31st DECEMBER 2005: -

• Brit millionaire marries a dolphin! - In a highly unusual wedding, a 41-year-old British millionaire has tied the knot publicly with her 35-year-old sweetheart, a dolphin from the famous Eilat dolphin reef, a media report said. Sharon Tendler, a British rock concert producer, met the dolphin, Cindy, 15 years ago and developed a liking resulting in two to three annual visits every year to spend some time with her underwater love, daily Yediot Ahronoth reported.

• Catholic church and abuse victims' lawyers talk settlement - The Boston Archdiocese cannot afford to pay as much on average for the latest round of clergy sexual abuse claims as it did two years ago when it settled more than 550 claims. The archdiocese has offered to settle 100 claims for between $5,000 to $200,000 per claim, depending on the severity of the abuse, for a total of $7.5 million, or an average of $75,000 per claimant, according to lawyers for both the plaintiffs and the archdiocese.

30th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Ex-Ambassador publishes documents - A former British ambassador has published secret documents which he claims prove the UK knowingly received intelligence extracted under torture from prisoners of a brutal dictatorship. Craig Murray, who was removed as ambassador to Uzbekistan after going public over his concerns about torture in the central Asian state, published the internal Foreign Office (FCO) memos on his Internet website.

• Fatty foods raise type 2 diabetes risk - Fatty diets have been widely recognized as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. A new U.S. study, published in the Dec. 29 issue of the journal Cell, suggests that a high fat diet or Western diet may cause type 2 diabetes in humans by disrupting insulin production.

• Jet pilot leaves drunken passenger on tiny island - An inebriated passenger on a jet that took off from England has been dumped on a tiny volcanic island in the Atlantic after he launched a foul-mouthed tirade at the crew. The unwilling Robinson Crusoe can only leave Porto Santo, a tiny patch of land off the North African coast, if he books a 2.5-hour ferry trip to Madeira. He will then have to book a flight to his original destination, Tenerife, or return to England.

• Officials: Post-9/11 CIA effort now a behemoth - Most components, including divisive interrogations and secret prisons, continue despite broad criticism - The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al-Qaida has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.

• A Summary of World War Events in 2005: By Michael B. Haupt - While there are many newsworthy events of 2005, reviewed below are only those relevant to the Planned World War 3. At first reading, this is a pretty depressing view of a world sliding down a slippery slope, particularly if we extrapolate past events into the future. 2006 may turn out to be an extremely depressing year.

• Russians riveted by TV mini-series - During the Christmas holidays, more than half the population of Russia has been transfixed by a television mini-series that depicts Satan committing murder in Moscow. The Master and Margarita is an adaptation of a Mikhail Bulgakov novel written in the 1930s. The book weaves together three plot lines: the devil and his entourage wreaking chaos in 1930s Moscow, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the struggle of two lovers trying to reunite. It's a thinly-disguised satire of Josef Stalin's brutal dictatorship.

• Today's toys 'will make kids fat' - WELSH gym teachers are warning that this year's most popular Christmas presents will help to make our children fat. They say that while decades ago children wished for bicycles, skateboards or cricket bats, this year's stockings are more likely to have bulged with MP3 players, games consoles and DVDs. And the trend for indoor, rather than outdoor presents, has got the PE instructors of Wales worried.

29th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Navigating future for road charges - Motorists are already beginning to embrace the idea of satellite-navigation units in cars. And in a few years, sat-nav will be doing far more than simply telling drivers how to get to their destination. This week, the first test satellite in Europe's 3.4bn-euro (£2.3bn; $4bn) Galileo satellite-navigation system blasted off on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The final global network of 30 Galileo satellites is crucial to providing the high volumes of time- and location-based data needed for new services such as advanced sat-nav, mobile location data, natural disaster surveillance and air traffic control.

• PERSPECTIVE: German charged over 'Chile abuse' - A German woman who worked as a doctor at a commune-like camp in Chile has been charged with torturing children. A Chilean judge said Gisela Seewald had confessed to giving electric shocks and sedatives to children at the secretive German enclave of Colonia Dignidad. She said the abuses were ordered by the enclave's founder, former Nazi soldier Paul Schaefer, who is also in custody. Mr Schaefer is facing charges of child abuse and aiding human rights abuses during Chile's military dictatorship.

