced to carry it at all times. People will be able to register for the card from the beginning of 2008 and it will be phased in over two years. The new "smart card" will contain "enhanced security," very much like the current biometric passports, identity cards and visas currently being introduced by numerous western nations, such as the United States, Great Britain and Germany.

• Mystery illness blamed on depleted uranium - It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills — morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves. Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 milligrams of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done. Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine and stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. His joints ache. Migraines cleave his skull.

• This is the final maneuver performed by the aircraft which hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. This animation was provided by the NTSB and is accurate in terms of the flight data recorder on board this aircraft. It has not been altered by anyone after it was received from the NTSB. Whether or not this animation is authentic, i defer inquiry to the NTSB. Please pay attention to the end of the video, as the altitude is too high to have hit the light poles that were reported to have been struck by the same aircraft which hit the pentagon. The video comment inserts are provided by an experienced Airline pilot: -

• Muse Frontman: 9/11 An Inside Job - MUSE have cracked America...despite singer Matt Bellamy's outspoken views on George Bush. The fiery British trio have rocketed to No.9 in the US Billboard charts with their great new album, Black Holes And Revelations. But Matt - whose passion for conspiracy theories has inspired their songs - has fired a broadside at wily old Dubya in The White House. He said: "I'm fascinated by conspiracy theories. We're surrounded by them. "Are we really supposed to believe that a man in a cave in Afghanistan managed to orchestrate the most unbelievable attack on the United States of all time? "I think 9/11 was definitely an inside job done by a group of high-powered people looking for an excuse to invade the Middle East for oil and other natural resources.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and 911truthskipton.com)

• Police to do random roadside safety checks: (This story ran on nwitimes.com on Friday, August 25, 2006) - Motorists can expect random roadside safety checks from Friday to Sunday to encourage compliance with state motor vehicle regulations, officials said. Police will check cars along U.S. 30 during a six-hour period each day, with a "hope for compliance on motorists' parts," police Sgt. Denis Tatgenhorst said. "Our primary goal in conducting the roadside safety checks is to save lives and reduce injuries in our community by discouraging violations," Mayor Eugene Williams said in a press release.

Monday 28th August 2006: -

• Washington Post Doesn't Answer Why No Bin Laden 9/11 Indictment: Whitewash piece seeks to dismiss questions about FBI most wanted page but doesn't address why embassy indictment took 3 months yet no 9/11 charge after 5 years - A Washington Post article today attempts to refute and dismiss questions as to why the FBI's most wanted page for Osama bin Laden includes no apportion of blame for 9/11 - yet the Post fails to answer why there has been no formal indictment of bin Laden five years after 9/11 when it only took three months to charge him with the 1998 embassy bombings.

• New injection introduced for children - Parents are being urged to have their babies inoculated against the pneumococcal virus, which kills one in 10 children who fall ill from it. The virus causes meningitis, blood poisoning and pneumonia. About 50 children die each year from the contagion in England and Wales out of about 530 cases, prompting ministers to add more vaccinations to the childhood immunisation programme this autumn. Injections will be given at two, four and 13 months, with catch-up shots for children up to two years old.

• California Seeks to Clear Hemp of a Bad Name - Charles Meyer’s politics are as steady and unswerving as the rows of pima cotton on his Central Valley farm. With his work-shirt blue eyes and flinty Clint Eastwood demeanor, he is staunchly in favor of the war in Iraq, against gun control and believes people unwilling to recite the Pledge of Allegiance should be kicked out of America, and fast. But what gets him excited is the crop he sees as a potential windfall for California farmers: industrial hemp, or Cannabis sativa. The rapidly growing plant with a seemingly infinite variety of uses is against federal law to grow because of its association with its evil twin, marijuana. “Industrial hemp is a wholesome product,” said Mr. Meyer, 65, who says he has never worn tie-dye and professes a deep disdain for “dope.” “The fact we’re not growing it is asinine,” Mr. Meyer said.

• MONSANTO WHISTLEBLOWER: GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS MAY CAUSE DISEASE - Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell their genetically engineered cotton. Kirk had grown up on a California farm and had worked in several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and herbicides. Kirk was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealistic—the perfect candidate to project the company’s “Save the world through genetic engineering” image. It was that image, in fact, that convinced Kirk to take the job in 1996. “When I was contacted by the headhunter from Monsanto, I began to study the company, namely the work of their CEO, Robert Shapiro.” Kirk was thoroughly impressed with Shapiro’s promise of a golden future through genetically modified (GM) crops. “He described how we would reduce the in-process waste from manufacturing, turn our fields into factories and produce anything from lifesaving drugs to insect-resistant plants. It was fascinating to me.” Kirk thought, “Here we go. I can do something to help the world and make it a better place.”   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• DIANA BLOOD SAMPLES 'TAMPERED WITH' - The manager of the London mortuary where British royal DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES' post-mortem examination took place believes her blood samples were tampered with. ROBERT THOMPSON claims Diana, who died alongside her love DODI FAYED and driver HENRI PAUL in the 1997 car crash in Paris, France, had an "extremely strong smell of alcohol" about her when he examined her body. However, when the results of blood samples came back from the police laboratory there was no mention of alcohol in the report. Thompson says, "I find this unbelievable and it leads me to the conclusion that the blood sample had either been corrupted, or a false statement made.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive)

• Director claims Diana was 'sacrificed' at wedding - The Princess of Wales was "primitively sacrificed" at her "ghastly and barbaric" wedding to Prince Charles, according to the director of a controversial new film about her death. Stephen Frears, the director of The Queen, which stars Dame Helen Mirren in the title role, has described the royal wedding of July 1981 as a "black, black day" which was destined to end in tragedy.

• Police wants database on babies’ fingerprints - THE Police want to set up a database of all nationals’ fingerprints as a way of averting crime in society, an official has said. Nelson Tasi Ndugu, a CID officer at Jinja Road Police Station, said the Police was making efforts to have all new born babies’ fingerprinted in an effort to have a record of all nationals. “The problem we have is that we do not have fingerprints of all Ugandans. We only have those for criminals we have detained before. This makes our work difficult in case we want to trace other criminals,” he said.   (RELATED: See our Total Global Surveillance archive)

• Professor's 9/11 theories outrage NH leaders - A tenured professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire believes an "elite" group within the federal government orchestrated the September 11th attacks on America. William Woodward has already raised that possibility in his classroom and later this year hopes to teach a class that would explore Sept. 11th "in psychological terms -- terms like belief, conspiracy, fear, truth, courage, group dynamics." He may not get the chance. Several state leaders yesterday criticized Woodward for bringing the radical theories into the classroom. "In my view, there are limitations to academic freedom and freedom of speech," said U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "I believe it is inappropriate for someone at a public university which is supported with taxpayer dollars to take positions that are generally an affront to the sensibility of most all Americans," Gregg said. Others were equally blunt.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and 911truthskipton.com)

Sunday 27th August 2006: -

• MPS FACE SEX QUIZ - WOULD-BE MPs may face sex probes to ensure no perverts stand for the job. Home Secretary John Reid is being asked to bring in new rules so candidates for Parliament and local councils are checked against the sex offenders' register. Labour MP Judy Mallaber, an anti-porn campaigner, is also considering demanding a change in the law so sex pests are disqualified from standing.

• Bush: I'm Commander In Chief, Screw Your Rights: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - 4th Amendment to the Constitution - On August 17 in a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled that Bush's warrantless Terrorist Surveillance Program is in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Separation of Powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, and the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. President Bush, however, is determined to spy on us without a court order so it's not surprising that he voiced his profound displeasure with the decision and has declared his determination to appeal the ruling. As expected he is trying to salvage whatever political advantage he can out of this judicial denunciation of his audacious power grab. With the help of Carl Rove , Ken Mehlman and the rest of the RNC he is circulating the blatant lie that Democrats are opposed to wiretapping terrorists. They're not.

• VIDEO: Is Bush an "Idiot"? - You know things are bad when one of your own turns on you: -

• Pack bag properly or it just won't fly: Airline travelers face new woes with stricter rules for carry-on luggage - The term "packing light" takes on new meaning under the strict security measures imposed after the thwarted airline bombing plot on Aug. 10. You should be especially concerned if traveling in Europe, where many budget carriers charge extra for checked baggage and extra again for bags weighing more than 30 pounds or so. Rules and fees vary by airline, so check with your carrier -- and weigh your bag -- before you go. In the days after the threat surfaced, some carriers waived excess-baggage fees, but that courtesy is not expected to continue.

• EVER TRIED THAT CON-TRICK WHERE YOU GIVE A DRUNK PERSON IN A PUB A FAKE £20 NOTE AND ASK FOR CHANGE FOR TWO TENNERS?: Drinkers back new fingerprint checks - A REVOLUTIONARY identification system that photographs drinkers and takes their fingerprints has proved a success in its first week. Just So Caf, in Castle Street, Trowbridge, is the first place in the county to introduce the system, Intouch, which aims to target underage drinking and booze-fuelled violence. Licensee Sue Drew said: "The first weekend went very well. I heard comments like, it's a brilliant idea' and now I don't have to bring my ID out'. I've been very pleased with the reaction. "There's been more queuing and delays getting in but people didn't seem to mind once they realised what was going on.

• Nato pilots accused of killing Afghan children - Nato pilots have been accused of killing 13 Afghan civilians, including nine children, during an attack close to the British base at Musa Kala in Helmand province. Witnesses and relatives of the dead, who were interviewed by The Independent at the town of Lashkargar, claim that on 31 July a family of 13 was attempting to flee the fighting in a rented pickup truck with three other men when an aircraft appeared overhead. "We stopped the car," said Abdul Habib, 40. "Then the plane dropped a bomb ahead of us and went away. After a while we started driving again, but the aircraft came back. I told my wives to stand up so that the pilot would see they were women, but at that moment it opened fire."

• Activist's Remark Starts FBI Probe - Jim Bensman thought his suggestion during a public hearing was harmless enough: Instead of building a channel so migratory fish could go around a dam on the Mississippi River, just get rid of the dam. Instead, the environmental activist found himself in hot water, drawing FBI scrutiny to see whether he had any terrorist intentions. The case "shows just how easy it is to be labeled a suspected terrorist," he says.

• VERY FITTING CONSIDERING OUR TOP STORY FOR YESTERDAY!: UK Channel 4 crowned top TV network - Channel 4 has been named terrestrial TV channel of the year by an industry panel at the Edinburgh TV Festival. It follows 24 hours of bickering among leading media figures about whether the network sufficiently served viewers. ITV chief executive Charles Allen called for its remit to be overhauled but C4 insisted it had "more serious programming" than other channels.

Saturday 26th August 2006: -

• 'Big Brother' concerns as secret system of cameras is rolled out - A NETWORK of secret roadside cameras used to track terror suspects, drug traffickers and child abductors has been rolled out across Scotland, police have revealed. Senior officers have told The Scotsman that the installation of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras was completed this month, allowing detectives to monitor the movements of suspects from a 4,000 name watchlist as they travel on major routes across the country. The surveillance equipment, which looks like ordinary speed cameras, was piloted in Strathclyde and Fife and police say it has been hugely successful in catching and monitoring thousands of suspects and criminals, including sex offenders, bogus callers and disqualified drivers. But some human rights campaigners have branded the system a "Big Brother"-style infringement on personal liberties. Police will not disclose where the cameras are located, or how many there are, but say they also have a number of mobile units allowing them to act on specific intelligence about a suspect's movements, or target particular crime hotspots.