• Sir Knight's New Book: Revelation 'WWW. is 666,' Ends Great Bible Mystery - W in ancient Hebrew was used to write numerals. W’s could be written to represent a 6, 16, 66, 616, or 666. This “Language of God” was used to write the Ten Commandments and most of the Old Testament. W in Modern Hebrew can still be used to write a three. John wrote the last book of the Bible around 95 A.D. in Koin'e Greek, but specifically named two “key” Hebrew words to demonstrate his knowledge of the language, that wisdom unlocked this mystery.   (COMMENTARY: If there is any truth behind the notion that 'www' is a numerological code for '666', then I would suggest that this is not necessarily due to the prophetic power of the Bible, but rather that those who believe in the 'Fire and Brimstone' ending of the good book as their destiny (a.k.a. the New World Order Beast System).  These guys are heavily into the Occult and love to flash their hidden codes, symbols and numbers into the faces of what they see as the 'profane'.  See our 'Occult' section for more information on this.

• Illegal CIA abductions, followed by flights to nations that torture, impair our ability to defeat terrorism - When 22 CIA operatives seized an Egyptian cleric in Milan, Italy, in February 2003, according to Italian investigators, they left their cell phones enabled. Because mobile phones periodically send a signal revealing their phone number and position, the Italian authorities were able to identify the American agents and track their movements.

• Student stands up to pledge - A high school junior has sued the Palm Beach County School Board, claiming he was ridiculed and punished for refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. Cameron Frazier, with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, is challenging the school district and Florida law that require students to show written permission from their parents before declining to recite the pledge. Teacher Cynthia Alexandre called the 17-year-old student ''so ungrateful and so un-American'' after he twice refused to stand for the pledge in her classroom Nov. 8, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.

• French Engineer Abducted by Fake Iraqi Terrorists - We are expected to believe the Iraqi resistance is not only vicious, but also uninterested in repairing the damage inflicted on its country by the neocon invasion. It runs around abducting Christian peace activists, western journalists, Sudanese and Moroccan embassy employees, and people from countries that opposed Bush’s invasion.

• Vitamin D may lessen cancer risk - Research showing that a large daily dose of vitamin D can dramatically lower the risk of developing common cancers was given a cautious welcome. US researchers found that the "natural" form of the vitamin, known as D3, could dramatically reduce the chances of developing breast, ovarian and colon cancer, as well as others, by up to 50%.

• WILL N.M. BE FIRST STATE TO BAN ASPARTAME? - One of the most rewarding things about being part of the ever-growing health freedom movement, is that there is always an upside to what often looks like a bleak and losing battle against the monolith we call “modern medicine”. In addition, some of the people you meet, even if only by phone or by e-mail, turn out to be spectacular human beings that reaffirm your faith in your fellow man. In short, ordinary people can do extraordinary things when put to the test.

28th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Chirac offered to help US film-makers - US magazine Newsweek has said that French President Jacques Chirac offered to help the makers of 'The Da Vinci Code' to film in the Louvre museum in Paris. Newsweek has reported that Mr Chirac had an hour-long meeting with producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard in December last year. The magazine also claimed that the French President suggested the filmmakers cast his daughter's best friend in the leading female role. The role went to leading French actress Audrey Tautou instead.

• Australian Government considers ID card - PHILIP Ruddock is treating the controversial national identity card as the "the next cab off the rank" for the Howard Government's security agenda following the passage of its tough anti-terrorism laws. The Attorney-General will present the findings of a departmental review of the new Australia Card proposal to cabinet early next year.

• Comedy of terror: Tony Blair, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, you're my prize guys - Well the end of the year is as good a time as any to distribute prizes. And first is the Gary Glitter Cup for Self-Restraint, to Tony Blair. It can't have been an easy couple of years for him, and yet he has somehow managed to keep that smile on his lips and that cheerful sparkle in his eye with a degree of self-restraint that impressed the judges. Over the past two years, Tony has seen all his Iraq policies turn into unmitigated disasters. Instead of his stated aim of bringing peace and happiness to the people of Iraq, he has brought them chaos, bloodshed, violence and misery. Instead of making Britain safer, his policies have made this country a target for terrorism for the foreseeable future.   (COMMENTARY: Yeah, like Tony doesn't know that already!)