• Don't just dismiss the vaccine-autism link - In their Aug. 18 editorial page column "Act could turn the tide on common birth defect," Peter Hotez and Rosalynn Carter anticipate the Combating Autism Act's promise in disproving the role of vaccines in causing autism. As Boyd Haley, professor of chemistry of the University of Kentucky has commented, "The article is totally devoid of any scientific credibility." Hotez and Carter reveal the poisonous agenda of those who would use government funds to bury the inconvenient theory that mercury in vaccines has caused the autism epidemic. Their main interest is to develop and promote vaccines.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• William Cohen Demands Never Ending Servitude - According to William Cohen, former Secretary of Offense and Clinton administration war criminal, few of us have made the sort of “commitment to universal service” demanded by our rulers, or are we “really committed to this war against terrorism,” that is to say the forever war against Islam. Appearing on Fox, Cohen said “something has to be done to put us on a war footing mentality,” as obviously the spate of fake color-coded terror alerts, revealed to be nothing more than crass political monkeywrenching, and the parade of duped patsies in Miami, Ontario, and London, to name but the most recent, have not frightened the populace to the degree required.

• Schwarzenegger libel 'settled' - A libel action brought in London by a UK TV presenter against Arnold Schwarzenegger and two of his aides has been settled, reports say. Anna Richardson was suing the California governor and two aides over comments they made about her claims that he groped her in December 2000. The parties' lawyers said in a joint statement that they were satisfied, the Associated Press reports. The Terminator star faces a re-election battle for governor in November.

• Halutz names officer to prepare for possible war with Iran - In an effort to upgrade Israel's preparedness for a possible confrontation with Iran, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz has appointed Israel Air Force Commander Major General Elyezer Shkedy as the IDF's "campaign manager" against countries that do not border on Israel - primarily Iran. The appointment was made before the war in Lebanon.    (COMMENTARY: Something is definitely on the boil, the NWO is now at the end of its tether; waiting for the right pretext, a new 9/11 (like the 'new Pearl Harbor') to be able to press on into Iran.  Now is a key time to be preparing oneself for a staged terror attack.  To wake up others and get them to do the same.  Remember, when a sequel to 9/11 is pulled off to check cremationofcare.com for up-dates, as we will be working hard to dissect this upcoming staged terror event)

• Homeland security moving to classrooms: Schools offer programs to train professionals - You can fight terror with bombs, or guns, or even with tough words. It's a battle that has taken Americans to foreign lands and into the realm of cyberspace. In Delaware, the struggle has entered the classroom. The weapon of choice is knowledge. Across the nation and around the world, colleges are increasingly creating degree programs and other courses to prepare students for work in "homeland security," the broadly defined realm of protecting communities and businesses against terror attacks and natural disasters.

• 'I can't go to Iraq. I can't kill those children': Suicide soldier's dying words to his mother - While his peers from St Augustine's Catholic school were this month contemplating university careers or first jobs, Jason Chelsea was preoccupied with a different future: his first tour of duty in Iraq. The 19-year-old infantryman, from Wigan, Greater Manchester, was tormented by concern about what awaited him when the King's Lancaster Regiment reached Iraq, where 115 British soldiers have been killed since 2003. He had even told his parents that he had been warned by his commanders that he could be ordered to fire on child suicide bombers. It was a fear that he never confronted. Within 48 hours of confessing his concerns to his family, Pte Chelsea was dead after taking an overdose of painkillers and slashing his wrists.

• Giuliani Aide Found Strangled in Manhattan - A man who once served as a press secretary to Mayor Giuliani was strangled to death in his Greenwich Village home Monday night as an apparent tryst turned fatal, police said. The body of Martín Barreto, 49, was found lying naked on the bed of his eighth floor apartment in the Albert building at 23 E. 10th St., near University Place. He died of "asphyxia due to compression of the neck" and his death has been ruled a homicide, the medical examiner's office said yesterday. No arrests have been made. Police were looking for two people who they believe entered his apartment Monday evening based on interviews with a doorman at the building, sources said. There were no signs of a break-in, and the door was locked when police entered the home. An open condom wrapper and lubricant were found near the body, the sources said.

Friday 25th August 2006: -

• NO2ID: Blair’s all out attack on privacy - Civil liberties and privacy campaigners today expressed outrage at the leaked announcement that ministers plan to overturn one of the key principles of Data Protection, granting government agencies the right to share personal data across the public sector. Phil Booth, NO2ID National Coordinator said: “Our worst suspicions have been confirmed. The government’s ID agenda has always been based on a drastic expansion of data sharing powers, but this announcement will mark its clearest and widest attack on privacy yet.

• SOUTH AFRICA: Pupils face gun searches - Pupils face random searches for drugs and guns in a new attempt to make schools safer. Under existing rules, pupils may be searched in playgrounds and classrooms, but only if there is a reasonable suspicion of "possession of illegal substances or dangerous weapons", Western Cape Education Department spokesperson Gert Witbooi explained on Wednesday. But against a backdrop of soaring violence at schools across the country, the regulation is to be changed to allow routine searches conducted at random.

Wednesday 23rd August 2006: -

• MALAGA JET MUTINY PAIR'S SHOCK AT PLANE EJECTION: We just couldn't believe they feared we were bombers We're ordinary Asian lads who only wanted some fun - THESE are the two innocent Asian students kicked off a jet because other passengers feared they were terrorists. Friends Sohail Ashraf and Khurram Zeb, both 22, said last night they were stunned that anybody could think they were suicide bombers. And they insisted they were just a couple of ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun on a day trip to Malaga.  Sohail - who was marched off the Monarch flight to Manchester at gunpoint - said: "My first reaction was to laugh when I was told why we had been taken off the plane. Then I realised they were deadly serious."

• Israel accused over 'war crimes' - Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. The human rights group says attacks on homes, bridges, roads and water and fuel plants were an "integral part" of Israel's strategy in the recent war. The group also calls for a UN investigation into whether both Israel and Hezbollah broke humanitarian law. Israel said it did not deliberately target Lebanon's civilian population.

• Is the Next Step a Draft? - Rhonda Schwartz Reports: An Iraq War veterans group says the call-up of thousands of Marines from the Individual Ready Reserve, announced by the Pentagon today, is "one of the last steps before resorting to a draft." "This move should serve as a wake-up call to America," said Jon Soltz, an Army captain who served in Iraq and heads the group VoteVets.org, which raises funds for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress. "Today's announcement that thousands of Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve will be called back to go to Iraq is proof that our military is overextended, and there is no plan for victory in Iraq."

• The Truth about the "Terror Plot".... and the new "pseudo-terrorism" - I am disappointed to say that so far there has been very little serious critical discussion, grounded in factual analysis, of the alleged “Terror Plot” foiled on the morning of Wednesday, 10th August 2006. Except for a few noteworthy comment pieces, such as Craig Murray’s critical speculations published by the Guardian last Friday, the mainstream media has largely subserviently parroted the official claims of the British and American governments. This is a shame, because inspection of the facts raises serious problems for the 10/8 official narrative.

• Who’s Watching? - Big Brother will be watching you for sure by 2008 -- the year a proposed requirement that Event Data Recorders (EDRs) become mandatory standard equipment in all new cars and trucks will become law unless public outrage puts the kibosh on it somehow. EDRs are "black boxes" -- just like airplanes have. They can record a wide variety of things -- including how fast you drive and whether you "buckle-up for safety." The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wants EDRs to be installed in every new vehicle beginning with model year 2008 -- on the theory that the information will help crash investigators more accurately determine the hows and whys of accidents. But EDRs could -- and likely will be -- used for other purposes as well. Tied into GPS navigation computers, EDRs could give interested parties the ability to take automated ticketing to the next level.

• LAST MAN OUT OF WTC: JANITOR'S HEROIC TALE H'WOOD-BOUND - The next 9/11 tale to hit the silver screen could be that of a World Trade Center janitor whose heroism helped save hundreds of lives. William Rodriguez says he is in talks with actors Charlie Sheen and Esai Morales to turn his riveting story into a feature film - and a top writer-director, David Marconi, is already involved in the project. In a strange twist on the usual 9/11-hero tale, Rodriguez had pursued a federal lawsuit charging that the Sept. 11 attacks were a conspiracy orchestrated by President Bush to justify wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Tuesday 22nd August 2006: -

• New Research: Fluoride Damages Children's Liver and Kidneys (NYSCOF) - Fluoride in drinking water damages children's liver and kidney functions, according to a new study in "Environmental Research"(1), reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF). Xiong and colleagues write, "Our results suggest that drinking water fluoride levels over 2.0 mg/L can cause damage to liver and kidney functions in children." Further, dental fluorosis (fluoride-discolored teeth) can be an indicator of kidney function harm, they report. Researchers grouped 210 Chinese children (aged 10 - 12 years old) by drinking water fluoride levels (averaging 0.76; 1.47; 2.58; and 4.5l mg/L). Dental fluorosis rates, respectively, were 15%, 41%, 79% and 94%.

• Only 20% Of Britons Believe Blair & Government On Terror Threats - ...The findings will shock many at Westminster who had expected Labour to gain ground following John Reid's high-profile handling of the alleged plot against transatlantic airlines. Carried out over the past weekend, following the series of terror arrests, the poll shows voters do not believe the government is giving an honest account of the threat facing Britain. Only 20% of all voters, and 26% of Labour voters, say they think the government is telling the truth about the threat, while 21% of voters think the government has actively exaggerated the danger. A majority, 51%, say the government is not giving the full truth and may be telling less than it knows. That finding comes despite a newly introduced system of public information warnings that saw the home secretary downgrade the threat level from critical to severe.

• Virtual ID card could pose problems - A virtual ID card designed to improve children's net safety has been launched in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. The NetIDMe card can be swapped by children online when using chatrooms, instant messaging and social networks. Parents and children can apply for the card using credit card details and a form countersigned by a professional who knows the child concerned. Tom Newton, product manager at content filtering firm SmoothWall, said: "The new child online safety card, which was launched in the UK yesterday, has been over-hyped and could end up causing more harm than good. Of course, it is a worthy idea and will certainly be a blueprint for future similar schemes, but this initial effort has some serious flaws.

• Local group starts petition to end fluoridation - A local political action committee has kicked off an initiative drive for a Port Angeles "Medical Independence Act" -- prompted by the recent fluoridation of the city's water supply. Organizers of "Our Waters -- Our Choice!" say the act will prohibit the addition of all substances intended to treat or medicate people through the public water supply -- including any continued addition of fluoride. The city council approved an ordinance to add fluoride to the water in 2003 and the substance was added to the water supply earlier this year after the construction of a fluoridation facility.

• Thumbs please! - Shaker Heights schools have begun phasing out their antiquated time clock system with biometric devices that scan employees' thumb prints. They're not the first in the area to employ the new technology - the Bedford district already has it. The system is being used to track the hours of about 400 hourly maintenance and custodial workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others. It could be expanded in the future to include more employees, said district spokeswoman Peggy Caldwell. The device reads a person's thumb print to maintain an electronic record of attendance and overtime data that goes directly into the district's payroll system. The installation and software costs were about $77,000, but Caldwell said the system will save money - and reams of paper - in the long run.

• ADHD drugs to carry new warnings about psychotic behavior - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday that several ADHD drugs must now carry information on the labels warning consumers of the risk of heart problems and psychotic behavior associated with taking the drugs. FDA spokeswoman Susan Bro says GlaxoSmithKline's Dexetrine drug and Novartis AG's Ritalin must now include warnings about risks of serious heart problems and sudden death.

• Tory MP compares Hezbollah to Nazi party - Despite its political wing, the militant group Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that is comparable to the Nazi party of the 1930s, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper's parliamentary secretary. Jason Kenney was responding to two MPs who suggested Hezbollah should be taken off Canada's list of terrorist organizations. "We need to learn the lessons of history," Kenney told reporters Tuesday. "There was another political party in the past which had support, democratic support — which provided social services which played an important role in the political life of its country in the 1930s — which was also dedicated to violence against the Jewish people." Kenney said Hezbollah is dedicated to the eradication of Israel.

• Team finds 'proof' of dark matter - US astronomers say they have found the first direct evidence for the mysterious stuff called dark matter. Dark matter - which does not emit or reflect enough light to be "seen" - is thought to make up 25% of the Universe. By contrast, the ordinary matter we can see is believed to make up no more than about 5% of our Universe. Until now, astronomers have only been able to infer the existence of this dark material through the gravitational effects it has on ordinary matter.

• Terrorist scare was bogus - Dr Davis thinks so WITH Bush and Blair reeling from a backlash against their reluctance to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon, what more fortuitous occurrence could arise than the discovery of yet another plot to blow up yet more passenger aircraft, to take the heat off them and kick the Middle East off the front pages for a few days? The minute I heard and read all the hype, it was clear that this whole thing had “bogus” written all over it. No bombs found, or any evidence to speak of, the usual unattributed intelligence “sources”, and the subsequent headlong rush by the authorities to impost draconian and disproportionate “security measures” which they wouldn’t have been able to get away with in any other circumstances.

Monday 21st August 2006: -

(RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution section, as we have an entry for this latest stage managed terror alert in the archive.)

• Pakistan's ISI assists Scotland Yard, while also supporting the terror network - According to The Senate Foreign Relations Committee (July 2004 Hearings), Pakistan's Military intelligence has played a key role in developing the Islamic terror network with financial assistance provided by Saudi Arabia. (Committee on Senate Foreign Relations, Hearings, July 14, 2004). More recently, The Nixon Center (July 2005) has confirmed that the ISI still supports the main Kashmiri Islamic groups including Lashkar-e-Tiaba and Jaish-e-Muhammad.

• ID card a must when you use internet cafe in Mumbai next time - Entry to an internet cafe in the city will now be only possible on showing your identity proof, with police asking cafe owners to allow only those with bonafide identity proof to use the facility. Apart from checking the identity of the user, owners will now have to maintain a log of user activity in the cafe, a new regulation promulgated by Mumbai Police has stipulated. ...Mumbai police sources said that the decision to make identity proof necessary was taken in wake of the July 11 blasts probe, which revealed that some of the blasts suspects had been using internet cafes regularly to be in touch with other suspects.   (RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution for more background info into the 7/11 Mumbai bombings)

• Diana death was not an accident - Dodi’s deaths were the result of a simple road accident and adds further weight to claims of a cover-up. Dodi’s father Mohammed Al Fayed said: "This is a huge step – possibly the biggest development – in my fight to get to the truth. "I have always maintained that Princess Diana and my son were murdered. It goes a long way to help prove that and expose the cover-up. "I will be fascinated to hear the depositions by these experts." French investigators declared that chauffeur Henri Paul was to blame for the accident after relying on blood tests that showed he was three times over the alcohol limit when the Mercedes S280 crashed, killing himself, Diana and Dodi. The fresh doubts over the tests will certainly delay the submission of the report from Operation Paget, the £4million inquiry into Diana’s death by Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive)

• Eleven charged over 'bomb plot': n.b. the inverted commas there, we didn't add those! - Eleven people have been charged in connection with an alleged plot to blow up several transatlantic airliners. Eight have been charged with conspiracy to murder and preparing acts of terrorism. Two are accused of failing to disclose information and a 17-year-old faces a charge of possessing articles useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism.

• Are children being given too many drugs - More than three times the number of prescriptions are being given to people with Attentions Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Norwich than in some other parts of the region. Figures obtained by the Evening News show city doctors prescribed three times more drugs to children and adults with ADHD than those in Cambridge and a third more than those in Ipswich. The number of prescriptions given out for ADHD in Yarmouth was also higher than other parts of the region.

• Challenge to lone gunman theory - More than four decades after his death, John F. Kennedy's assassination remains the hottest cold case in U.S. history, and the clues continue to trickle in. Now Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientists say a key piece of evidence supporting the lone gunman theory should be thrown out. A new look at clues gleaned from studies of crime-scene bullet fragments shows they may have been misinterpreted. "It basically shatters what some people call the best physical evidence around," said chemist Pat Grant, director of the lab's Forensic Science Center. Grant and Livermore Lab metallurgist Erik Randich found that the chemical "fingerprints" used to identify which bullets the fragments came from are actually more like run-of-the-mill tire tracks than one-of-a-kind fingerprints.

Sunday 20th August 2006: -

• French reopen Diana inquiry - THE French authorities have reopened their inquiry into the circumstances behind the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales after fresh doubts emerged over scientific tests that stated her chauffeur was drunk. The French director of public prosecutions has authorised a judge to reexamine two forensics experts whose evidence was central to the finding that the 1997 crash in Paris was a simple road accident caused by a drunk driver. The move will excite Diana conspiracy theorists and could lead to further delays in the UK authorities closing the case.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive)

• A cashless society?: Not quite, but a look inside local shoppers' wallets suggests we could be headed there - Sandee Resnick has so many cards to keep up with, she carries two wallets. One, a zippered pouch, has an external slot for easy access to her two debit cards, with a few folded bills and a dozen credit cards inside. The second, a more conventional style, holds important cards she doesn't often need. The modern American wallet is stuffed with bank cards, credit cards, grocery store and gift cards. Receipts are often more common than $20 bills, and personal touches are practically nonexistent. It's no secret that we're slowly becoming a cashless society. Experts bemoan our rising debt levels as buying on credit becomes easier. Retailers complain about the service fees that cut into their profits as we charge smaller and smaller amounts on debit cards.

• Two men forced off Manchester flight - Two men were removed from a flight bound for the UK this week, after fellow passengers feared they may be terrorists, an airline has revealed. Monarch Airlines said that the two men, reported to be of Asian or middle eastern appearance, were taken off flight ZB 613 from Malaga to Manchester on Wednesday after other passengers onboard the Airbus 320 became alarmed at their behaviour and demanded their removal. The crew of the plane, which was reportedly carrying 150 passengers and seven staff, informed Spanish security officials at Malaga airport of the fears and the men were subsequently removed from the flight and questioned by police.

• Burden of inheritance tax has doubled in years since Labour came to power - Labour has dragged millions of people into the inheritance tax "stealth trap" since it came to power. It is estimated that by the end of the decade, the increased wealth of more than 4.5 million people will mean their estates are pushed above the inheritance tax threshold, which currently stands at £285,000. Just four years ago, the number of estates over the threshold stood at just over two million - meaning, according to the Government's critics, that Labour has ridden roughshod over its declaration before the 1997 election that families should not be drawn "unfairly" into the inheritance tax net.

• Five key questions for anti-terror investigation: Arrested group were tracked for nearly a year - Pakistani security services helped watch suspects - Nine days ago Paul Stephenson, the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, told the public his officers had thwarted a plot to commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale". It was an apocalyptic scenario challenged at the time by journalists, who forced an admission that what was meant by these words was "on a scale never before witnessed in Britain", reducing the potential death toll from tens of thousands to hundreds. Today 23 suspects, two of them women, are being held on suspicion of plotting to commit terrorist offences. While police interrogate them, there are many unanswered questions. Was there any plot at all?

• Fingerprint plan to stop pub yobs - DRINKERS will be photographed and fingerprinted before going into a bar in a bid to crack down on underage drinking. Just So Caf in Castle Street, Trowbridge, is the first venue in the county to bring in the revolutionary new system. The Intouch system, brought in on Wednesday, means customers now have a scan of their fingerprint and a photo taken when they enter. This is then added to a database along with their date of birth and address, taken from valid ID such as a passport or driving licence, so they can be identified each time they visit the bar.

• MERCURY NEWS SURVEY REVEALS THAT PERSONAL INFORMATION ISN'T AS PRIVATE AS YOU THINK: What do Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft's MSN know about you? - America's top four Internet companies, Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft's MSN, promise they will protect the personal information of people who use their online services to search, shop and socialize. But a close read of their privacy policies reveals as much exposure as protection. The massive amounts of data these companies collect, which can include records of the searches you make, the health problems you research and the investments you monitor, can be requested by government investigators and subpoenaed by your legal adversaries.

Saturday 19th August 2006: -

• WEST YORKSHIRE TRUTH CAMPAIGN: A new website for the meeting group centered in Bradford - Designed by Joseph Skelton, webmaster of cremationofcare.com and 911truthskipton.com (hence the layout is a bit primitive!).  Check it out here!

• AUDIO DOWNLOAD: Last nights 'David Shayler Radio Show' from Resonance 104.4FM - You can catch this recorded show live on Fridays at 8 - 9PM (GMT).   (RELATED: http://www.resonancefm.com - Thanks to Narinder for the recording, check out his own website here)

• Flight 93 'was shot down' - The heart-thumping moment came when when passengers on board one of the hijacked 9/11 jets fought back against the ruthless fanatics hellbent on crashing the plane into the heart of America. Jumping out of their seats to a rallying cry of ‘Let’s roll!’, they charged towards the front of the Boeing 757 and began smashing down the cockpit door to reach the hijackers at the controls. Amid the desperate commotion, the plane rolled violently from right to left and pitched up and down as the rogue pilots tried to throw the passengers beyond the door off balance. As the struggle continued, the cockpit voice recorder captured the hijackers urgently discussing whether to ditch the plane. ‘Is that it? Shall we finish it off?’ asked one of the fanatics.   (RELATED: See our 911 archive)

• Russo: Rockefeller Admitted Women's Lib Agenda - Aaron Russo recalls his conversation with one of the Rockefellers, who told him that they created and financed the womem's lib movement so they could tax another half of the population and so that the children would be trained by them in government schools rather than in the context of the family unit: -

Friday 18th August 2006: -

• A QUICK LESSON ON THE POLITICAL ADVANTAGES OF USING 'PROBLEM > REACTION > SOLUTION': Every airport traveller 'will be fingerprinted'; Airport biometric procedures to be extended after alleged terror plot, Six out of ten believe government is not exaggerating terrorism threat, Reid reaction to terror has seen his public profile soar as Blair's successor - BIOMETRIC testing is set to be introduced at European airports under plans for stringent new security measures revealed yesterday in the wake of last week's alleged terror plot. Passengers would have their fingerprint or iris scanned under the measures proposed by EU interior ministers, which would also use passenger profiling to try to identify potential terrorists.   (RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

• Be skeptical about UK's terror alert, says former ambassador - A former British ambassador warned the public Friday to be skeptical about the UK's latest terror alert and to be wary of politicians who seek to benefit from the alarm. Britain mounted its biggest counter-terrorism operation on August 10 after police said that they had disrupted an alleged plot to carry out simultaneous mid-air explosions on up to 10 flights from the UK to the US. "For there to be no clear evidence yet on something that was `imminent' and would bring `mass murder on an unbelievable scale' is, to say the least, peculiar," said Craig Murray.

• WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO!: Majority of British voters support air passenger profiling; poll - A majority of British voters support profiling air passengers in the wake of an alleged plot to bomb US-bound planes in mid-flight, according to a poll. In a poll of 1,696 respondents by YouGov published in The Spectator magazine, 55 pct backed the idea of security screenings at airports, focusing on the passengers who pose the greatest risk. Some 60 pct of those surveyed also said they expected the threat from terrorist groups to worsen, and 79 pct felt the government was not winning the so-called war on terror.

• Sick bag note causes UK airliner bomb scare - A bomb threat scrawled on a sick bag caused a British passenger plane from London to Egypt to be diverted to southern Italy on Friday, but police said it appeared to be a false alarm. "The alarm has been called off," said Brindisi border police chief Salvatore de Paolis. The charter flight from London's Gatwick airport to Hurghada in Egypt with 269 passengers on board was escorted to Brindisi by an Italian jet fighter after the pilot raised the alarm by radio to air traffic controllers in Zagreb. The passengers were evacuated immediately after landing in Italy and anti-terrorist police inspected the aircraft with the airport fire brigade on standby. But budget airline Excel said it was only a precaution taken after a passenger found a threatening note written on a sick bag in a seat pocket.

• WND Libels Steven Jones Beyond Belief - Neo-Con minion Jonathon Moseley published the following statement on World Net Daily web site: "Professor Steven Jones of Brigham-Young University accused George Bush of being a dictator, mimicking the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. When asked if violent revolution was necessary, this scientist declared – in front of national TV cameras – that there is no peaceful way to achieve the group's goals. In the context of the question, professor Jones was calling for the violent overthrow of the government."

Thursday 17th August 2006: -

• British cell suspects 'didn't have training' - THE alleged London plane bombers wanted to carry out a large-scale attack to mark the fifth anniversary of the 11 September strikes, but were too "inexperienced" to carry out the plot, according to Pakistani intelligence agents. But two senior agents claimed that if the alleged terror-cell members arrested in Pakistan and Britain last week had undergone appropriate weapons and explosives training, they could have emulated previous deadly attacks. "Look at their ages ... their faces, you will hardly believe that they are terrorists, but the fact is that they were motivated and had a plan to carry out attacks," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

• Europe-wide security net to counter terrorism - The six-point package unveiled by interior ministers in London marked a new phase of development in the EU's counter-terror plans. It demonstrated that detailed work had been going on behind the scenes on the strategy that was proposed by Britain in the wake of last year's London bombings, when the UK held the EU presidency. Critics claimed the measures accelerated the drive to building a surveillance infrastructure unparalleled in the free world.   (RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

• Judge Orders Halt To Warrantless Wiretapping - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. "Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

• Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible? - Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers. It would be tedious to enumerate the movie terrorists who've employed relatively harmless liquids that, when mixed, immediately rain destruction upon an innocent populace, like the seven angels of God's wrath pouring out their bowls full of pestilence and pain. The funny thing about these movies is, we never learn just which two chemicals can be handled safely when separate, yet instantly blow us all to kingdom come when combined. Nevertheless, we maintain a great eagerness to believe in these substances, chiefly because action movies wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't. Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

• School board OKs drug dog: Police K-9 unit will assist in random drug searches at Newtown High this year - Newtown police dog Barro attends a June meeting of the Newtown Board of Education. The Board adopted a policy Tuesday allowing the dog to sniff for drugs on school property. Before school starts Aug. 29, Newtown High School students and parents will receive letters stating random drug searches will take place at the school this year. On Tuesday, the Newtown Board of Education approved bringing the Newtown Police K-9 unit to the high school to sniff for drugs in lockers and vehicles on school property.

• Drug tests `on cards' in New Zealand - A Northland high school is set to introduce random drug-testing of its students after 90 percent of parents polled so far backed the move. Though Otamatea High School is still waiting for the final results of a parent survey, board of trustees chairman Murray Cullen said random drug testing was now "99 percent" on the cards. A meeting with parents next week, when principal Haydn Hutching returns from holiday, would air concerns and iron out issues, Mr Cullen said. "We need to make sure everybody understands what we are doing. It's still subject to parents' approval." Provisional survey results reveal 126 of the 140 parent respondents, or 90 percent, support random drug testing.

• The real threat we face in Britain is Blair - John Pilger writes about the the alleged plot to blow up airliners flying from London and says that "unimaginable mass murder" has already taken place - in Iraq - and that the real threat the British face is in Downing Street. If the alleged plot to attack airliners flying from London is true – remember the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, and to the raid on a “terrorist cell” in east London – then one person ultimately is to blame, as he was on 7 July last year. They were Blair’s bombs then; who doesn’t believe that 52 Londoners would be alive today had the Prime Minister refused to join Bush in his piratical attack on Iraq? A parliamentary committee has said as much, as have MI5, the Foreign Office, Chatham House and the polls.

• POLICE STATE BRUTALITY: Woman shot with rubber bullets at a protest in Miami (See related video clip below) - Elizabeth Ritter was shot four times with rubber bullets by police while she was protesting a Free Trade Summit in Miami, August 10. This horrifying example truly shows the disconnect between police and the citizens they pose as protecting and serving. These police actually laugh at their victims, in spite of news cameras and hundreds of witnesses of which they were certainly aware. Arrogant and unchecked power now threatens to be the norm for ever-increasing riot police.   (RELATED: See our Police State archive)

• Fighting in the north leaves behind severe environmental damage - Israel and Lebanon will long bear the environmental scars left behind by the fighting in the North, with the Galilee region in Israel and the Lebanese coastline, both major tourism locations, now requiring urgent rehabilitation: The Galilee has been blackened by fires caused by rockets hitting the region; and the Lebanese coastline is under threat from a large oil spill caused by Israeli air strikes on a fuel installation south of Beirut. Lebanese officials say the country's coastline was under threat from the worst ecological disaster in its history as a result of the Israeli airstrikes on the fuel installation.

• Man held in murder of JonBenet Ramsey - A U.S. man is being held in Thailand in connection with the decade-old murder of JonBenet Ramsey -- a child beauty queen whose unsolved murder became fodder for tabloids and the subject of books in the U.S. Law enforcement officials said authorities arrested the suspect in Bangkok. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have identified the suspect as 42-year-old John Mark Karr. He was already being held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges.

• Jet diverted with fighter escort after passenger panic attack - An airliner flying from London to Washington DC was forced to land in Boston yesterday, escorted by fighter jets, after the pilot declared an emergency because of a disturbance caused by a passenger. The United Airlines plane, carrying 182 passengers and 12 crew, was diverted when a passenger suffered a claustrophobic reaction or panic attack, according to a spokesman for the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA). A British intelligence source told the Guardian the passenger was a journalist.

• Iraqi Death Toll Rose Above 3,400 in July - July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new Iraqi government has failed. An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January.

Wednesday 16th August 2006: -

• 'People are definitely sceptical' - When the government announced last Thursday that it had foiled a massive terror plot, broadcasters and newspapers were barraged with a wave of sceptical views from listeners and readers. Nearly a week on, are people still so distrustful? Patrick Barkham takes to the streets to find out - It was not in horror or panic that thousands of ordinary people contacted the BBC or posted points on the Guardian's Comment is Free website in the hours after last week's terror plot. The mood of many seemed to be one of profound caution, even scepticism, over the allegations of a murderous scheme in which 50 people would try to bring down up to 20 planes between Britain and America.

• ANOTHER CONTRADICTION, JUST LIKE THE ALLEGED WESTERN STANDARD HATING LONDON BOMBER GOING INTO McDONALDS FOR A BIG MAC BEFORE BLOWING HIMSELF AWAY ON 7/7!: BUYING CAKES BEFORE ARREST - CHATTING and joking with supermarket staff, this is terror bomb suspect Tayib Rauf just two hours before he was arrested by anti-terror officers. The 22-year-old brother of Rashid Rauf who is being quizzed in Pakistan, was captured on CCTV ordering cakes and buns for his family's bakery business. The film was taken as police prepared to swoop on him and 22 others they believe may have been involved in the plot to blow up jets over America. But Mohammed Nazam who owns the shop where he was filmed insisted the picture shows he is innocent. The boss of the New Dadyal Cash and Carry in Birmingham said: "Does this look like the kind of person planning such a plot? He doesn't look like he's about to blow himself up.

• Former British Ambassador Says Terror Alert Is "Propaganda": The UK Terror plot: what's really going on? - I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine. So this, I believe, is the true story. None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

• NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO BE ASKING 'QUI BONO?'... i.e. 'WHO BENEFITS?': Reid: Rights, security must be balanced - Britain's top law enforcement official said Wednesday that Europe is being confronted by terrorism that's "unconstrained in its evil intention," and individual rights must be balanced with collective security. Home Secretary John Reid made his comments after briefing European Union counterparts on the investigation into an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes with liquid explosives. "As we face the threat of mass murder we have to accept that the rights of the individual that we enjoy must and will be balanced with the collective right of security and the protection of life and limb that our citizens demand," he told journalists. The EU, he added, faces "a form of terrorism that is unconstrained in its evil intention."   (RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

• Clinton warns against politicizing British terror plot: This coming from a guy who claimed that he owed his 1996 Presidential re-election to the Oklahoma City bombing! - Former President Bill Clinton got in the current president's face Tuesday, slamming the Bush administration for linking the London bomb plot and the war on terror to the war in Iraq. "The Republicans should be very careful in trying to play politics with this London airport thing, because they're going to have a hard time with the facts," Clinton said in an interview. "I don't think the foiling of that London bomb plot has any bearing on our Iraq policy," he said.

• Harrow Weald woman wins pardon for father shot for cowardice - A HARROW Weald woman who has been campaigning for 14 years to clear her father's name of a charge of cowardice for which he was executed during the First World War has won her fight. And in doing so, Gertrude Harris, 93, of Blackwell Close, who never knew her father, Private Harry Farr, has won pardons for more than 300 men shot for cowardice. Mrs Harris said her father's 20-minute court martial did not consider medical papers offering evidence of shell-shock.

• Reporter Christopher Bollyn Beaten by Chicago Cops - It's after 2 a.m. in the morning, my deadline is tomorrow, and I have been beaten up by the local police and my right elbow is sorely hurting, but I need to write down exactly what happened to me today before I go to sleep. Otherwise I will forget important details. I was harassed, beaten, and shocked with a Tazer-like gun in my front yard before my wife and children, and then abused for 6 hours by the ADL-trained local police. I have every reason to believe it is because of my journalistic investigation into 9/11. I have been threatened before in my career as a journalist, but this is the first time I have been intentionally beaten and abused – by the cops.

• "Star Wars" agency helps Israel on rocket threat - The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency has begun working with Israel to help find ways to counter enemy rockets, a much shorter-range threat than the "Star Wars" mission to block ballistic missiles for which is it known, the head of the agency said on Tuesday. "We have been working with the Israelis ... as they go through with development of their own indigenous capabilities for that threat," Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering told reporters after a speech at a missile-defense conference here.

• China ATMs to use facial recognition - Chinese police have announced they will outfit automated teller machines with facial recognition software to identify suspected criminals. The system, which will be linked to a police network, is expected to be installed in more than 1,000 ATMs in Beijing by the end of October, reported Xinhua, China`s official government-run news agency. The rest of the city`s 3,000 ATMs are expected to follow suit within a year.

• ISI and LeT are behind the militant attacks, claim police - The Special Cell of the Delhi police on Monday claimed that it had concrete evidence of active collusion between the Pakistan Army, its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) network and the banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in carrying out militant attacks in India. This was allegedly revealed by Abu Anas, the Pakistani LeT militant arrested with a conduit, Mohammad Issa, at New Delhi railway station on August 10.

Tuesday 15th August 2006: -

• Chertoff Says US Needs More Totalitarian System - The US's chief of homeland security said late Sunday that the US should consider reviewing its laws to allow for more electronic surveillance and detention of what he alleged possible terror suspects. Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stopped short of calling for immediate changes, but it was clear he was calling for a totalitarian system to cut out whatever little freedom that exists in the supposedly democratic United States of America.

• RFID to track inmates - THE contract will be awarded this week for the construction of the first prison in Australasia to use radio frequency identification to track prisoners. The ACT government has allocated $128.7 million for the establishment of ACT's first prison, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, named after the 19th century penal reformer. The RFID system will provide real-time tracking of prisoners and prison officers, ACT Corrective Service senior manager Roger Holding says.

• RFID-chipped passports cross the pond: Privacy, we hardly knew you - A first wave of US passports implanted with RFID tags will soon begin making their way into the hands of American travellers despite lingering privacy and security concerns, federal officials said. Not long after researchers at a pair of security conferences in Las Vegas demonstrated potential risks associated with the new documents, the US State Department insisted the documents are tamperproof and said it had begun producing them at the Colorado Passport Agency, which serves applicants from that state and the Rocky Mountain region.

• Claim: Liquid Terror Suspect Watched Conspiracy Vids: Disturbing growing trend of 'guilt by association' should concern 9/11 truthers - We are starting to notice a disturbing and growing trend whereby truth activists are being linked with terror suspects in a ploy of guilt by association that echoes back to the days when the Patriot movement was linked with Timothy McVeigh by the Clinton administration after the Oklahoma City Bombing. In a London Guardian article written by a friend of one of the suspects rounded up last week, it is claimed that the individual, Waheed Zaman, was skeptical of the official explanation behind the 7/7 and 9/11 attacks. "After 9/11 and 7/7 Waheed was sceptical about whether Muslims could have been responsible. He watched conspiracy videos on the internet. He believed them and thought they made sense. Like most people in the world, he was anti-war. But his solution was: fight the enemies of Islam by showing them the real Islam, a religion of peace."

• Pakistani charity funded airline bomb plot - A Pakistani charity that received USD 10 million from Britain for earthquake relief last year helped finance the alleged bomb plot to blow up US-bound passenger jets, a media report said on Tuesday. "The innocent Pakistani souls in Britain who contributed so generously for the victims of the earthquake didn't know that their money would actually be used for one of the biggest terrorist operations," a Pakistani intelligence official told the Washington Post.

Monday 14th August 2006: -

• Government Investigation Finds Autism Vaccine Related - According to the most recent CDC estimates, one in 166 children in the US suffers from an autistic disorder. Twenty years ago, autism only affected one in 10,000 children. For years now, studies have shown that exposure to mercury in childhood vaccines, not only causes autism but can also result in immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar to traits associated with autism.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• Airliner evacuated at LA airport but no explosive found - An Alaska Airlines jet arriving from Mexico was evacuated Monday because no one claimed a "suspicious item" spotted by a crew member, a Los Angeles International Airport spokesman said. Authorities using bomb-sniffing dogs determined the item did not contain explosives, airport spokesman Harold Johnson said.

• Beef tracking an udder success - A NATIONAL database that currently has details of about nine million cattle will ultimately store information about all livestock in Australia. The success of the paddock-to-plate radio frequency identification system had also become something of a tourist attraction, with representatives from many countries visiting Australia to look at the system, Meat and Livestock Australia operations manager Rick Beasley said. Overseas countries and local industries such as fisheries and fruit growers had shown interest in the system, he said.

• U.K. and U.S. cut terror alert - LONDON Traffic remained heavily disrupted Monday at London Heathrow Airport, even as British and U.S. officials lowered by one notch their assessment of the terrorist threat, after the disclosure last week of a plot to bomb many trans-Atlantic flights. The British authorities said Monday that they were relaxing slightly the extraordinary security measures they had imposed on airports last week, allowing limited hand baggage back onto planes, for instance. But the relaxation of the rules was not set to take effect until Tuesday at Heathrow and Gatwick, the main London airports for long international flights.   (RELATED: See our Fake Terror Alerts archive)

• RELEVANT FLASHBACK TO FEBRUARY 2002: Pentagon plans propaganda war - The Pentagon is toying with the idea of black propaganda. As part of George Bush's war on terrorism, the military is thinking of planting propaganda and misleading stories in the international media. A new department has been set up inside the Pentagon with the Orwellian title of the Office of Strategic Influence.   (RELATED: See our Ministry of Truth archive)

• Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'?: Biometric Device May Have the Answer - At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer, scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain, sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones. With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses, the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses -- blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions.   (RELATED: See our Police State archive)

• Pentagon awards $10M biometric contract - The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded a $10 million contract to Viisage Technology Inc. for multimodal biometric devices. The new biometric devices will incorporate iris, finger and facial recognition technologies. The Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment device, known as Hiide, is a scalable tool for enrolling, identifying and verifying people using any of the three biometrics, the company told Government Computer News. Hiide can be used as a mobile handheld system or connected to a host computer or network. It can be used for mobile identification of people on the battlefield, at border checkpoints, in airports, in detention centers and for checking people against watch lists, GCN reproted Friday.

• ALL TO SELL US A WAR ON 'TERROR' (And a lot of people are still buying into it sadly): No hope in sight for frazzled British travelers - Miserable passengers pushed luggage carts through pools of backed-up storm water in tents outside Heathrow Airport on Sunday as hundreds of flights were canceled, some delays dragged on for hours, and one airline executive called on the British government to bring in the army and police to help move passengers. But as British Home Secretary John Reid announced that the nation would remain on the highest possible level of alert and warned another attempted attack in Britain was "highly likely," no let-up to the exhaustive inspections was in sight.   (RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

• Iranian censors clamp down on bloggers - Sayeed Habibi considers himself a marked man. The reason: his Internet blog that challenges some of the policies of Iran's theocracy. He predicts that someday — perhaps soon — he'll be taken to prison and his site will be shut down. "And another voice will be silenced," said Habibi, a 34-year-old postgraduate and an unofficial elder statesman for student-led activist movements. "I fully expect to see the inside of a jail cell." He's not alone. Iranian authorities are stepping up arrests and pressure on popular bloggers as part of a wider Internet clampdown launched after hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president last year, ending years of freewheeling Web access that once made Iran among the most vibrant online locales in the Middle East.

• Panel Suggests Using Inmates in Drug Trials - An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse. The proposed change includes provisions intended to prevent problems that plagued earlier programs. Nevertheless, it has dredged up a painful history of medical mistreatment and incited debate among prison rights advocates and researchers about whether prisoners can truly make uncoerced decisions, given the environment they live in.

John Pilger - The New rulers of The World: -

• The Anglo-American empire’s “next 9/11” will set up final war; “foiled” UK terror plot a propaganda dry run - The August 10 report of a spectacular foiled UK-based super-terror plot, an alleged Operation Bojinka variation, has sparked an unprecedented round of 9/11-style fear and panic mongering throughout the world. This is a new attempt, at the highest levels of the Bush and Blair administrations, in concert with Pakistan’s ISI and Israel, to fabricate the justification for an escalation in the “war on terrorism” across the Middle East. This escalation will include an attack on Iran and Syria as early as October, and with even greater geostrategic violence to follow. Proof that Bush administration planning the next 9/11.

Sunday 13th August 2006: -

• Stop the Madness, Refuse to Fly - It seems that some "terrorist plot" has been foiled. All that "extra security" to which travelers have been subjected is working. Or so they would have us believe. But if you sit back from a calm, rational place, can you believe that there really was a terror plot, using... liquids? Can you believe that it makes us safer in any way to prevent any of us from carrying hairspray, hand lotion or lipstick onto an airplane? Regarding the "plot", well, I'm not buying it. Every other terror plot that has been exposed since and including 911 has had "false flag" written all over it, and with Bush in big trouble for encouraging Israel to continue murdering innocent civilians in Lebanon and Palestinian, this smells like the old "bait and switch" trick again.

• Latest Terror Threat - More Government Foreknowledge: By Joel Skousen - This week's cross-Atlantic terror alert has all the markings of an orchestrated incident to maintain public support for the ongoing US-British war on terror. White House spokesman Tony Snow admitted that President Bush had not been awakened by the dramatic news of Britain's air traffic shutdown because "Bush had been getting regular briefings on the developments for days." If they knew so far in advance, why the dramatic shut-down of trans-Atlantic air traffic inconveniencing thousands, as if they intervened just in time?

(RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

• Bishop apologizes for delay in reporting alleged priest sex abuse - A Roman Catholic church official apologized Saturday for waiting several days to notify authorities about sexual abuse allegations against a priest, a delay that may have allowed the priest to flee to Mexico. Bishop Daniel Walsh of the Santa Rosa diocese said in a one-page statement to parishioners he put "caution" before "doing the right thing" in handling the allegations against priest Xavier Ochoa.   (RELATED: See our archive The Elites Abuse of Children for more background perspective and info)

• MPs angry over China web censorship - Internet firms such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have come under fire from MPs for "collaboration" with Chinese state censorship of the web. The Commons foreign affairs committee said their agreement to block the access of computer users to certain information in the communist state was "morally unacceptable". But it also called on the British government to put pressure on the giant nation's political leaders to relax its curbs and allow services to be run unrestricted.

• IIT-Kanpur develops software for biometric data bank - The Indian Institute of Technology- Kanpur has developed software which can create a biometric data bank comprising fingerprints, retinal scans and signatures that can be used by financial institutions and security agencies. The software, developed with the help of the Union communication and IT ministry, has diverse uses -- from keeping records of terrorists and criminals to taking the attendence in classrooms with a large number of students.

• ISI plan to spread AIDS virus among army personnel - The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) has received an intelligence report that Pakistan's Inter-State Intelligence (ISI) plans to spread the AIDS virus among personnel of the Indian Army and para-military forces. A recent intelligence report from Delhi had apprised the SSB of the ISI's design, likely to be implemented with the help of some militant organisations, SSB Deputy Inspector General G S Sarna told reporters here. Addressing an awareness camp on AIDS yesterday at Madan Jote village bordering Nepal, 30 km from here, Sarna asked SSB personnel to frustrate the ISI plan by practising safe sex. The SSB, which is engaged in guarding the Nepal and Bhutan borders, has taken steps to check the supply of syringes to its hospitals and health units.

• Allow parents to sign off on random drug tests - The NJSIAA, beginning with high school sports this fall, will randomly test athletes who qualify for team or individual state championships for more than 80 banned substances, including steroids. Although it's well-intentioned, the policy ought to be revised. Just as former Gov. Richard J. Codey stepped into this issue by signing an executive order to establish the testing, Gov. Jon Corzine ought to ensure the policy doesn't erode civil liberties. He should issue an executive order forcing participating high schools to ask parents to sign a release form before allowing kids to be tested. No adult can be forced, under the United States Constitution, to offer the government self-incriminating evidence.

• THE ORWELLIAN 'NEW FREEDOM' INITIATIVE: Normal Kids Labeled Mentally Ill - Despite years of public outcry, based on recommendations by President Bush’s New Freedom Commission to screen all school children for mental illness, TeenScreen is now being administered in the nation’s public school system and children are being regularly diagnosed with one, or more, disorders chosen from the close to 400 listed in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV" (DSM), also known as the psychiatric "Billing Bible."   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• MILITARY MEN AND WOMEN TAKE NOTE: Sickened Iraq vets cite depleted uranium - It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills _ morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves. Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done. Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.

• Life without free speech - What is it like to live in a country where the government decides what you can hear or say? It's a state of mind those who consider free speech a birthright really can't comprehend. And it's something Jamaicans could and would never tolerate. You only have to turn on the radio or walk through any town centre to realise that nothing gives Jamaicans greater pleasure than expressing their opinions as loudly as possible. No people on earth indulge more passionately their right to say whatever they please whenever they please.

Saturday 12th August 2006: -

• Texting study to catch criminals - The individual styles of hundreds of people's text messages will be analysed in a study that aims to help police with criminal investigations. Researchers will scrutinise volunteers' SMS messages to tease out patterns in the language and style of texts. The University of Leicester team hopes the work will yield tools that allow identification of a text author. Analysis of texts proved crucial in convicting Stuart Campbell of the murder of Danielle Jones in 2002.

• Leafleting Stone's 'World Trade Center' film - There will be a good opportunity to spread the 9/11 truth meme this week with the release of Oliver Stone's film "World Trade Center" on 1,871 screens nationwide. Total911.info has constructed the following leaflet for distribution at theaters screening the film. It can fit two to a page, draws a few quick points taken from the truthful anomalous information (or "clues") Stone places in the film, and directs the reader to websites for more information.

• 9/11 Activist William Rodriguez quits reopen911.org - Last Survivor and outspoken leader of the families of 9/11, William Rodriguez, resigned from reopen911.org where he was the spokesperson. Rodriguez said differences in beliefs, and his stance against the “no-planes/bluescreen technology” theory led to his decision.

• TREATING KIDS LIKE CRIMINALS: New Zealand Parents scare kids off crime with police ID database - Police are collecting samples of children's finger and palm prints, in a desperate bid by parents to scare their children off crime. Detective Inspector Malcolm Johnston -- who is in charge of the South Island's crime prints and forensics team -- said police had been collecting voluntary samples from youths nationwide for a juvenile print database, The Press reported today. "We do take a lot of voluntary juvenile fingerprints," he said. "Feedback from parents is that it's a wake-up call for the youths, and crime prevention."

• AUDIO DOWNLOAD: David Shayler on Resonance104.4fm, 11/08/2006. Thanks to Narinder for posting this!

• GARBAGE IN > GARBAGE OUT: Children doomed to obesity by 'toxic, addictive' fast-food - WESTERN diets of "addictive" foods, high in calories and low in fibre, are causing hormonal imbalances that encourage children to overeat, researchers said yesterday. Youngsters and their parents have faced a barrage of blame when it comes to the current childhood obesity epidemic. But Professor Robert Lustig, from the University of California, said changes in manufacturing processes were making food "toxic" and "addictive", leading to obesity.

• Call for skate park CCTV after broken glass cuts two year old boy: Oooooh its the end of the world, call the police - CALLS for a CCTV system at Ossett skate park have been renewed after a broken glass left by drinkers cut a two-year-old boy. The park, which cost £113,000 has attracted teenage drinkers who leave beer bottles on the site which can be a danger for skaters. Stephen Farrar, who has often cleaned up at the skate park, is now demanding CCTV after his son Oliver was cut by discarded glass.

Friday 11th August 2006: -

• Agent infiltrated terror cell, U.S. says: Two suspects in air terror plot left 'martyrdom tapes' - Terrorists were in the "final stages" of a plot to simultaneously blow up as many as 10 jets leaving Britain for the U.S., sending the planes and thousands of passengers into the Atlantic Ocean, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. British and Pakistani authorities teamed up to thwart the attacks, and 24 men were arrested in raids in Britain, authorities said Thursday.

• CNN's Amanpour Links 9/11 Truthers With Sky Terrorists: Says Muslims, "succumbing to the conspiracy theories" - CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour equated yesterday's alleged sky terrorist liquid explosive plotters with the 9/11 truth movement, the latest brazen attempt to vilify anyone who disagrees with the official 9/11 fairytale.

• New census could ask for income - People in England and Wales could be asked to declare how much they earn in the next national census, if the government approves the question. The Office for National Statistics is planning its first major pilot test in May 2007 - which will help shape the design for the next census in 2011.

• Surprise! Surprise! Sean Hannity And Newt Gingrich Try To Make Political Hay Out Of Averted Tragedy Of British Bomb Plot - It was another night of Republican guests, only, last night on “fair and balanced” FOX News’ Hannity & Colmes. Newt Gingrich, the first guest, did a double segment about the British bomb plot in which he acknowledged that “Five years after 9/11, we have no evidence that we’re winning this war.” But instead of criticizing the Bush administration – the ones setting policy and implementing it, wannabe-President Gingrich tried to make it sound as though all the failures were the fault of Democrats. Hannity, of course, was more than willing to do his part for the cause. Neither made any effort to unite the country during such a time of stress.

• Orwellian RFID Tracking Video Press Banned From Conference: AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS DENIES RFID USE Crisis PR Firm Disavows Incriminating Video on Eve of Major Conference - On the eve of a major RFID apparel and footwear conference, privacy activists are asking questions about an Orwellian industry video presentation depicting the use of Radio Frequency Identification at an American Eagle Outfitters store. The animated video, created by technology integrator CompEx Inc., depicts how a retailer could embed the controversial technology into clothing and credit cards to secretly identify and track consumers--even deliver targeted marketing messages.

Thursday 10th August 2006: -

• PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Bush knew of British plot Sunday; White House - US President George W. Bush knew as early as Sunday about the foiled plot to blow up airliners bound from Britain to the United States, the White House said Thursday.

• U.S. given early warning about plot - President Bush had been briefed over the last few days about the thwarted airline plot underway in Britain, a White House spokesman said today — "especially as the action by the Brits (to interrupt the plot) became more and more imminent,'' according to Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. Bush, who had gone to his Texas ranch for an 11-day working vacation, "had full briefings through the weekend'' on the matter, Snow said today.

• Muslims shocked but sceptical over terror plot - Muslim groups today reacted with a mixture of shock and scepticism at the announcement by police that they had broken up a major terrorist plot to bomb airliners. However Fahad Ansari of the Islamic Human Rights Commission said that many Muslims would be sceptical about the police statement. In the past high profile arrests – such as the Forest Gate raid or the alleged plot to bomb Old Trafford football stadium – had failed to produce any evidence of terrorist activity. “I think you will get cynicism from the community,” he said. “Over the last few years we have seen many high profile raids like this plastered over the press to terrify the public. We have seen it time and time again. It has been hit and miss on too many occasions. It is causing a lot of mass hysteria.”   (HEAVILY RELATED!: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

• MARTIAL LAW KICKS OFF: Airports battle new security threats - Air travel has been transformed since al-Qaeda hijackers seized aeroplanes to use as weapons on 11 September 2001. Across the world, airport operators and airlines have been forced to bring in increasingly stringent security measures to try to ensure safety in the air. But nothing has been as draconian as the steps taken in the UK following the discovery of a suspected plot to blow up several planes in mid-air. Passengers have been banned from taking any hand luggage bar the barest essentials on to flights leaving the UK.

• 'Foiled plane bomb plot suggestive of Qaeda'; Chertoff: (Yeah mate... whatever you say!) - The U.S. government raised the security alert on passenger planes and barred air travelers from carrying liquids on Thursday after Britain foiled a suspected al Qaeda plot to blow up flights to the United States. "While this operation was centered in Great Britain, it was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. "This operation is in some respects suggestive of an al Qaeda plot, but because the investigation is still under way, we cannot yet form a definitive conclusion. We're going to wait until all the facts are in."

RELEVANT QUOTE FROM GEORGE ORWELL'S NOVEL 'NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR'; Part2 Chapter5: "In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to keep people frightened'."

• Terror Plot: How Long Before It Turns Into BS Like Every Other Example? - Government enforcers and frightened slaves are all hot and bothered about the latest supposed terror plot targeting UK flights inbound to the US. How long before the whole saga turns out to be hoaxed BS like EVERY SINGLE OTHER major terror alert there has been? Ridiculous restrictions have been slapped on travelers, with mother's having to taste baby milk before they board planes and all hand luggage, including liquid drinks, being banned. The new alert arrives with the 9/11 truth movement on the cusp of a wave of media exposure.

• WORTH NOTING: Metals - Gold rises as UK terror alert triggers safe haven buying - Gold was higher, sparked by the heightened alert for terrorist activity at UK airports this morning. Trading got off to a chaotic start as news of the terror alert broke, and gold benefited from knee jerk safe haven type buying. The initial move was to push gold higher, consolidating the move above 650 usd/oz yesterday, said Simon Denham at Capital Spreads. The gains appear to be tapering off, however.

• More spy cameras pop up in public: More troubling to civil liberties advocates is absence of laws that govern surveillance - In an unprecedented proliferation of public spying, government is casting its watchful eye on millions of ordinary Americans through largely unregulated surveillance cameras trained on public spaces throughout the nation. A Scripps Howard News Service tally found that at least 200 towns and cities in 37 states now employ video cameras -- or are in the process of doing so -- to watch sidewalks, parks, schools, buses, buildings and similar locales.

• Americans don't know 9/11 year: poll - SOME 30 per cent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington took place, according to a poll published today in the Washington Post newspaper. While the country is preparing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks that claimed nearly 3000 lives and shocked the world, 95 per cent of Americans questioned in the poll were able to remember the month and the day of the attacks.   (COMMENTARY: What are your bets that the this is the same 30% that said 'No' in the recent CNN poll, mentioned in our headlines (further down the page) from the 08th August!?)

• Taxman wants power to fingerprint suspects - HM Revenue and Customs wants stronger powers to investigate tax crime including authority to take fingerprints to avoid delays in finding a police constable, the right to charge suspects, and simplified procedures for obtaining search warrants. A consultation document setting out how the powers and accompanying safeguards used in the investigation of tax crime could be modernised was published by HMRC yesterday.

• Drug searches help keep schools safe - Cindy Smith can’t forget the images of Goose Creek police storming the halls of Stratford High nearly three years ago, forcing students to lie face down on the floor while dogs sniffed their book bags and the students themselves. Her daughters don’t attend the school, but the Lexington County mother of two high school students joins thousands of S.C. parents who rely on school resource officers and administrators to keep their children’s schools safe and drug free. ...By law, everything is subject to a search when a person walks into a school building. That means a student’s book bag, locker and car are within an administrator’s rights to search.

• FLASHBACK ANALYSIS: Endless Fake Terror Alerts: Fear Based Mind Control - The ultimate form of control is fear and the fear that you could lose your life at any moment elicits a Pavlovian response towards those who claim they can protect you. Trauma based mind control is not a conspiracy theory and can be observed naturally after people have been subject to distress. The New World Order know this and that is why the U.S. and British governments issued a spate of fabricated terror alerts immediately after September 11 and continue to do so to this day. Concurrently we are reminded daily that it’s not a matter of if but when the next large terrorist attack occurs.

• LIKELY FALSE FLAG WARNING (Because they always are!): 'Plot to blow up planes' foiled - A terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said. It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled on aircraft in hand luggage. Police have arrested about 18 people in the London area after an anti-terrorist operation lasting several months. Security at all airports in the UK has been tightened and delays are reported. MI5 has raised the UK threat level to critical - the highest possible.   (RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

RELATED: See our 7/7 London Bombings archive

• 'Dayside' Audience Laughs at Lebanese Deaths - The audience for Fox News' "Dayside" sank to a new low on Tuesday (August 8, 2006) during discussion of the fighting along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Egged on by substitute host Steve Doocy (or Doocey as the chyron spelled it at one point), the audience literally laughed at the suffering of Lebanese civilians caught between Hezbollah and Israeli bombs.

• Clinics Use Tissue From Babies Killed in Abortions for Cosmetic Injections - Women from around the world are traveling to clinics in various locations that are now offering face lifts and cosmetic surgery using tissue from babies who have been killed by abortions. Pro-life advocates are strongly condemning the practice and saying the taking of human life is never warranted -- especially for such a self-serving purpose. Women like Susan Barrington, a 52-year-old housewife from England, are heading to places such as Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Moscow and Rotterdam to obtain the treatments.

Wednesday 09th August 2006: -

• Phone tap investigation widens - The police investigation into alleged phone tapping of the royal family has been expanded to "dozens of celebrities and cabinet ministers", according to the ITV News political editor Tom Bradby. Bradby, speaking on today's ITV1 12.30pm news bulletin, said the eight-month police investigation had been launched after details of a private meeting he had arranged with Prince William when he was ITV News royal correspondent appeared in the News of the World.

• UK TABLOID CONNECTS MINDSET OF PRO-7/7 TERRORISTS TO '9/11 TRUTHERS': TERROR THREAT 'BIG AS HITLER' - TERRORISTS pose the greatest threat to Britain since Adolf Hitler, Home Secretary John Reid will warn today. In a major speech on security, Mr Reid will say the danger from al-Qaeda is serious and severe. ***ARTICLE CONTINUES*** ...Mr Reid's speech comes in the wake of a survey that, showed almost a quarter of British Muslims think the 7/7 bombings can be justified. And 45 per cent say the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy ' between the US and Israel.

• 9/11 Hit Pieces Get Just Plain Stupid: Part 1: Writing "nonsense," and giving the word its own paragraph is not a satisfactory rebuttal - Recent advances in the public profile of the 9/11 truth movement, owed in part to C-Span's airing of the American Scholars Symposium and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center movie, have provoked a slurry of new hit pieces against 9/11 truth activists. Most are characterized by their twilight zone illogicality and inability to get basic facts correct.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive & our website 911truthskipton.com)

• The West Yorkshire Truth Campaign - Act now to end the atrocities. Expose the lies upon which the current wars are founded - 9/11,7/7 ad infinitum. Mass murder and genocide in the Middle East. Civil rights negated at home. Staged ‘terror’ events the order of the day. Next meeting of the group at the Just Church, 2 Ashgrove, Great Horton Road,Bradford on 24th August at 7.15 pm. Opposite the main University buildings.

• Alachua County school resource officers are carrying tasers - School resource officers in will be armed with tasers at high schools around Alacua County. Spokesman for Alachua County Sheriff's office Keith Faulk says they have been carrying them for a few years now, but haven't had a situation in which on was used.

• Lebanon government joins forces with bid to have Blair tried in Scotland for war crimes - THE Lebanese government is working behind the scenes to bring Tony Blair before the Scottish courts, charged with war crimes for aiding and abetting the Israeli onslaught against Lebanon. Ali Berro, the Lebanese government’s special adviser on legal affairs, is assisting Lebanese nationals living in Scotland, and their legal team, in their attempt to take the Scottish Executive and the UK government to court for allowing US aircraft to fly “bunker-buster bombs” from America to Israel via Scottish airports.

Tuesday 08th August 2006: -

• Former torture memo writer says some liberties must be sacrificed - John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped draft memos on treatment of terrorist prisoners, said Monday that in wartime, the question is not whether to give up civil liberties but "how much is enough." Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, drew attention at an American Bar Association convention panel on whether tactics such as the detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and the surveillance of phone calls may erode liberties. Unlike past conflicts, the United States isn't at war with any traditional nation state, Yoo said, but is at war with the al-Qaida terrorist network, and officials are trying to adapt the rules of war to these new circumstances.

• AOL publishes database of users' intentions: Apologizes for exposing search data - AOL apologized for releasing keyword search information from about 658,000 anonymous AOL users Monday, amid growing criticism from privacy rights advocates. AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc., released information on about 20 million searches from 658,000 users of its AOL software over a three-month period.

• Military court hears of combat stress in Iraq rape case - A U.S. military court deciding whether four soldiers should be court-martialled for rape and murder heard on Tuesday how troops were "driven nuts" by combat stress and got high on Iraqi cough syrup. Private First Class Justic Cross described how conditions "pretty much crushed the platoon", which lived in constant fear of being killed in the Mahmudiya area south of Baghdad where the rape and murders took place in March.

• Were You 'Outraged' at 9/11 Panel? - The looming five-year anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks has triggered new efforts to fill in the gaps (or twist the facts) of the well-studied history of that day. My current/former colleagues Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins have penned a book looking critically at Mayor Giuliani's performance. Sen. John McCain and Popular Mechanics are "debunking" claims made by the 9-11 truth movement. And now Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton are hyping a sure-to-be-bestseller about how their 2004 bestseller, The 9/11 Commission Report, was in many important ways a whitewash.

• NEW CNN POLL: Do you believe alternative theories for the September 11, 2001, attacks are credible? - Click here to vote.    (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive & our website 911truthskipton.com)

Monday 07th August 2006: -

• Conspiracy theorists just aren't buying 9/11 story - Kevin Barrett believes the U.S government might have destroyed the World Trade Center. Steven Jones is researching what he calls evidence that the twin towers were brought down by explosives detonated inside them, not by hijacked airliners. These men aren't uneducated junk scientists: Barrett will teach a class on Islam at the University of Wisconsin this fall, over the protests of more than 60 state legislators. Jones is a tenured physicist at Brigham Young University whose job has made him a hero to conspiracy theorists.

• 9-11 Truth Movement: Focus or Die - These next few months may be the most critical time in the history of the 9-11 truth movement. We stand on the brink of a nuclear world war. The potential for a staged terror attack and subsequent invasion of Iran & Syria has never loomed larger. This, while Israel continues to offer a back-door entry into WW III with their daily massacres in Lebanon and Gaza, urging the desperate neocon fascists to join them in the march toward Apocalypse.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive)

• Antidepressants Prove Addictive to Some - When Gina O'Brien decided she no longer needed drugs to quell her anxiety and panic attacks, she followed doctor's orders by slowly tapering her dose of the antidepressant Paxil. The gradual withdrawal was supposed to prevent unpleasant symptoms that can result from stopping antidepressants cold turkey. But it didn't work. "I felt so sick that I couldn't get off my couch," O'Brien said. "I couldn't stop crying."  Overwhelmed by nausea and uncontrollable crying, she felt she had no choice but to start taking the pills again. More than a year later the Michigan woman still takes Paxil, and expects to be on it for the rest of her life.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

• It's safety first as schools reopen - Kathy Strickland of Petal has never felt that her two children are in danger while at school. But Strickland said she is glad that the city's public school district is taking steps - a new drug dog, upgraded security cameras and a new school police officer - to ensure all schools are safer this year. "The security is great," said Strickland, who has a ninth- and seventh-grader attending Petal schools. "I think the drug dogs are a good idea - anything they can do to make campus safer."

• Widening Concern Over Chinese Organ Transplantation: American ethicist calls for moratorium on collaboration with deadly system - A medical ethicist inspired by the Kilgour-Matas report about organ harvesting from living Falun Gong adherents wishes to change the way the world's academic and medical institutions relate to China. In a statement affirming the findings of the Kilgour-Matas report, Dr. Kirk C. Allison, associate director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine at the University of Minnesota, calls upon academic and medical institutions not to collaborate with organ transplantation and research in China.   (RELATED: See our archive Chinas Sale of Human Organs)

• Reuters admits altering Beirut photo - A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage. The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.   (RELATED: See our Ministry of Truth archive)

• A technology growing right at everyone's fingertips - Pay for the groceries, lock the house, start the car, check in at a doctor’s office or log on to a laptop. There’s so much the swipe of a fingertip can do. An evolving digital tool, biometric-fingerprint technology holds the promise of replacing or lessening reliance on everyday necessities such as credit cards, key chains and passwords. It even helps registered travelers get through security at Orlando International Airport.   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• Formerly secret files show coverup of Vietnam atrocities - B Company had lost five men in a firefight the previous day. The morning of Feb. 8, 1968, brought unwelcome orders to resume a sweep of a green patchwork of rice paddies along Vietnam's central coast. The men met no resistance as they entered a nondescript settlement in Quang Nam province. So medic Jamie Henry, 20, set his rifle down in a hut, unfastened his bandoliers and lighted a cigarette. The voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He had rounded up 19 civilians and wanted to know what to do. Henry recalled the company commander's response: "Kill anything that moves." Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the shooting began. Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.

• Twin Towers wreckage turning up all over the place - And you thought all the 9/11 WTC wreckage was swept up in eight months and sent to be smelted in foreign countries or secret places in our own strange land, right? And that the rest of the rubble was buried in Fresh Kills (appropriate name), Staten Island. So did I. But now it turns out last remains of the Towers are being stored in an 80,000-square-foot hangar at JFK International Airport in New York. Ain’t that a kick in the head?

• Hong Kong Passes Controversial Spy Bill - Hong Kong's legislature on Sunday passed a law regulating phone tapping and other surveillance measures, a move critics fear will curtail civil liberties in the former British colony now ruled by China. Hong Kong's pro-democracy opposition of 25 members boycotted the vote, staging a walkout. The measure passed 32-0 after a marathon debate that began Wednesday.   (RELATED: See our Total Global Surveillance archive)

• Several states ban Coke and Pepsi - After an environmental group claimed that Pepsi and Coke are contaminated with pesticides more and more states are banning the colas. Today, the Gujarat University banned the drinks in campus of over over 600 colleges and 1000 schools. The Rajasthan Assembly has also stopped sales in their canteen.

Sunday 06th August 2006: -

• ID card fee could make government a profit - TONY BLAIR’S identity card scheme could make up to £11 billion in “profits” for the government by imposing a range of additional charges on the public, a confidential Home Office memo claims. The document says that the “unit cost” at today’s prices will be £55 for a card and £90 for a combined card and passport. The fee for non-British citizens is £143.

• New cameras to keep eye on bus riders - With each of their 122 buses now loaded with four digital cameras, Hinds County school officials expect top-notch behavior from students on buses this year. The Clinton and Jackson school districts also will be switching to digital from videocassette systems. The cameras should be more reliable tattletales of what happens during the commute. Hinds County is installing the cameras because bus discipline is one of the district's biggest challenges.

• ID plans: powers set to widen - Gordon Brown is considering exploiting the commercial potential of the proposed ID scheme in order to fund a massive expansion of the programme, it was reported last night. The Chancellor, far from being sceptical about the proposed identity card and database, is exploring a range of private-sector applications. He is said to be convinced that biometric ID schemes will be introduced by the private sector, regardless of government decisions. Standardising the official ID card and any commercial schemes would drive down the cost and enable greater data sharing between police and firms. For example, police could be alerted as soon as a wanted person used a biometric-enabled cash card or even entered a building via an iris-scan door.

Saturday 05th August 2006: -

• 9/11 panel heads say Rudy got off easy - The two chairmen of the 9/11 Commission say in a new book they were intimidated by angry New Yorkers from grilling Rudy Giuliani on the city's organizational failures and called it the "low point" of their probe. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton state in "Without Precedent" that they let the former mayor off the hook.

• ANOTHER WEAK-ARSED PATRONISING HIT-PIECE ON THE 9/11 TRUTH MOVEMENT: Disturbing trend of 9/11 skeptics; No longer the nutty fringe - Conspiracy theorists are never satisfied with the most straightforward explanation for a tragedy. They demand layer upon layer of complexity to feed their fantasy that world events are manipulated by small groups of utterly amoral insiders. Still, it is striking that a new poll finds more than a third - 36 percent of Americans - believe it is probable that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were an "inside job," that U.S. government officials either abetted the attacks or did nothing to stop them. It is one thing when a nutty fringe refuses to accept the official version of an event that has been the subject of exhaustive investigation. But one-third of the nation subscribing to such nonsense? It's enough to give those of us still anchored in reality a case of the chills.   (COMMENTARY: Full of the usual tired stereotypes and condemnation for looking at the evidence (or lack thereof).  I always like it when such writers slag off the idea that quote: "...world events are manipulated by small groups of utterly amoral insiders".  Surely such a denial is to deny the very existence of Fascism.  A small elite in control of 'the many' who are forced to live in bondage and servitude under the rule of that elite.  Nope, it don't exist... never has! - RELATED: See our website 911truthskipton.com)

• Speed camera that tells you off but doesn't take away your cash - SPEED cameras are to be replaced at roadworks with devices that shame drivers into slowing down by displaying their numberplates on a roadside screen. Trials on the M42 near Birmingham found the devices were more effective than speed cameras at making drivers comply with the limit, even though no penalties were issued. A laser measures the speed of each approaching vehicle and, if it is breaking the limit, triggers an automatic numberplate recognition camera. Within half a second, the numberplate appears in bright lights on a screen, with a flashing message telling the driver to slow down.

• Radioactive patients set off airport alarms - PATIENTS who have had radiotherapy are triggering radiation alarms at airports, doctors have warned. Radiation treatment is frequently used to treat cancers and thyroid conditions.

• 9/11 Symposium Most Popular C-Span Show - The June 2006 L.A. American Scholars Symposium is still the most popular online streaming choice for C-Span viewers, according to their companion Capital News website. The 9/11 truth symposium, hosted by Alex Jones, featured numerous credible researchers and whistleblowers - as well as a speech by actor Charlie Sheen. The program, carried under the banner of C-Span's 'American Perspectives' slot, caused waves across the Internet after debuting last weekend and repeating a further three times.

• Hugo Chavez Compares U.S. to 'Dracula,' Israel to 'Hitler' - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday blasted Israel for its attacks against Lebanon and Palestinians, comparing its operations to those of Hitler. In an interview with Qatar-based Al Jazeera television, Chavez also slammed U.S. backing for Israel, describing Washington as a "Dracula always searching for oil and blood".

• School Resource Officers Train With Taser Guns - Jacksonville's first day of classes on Monday will also be the first day of Tasers in school buildings. School resource officers will begin carrying the weapons under a policy introduced by Sheriff John Rutherford, who said the Tasers would be used only as a last resort. The school officers recently finished their training, which included learning the rules for when the 50,000-volt Taser would be called for.

• Qana 1996 - EXTREMELY GRAPHIC - As they collect the bodies of babies, dismembered and decapitated, they shout in Arabic "See - this is American civilization!" Ten years later, it has happened all over again and is happening now. Americans are deluded if they think that they will be spared this treatment by those who find it easy to do this to other human beings. If the fact that they're human didn't save them, the fact that we're American won't save us. Sooner or later, by one excuse or another, we will be next.

• Israel: Did Blair know all along? - Tony Blair, who has delayed his holiday to Barbados, is facing claims that he knew Israel's attack on Lebanon was coming but did not try to stop it as he conceded yesterday that his Cabinet is divided over his stance on the Middle East. The New Statesman magazine reported that Israel informed President Bush in advance of its plans to 'destroy' Hezbollah by bombing villages in southern Lebanon - and the Americans promptly informed Britain.

• Antibiotic suspected of killing three, sickening 47 in China - Health officials have recalled about one million doses of an antibiotic that is suspected of killing at least three people and sickening 47 others across China, state media said on Saturday. The victims were injected with clindamycin phosphate glucose produced in the past two months by a pharmaceutical plant in the eastern province of Anhui, the health ministry said.

• Processed meats raise stomach cancer risk: researchers - Eating more processed meats such as bacon, sausage and smoked ham increases the risk of stomach cancer, Swedish scientists said Wednesday. A review of 15 studies showed the risk of developing stomach cancer rose by 15 to 38 percent if consumption of processed meats increased by 30 grams (1 ounce) per day, the Karolinska Institute said in a statement. Stomach cancer accounts for nearly one-tenth of total deaths from cancer, the institute said.

Friday 04th August 2006: -

• Explosive risks in RFID-enabled passports - Security experts speaking today at Blackhat 2006 warned about potential vulnerabilities in RFID-enabled passports. Criminals can identify very specific passports from several meters away - which creates a whole new threat: Security firm Flexilis claims that terrorists could build explosives that would detonate in the proximity of certain passports.

• Public kept in dark over ID cards say MPs - TWO separate reports have accused the Government of keeping the public in the dark over its controversial ID cards scheme. The Home Office claim that the project would cost half that predicted by independent researchers has also come under fire. Plans for the cards were "inconsistent" and "lacking clarity" about how they might be used, according to a Commons select committee report out today. Meanwhile, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas found analysis of the scheme was being unfairly kept secret and ordered details to be made public. The latest setback to hit ID cards, due to be introduced in two years, came as Tony Blair insisted at his monthly press conference he would press on with them.

• Entire Lebanese family killed in Israeli attack on hospital - An attack on a hospital, the killing of an entire Lebanese family, the seizure of five men in Baalbek and a new civilian death toll - 468 men, women and children - marked the 22nd day of Israel's latest war on Lebanon. The Israelis claimed that helicopter-borne soldiers had seized senior Hizbollah leaders although one of them turned out to be a local Baalbek grocer. In a village near the city, Israeli air strikes killed the local mayor's son and brother and five children in their family.

Thursday 03rd August 2006: -

• Schools to scan for knives at gates - SCHOOLCHILDREN in Birmingham are set to be scanned with metal detectors to prevent them taking knives into the classroom. Amid fears of a growing knife culture amongst the young, talks have now taken place between senior education officers and Government officials to clear the way to use a mobile metal detection service at school gates. The equipment, like that used in airport security checks, would enable schools to catch pupils who insist on carrying a blade.

• Child online safety card launched: Net-ID-me will ‘substantially reduce risk’, says founder - A virtual ID card designed to keep children safe while they’re surfing the net has been launched in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. The Net-ID-me is a secure electronic identity card that displays the user’s first name, age, gender, and general location. It can be swapped by children online when using chatrooms, instant messaging and social networks.

• Terror raid probe clears marksman - The shooting of one of the two brothers arrested during the controversial Forest Gate anti-terror raid was an "accident" and no offence was committed, the police watchdog said. The gun went off as a result of contact on a narrow staircase between the police officer and Mohammed Abdul Kahar, the man who was shot in the shoulder, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said. "In the circumstances I conclude that the officer has committed no criminal or disciplinary offence," IPCC Commissioner Deborah Glass said. There was "no evidence" of intent or recklessness on the part of the firearms officer and no evidence to support claims that the gun was fired by one of the brothers, the IPCC's report revealed.

• Bill would ban chip implantation in employees - State Sen. Robert Schuler (R -- 7th District) recently introduced a bill that would prevent companies from implanting microchips in their employees without their consent. The Employee Privacy Protection Bill comes as an answer to the company CityWatcher.com's use of radio frequency identification tags in two employees. The Walnut Hills-based security company came under fire in February after it was discovered that Chief Executive Officer Sean Darks and another unnamed employee were injected in the forearm with a VeriChip.

• Fingerprint Kits Free for National Night Out - Asheville Police set up a central location to meet and greet during National Night Out. Kids in awe over the fire truck probably have no idea why they came to check one out in the back of a Target parking lot. Five or ten years from now the children may not be so interested in big red fire trucks-- but at least they'll have a record of their fingerprints-- thanks to mom and National Night Out. Angela Ballard/Parent: "It's every mothers fear to lose a child so we got fingerprints and stuff like that."

• Weapons amnesty will not affect crime gangs, admits Minister - An amnesty which allows people to hand in firearms without fear of prosecution will not lead to any significant reduction in the arsenals of Irish crime gangs, according to the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell. The amnesty will operate during September and October ahead of the introduction of new minimum mandatory jail sentences for firearms offences. Other measures aimed at tackling organised crime and increasing detention powers for gardaí under the Criminal Justice Act 2006 came into effect.   (RELATED: See our Disarmed and Enslaved archive)

• Snoop Camera Use Spreads - Smile, you're probably on camera, co-starring in a video you didn't even know exists. Big Brother has his eyes trained on public spaces all over the place - show up and you'll become an instant mug shot. According to Scripps Howard News Service, Americans are under watch by between 10 and 100 cameras a day - depending on where they live. Warns Scripps, the way things are going, unless you're home or in a public restroom or locker room, you're probably on some snoop's camera.

Wednesday 02nd August 2006: -

• Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy - More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they "personally are more angry" at the government than they used to be.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and also our recently launched UK based regional website 911truthskipton.com)

• Three Halesowen Children Arrested for Tree Climbing - Three Halesowen children were taken into custody by police, locked up and had their DNA sampled for climbing a tree in hopes they could build a tree house. The children were all aged 12 and spent several hours in custody. Police arrested the children based on complaints that children were stripping all the branches from the cherry tree. The children do admit that they did remove some branches, but did not think they were doing anything wrong. Superintendent Stuart Johnson commented, "West Midlands Police deals robustly with anti-social behavior. By targeting what may seem relatively low-level crime we aim to prevent it developing into more serious matters."

• 9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes - How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up. VF.com exclusive: Hear excerpts from the September 11 NORAD tapes.

• BOMBS IN THE 'WORLD TRADE CENTER' MOVIE?: See for yourself - Though Oliver Stone stated that his film wasn't about reinforcing the government's version of events behind 9/11 or exploring the many unanswered questions, this clip suggests that Stone was at least aware of the reports of firefighters and others inside the buildings who reported incendiaries and bombs exploding before the collapse: -

• 9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon: Allegations Brought to Inspectors General - Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

• India has arrested 21 Pakistani spies - minister - India has arrested 21 Pakistani spies in the last 18 months, and busted 31 cells run by its western neighbour's powerful military intelligence agency, the ISI, the government said on Wednesday. "The government has been pursuing a well-coordinated and multi-pronged approach to tackle the activities of ISI," Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal told parliament... Some security officials have hinted the ISI played a role in the recent Mumbai serial bombings, that killed 186 people.   (RELATED: See our Problem > Reaction > Solution archive for more background info)

• Advocating Massacre: An Insight Into The NeoCon Mind Set: "Bomb 'em all and let God sort 'em out", by Steve Watson - Today I received an email that I think quite succinctly sums up the Neocon brainwashing that the world has been subjected to over the last few years. It has come to the point now where we can write articles saying bombing the life out of tiny babies and innocent children is wrong and there will be people in America who disagree.

• New Monopoly game goes cashless - In a sign that a cashless society may slowly be edging closer to reality, Hasbro Inc. has introduced a new version of Monopoly that features a debit card rather than the colourful paper money that has been a staple of the board game for the past 71 years. A cashless version of the game that has seen more than 200 million copies sold has been unveiled in the U.K. -- with plans to roll it out to Canada and the U.S. next year. It features a mock debit card that is inserted into a plastic device which displays the cash balance of each player.   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• UCSD Biometric Vending Machine - Grad students at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) are creating the first biometric vending machine. The current machine comes equipped with a barcode scanner, a fingerprint reader, and a web cam for facial recognition. One student dubbed it the "most over-designed soda machine in the world." The project, code-named "SodaVision," is the brainchild of associate professor Stefan Savage, but it was the students who really made it come to life. And yes, it runs Linux.

• Book traces autism rise to mercury in vaccines - Earlier this spring, I watched with interest as area parents and children walked to raise money for autism research. The community really came out and supported these parents to help find a cure. At this time, I was receiving almost weekly updates from Drs. Russell Blaylock and Paul Connett on the effects of mercury poisoning in the brain. For anyone interested in this subject, Google the name Boyd Haley, the leading expert in the world on mercury toxicity, and look for his open letter to Congressman Dan Burton's House Reform Committee investigation on autism. I think any parent and/or teacher should read Dr. Haley's writings on this subject and should pick up The New York Times Bestseller "Evidence of Harm - Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy," by David Kirby.   (RELATED: See our Compromised Health archive)

Tuesday 01st August 2006: -

• Britain says faces "severe" terrorist threat - Britain launched a new security alert system on Tuesday, ranking the terrorist threat to the country as "severe" and saying an attack was highly likely. It was the first time the government had published such information. Until now, it has argued that doing so would cause unnecessary alarm. But faced with growing criticism that it was failing to spell out the threat from groups like al Qaeda, the government has decided to follow the lead of other countries and introduce a graded alert system.

• How modern-day menace shut the Cold War's secret mountain: Norad now obsolete as threat shifts from nuclear bombs to terrorism - ITS dark and sinister world, buried deep in a mountain in the Colorado desert, was once the stuff of nightmares for a generation raised on the terrors of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War. But when the 25-ton steel blast doors clang shut on Cheyenne Mountain, they will close on a bygone nuclear era all but eclipsed by new and different threats, from suicide hijackers to terrorists with suitcase dirty bombs.

• NEW FREEDOM: Normal Kids Labeled Mentally Ill - Despite years of public outcry, based on recommendations by President Bush's New Freedom Commission to screen all school children for mental illness, TeenScreen is now being administered in the nation's public school system and children are being regularly diagnosed with one, or more, disorders chosen from the close to 400 listed in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV" (DSM), also known as the psychiatric "Billing Bible."

• Child abuse ignored - THE State Government has failed to investigate thousands of cases of suspected child abuse because of spiralling demand and a shortage of staff and resources. More than two years after the foster care inquiry, figures show that as at June 30 there were almost 12,000 investigations and assessments of child abuse reports still to be finalised. Of those, 4544 – or more than one in three – had not even been allocated a case worker by the Child Safety Department.

• Bush Admin May Have Violated 26 Statutes, Dems Say - The Bush administration may have broken over two dozen federal laws and regulations -- some of them multiple times -- according to an unreleased report from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats. "The misconduct I have found is not only serious, but widespread," reads a draft summary of the report by Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI).

• Airport curb on US 'bomb flights' - US military flights carrying bombs to Israel will no longer use any civilian airports in the UK, the BBC has learnt. The decision follows criticism of the use of Prestwick Airport near Glasgow to refuel flights suspected of carrying bombs to Israel. It has emerged that in future only military airfields will be used.

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