• Customers help stamp out Turkey's sex slaves - An unlikely hero has emerged in Turkey to rescue victims of forced prostitution: the brothel customer. While the country's security forces are hardly renowned for their attention to human rights or sympathetic treatment of women, they have been chalking up impressive successes in finding and freeing trafficked women from brothels.

• Xtreme Wheels Teams with Buffalo Police for Kids' ID Card Program - A local business is teaming up with police to help keep kids safe. The Xtreme Wheels indoor skate park was the backdrop Monday for Operation Child Safe. The Buffalo Police program offers parents free photo ID cards of their children. Deborah Gasper, the mother of a 7-year-old, said, "They're taking his fingerprints and his photo so that we'll have a little card, so if something, God forbid, were to happen, we'd be able to find my son."

• Tories ambush Blair on identity cards - Tory and Liberal Democrat peers are preparing a New Year ambush for Tony Blair's flagship identity card scheme that could seriously undermine the legislation. They are confident of watering down the Government's plans by making it voluntary rather than effectively compulsory to register on a new national database, which will include biometric data such as iris scans, facial images and fingerprints.

27th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Iraqis condemn 'election fraud' - Thousands of Iraqis have staged a protest in Baghdad about results from the recent parliamentary elections, which they say were tainted by fraud. Demonstrators chanted slogans alleging the polls were rigged in favour of the governing Shia religious bloc. Some politicians have been calling for a campaign of civil disobedience if their complaints about the election are not properly investigated.

• Jails handover on hold after abuse of detainees - US MILITARY commanders will not hand over prisons or detainees to the Iraqi Government until it begins treating prisoners better, officials in Baghdad said yesterday. The decision comes after Sunni protests that inmates are tortured in prisons run by the Shia-led Interior Ministry, and the discovery of 120 beaten detainees in two jails this month.

• Greeks name MI6 chief over 'torture of terror suspects' - THE Government tried last night to block the naming of an MI6 officer alleged to have orchestrated the torture of terrorist suspects in Greece. It issued a warning to media organisations after a leading Athens newspaper identified the British intelligence officer and 15 Greek agents, alleging that they took part in the arrest and abuse of 28 Pakistan-born detainees who were held in connection with the July 7 bombings in London.

26th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Doc Makes Candid Comments on HIV Vaccine - In an unusually candid admission, the federal chief of AIDS research says he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for the HIV and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one. And that means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing new medicines and bringing them to market.

• Food Tax Sends Tenn. Shoppers Out of State - When Julie Abel goes grocery shopping each week, she drives more than 25 miles to Georgia to avoid paying the nation's highest average tax on food: 8.4 percent in Tennessee. "If you can save $5 it is worth driving down the road," Abel said after traveling from her rural home in Hamilton County, which collects 2.22 percent sales tax on food on top of the 6 percent for the state. Georgia does not tax food sales.

• California City Swaps Gifts for Guns - "Big Daddy" Willis came to Compton to turn an illegal homemade pistol into Christmas dinner. Charlene Watt planned to turn three shotguns into a plasma TV. The two were among dozens of gun-toting residents who converged on a shopping center parking lot Saturday to anonymously swap firearms for gift certificates as part of a program aimed at reducing violence in this crime-plagued city. Each was rewarded with a $100 gift card for Circuit City or the Ralphs supermarket chain, the program's co-sponsors.

• Man shot by Taser, dies later: Victim was shouting in intersection - An unarmed man who was zapped by police with a Taser died after his heart stopped on the way to hospital. Witnesses say police Tasered the man at a south-side intersection on Christmas Eve after he began shouting that he was being attacked by bees. They say the well-dressed man in his mid-30s was yelling for help and wandering through traffic trying to flag down passing cars at the intersection at 75 Avenue and 113 Street just after 3 p.m. Saturday. "He was walking up and down the street yelling and screaming that the bees were trying to kill him," said a nearby resident who gave his name as Gerry.

• Powell Supports Government Eavesdropping - Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday supported government eavesdropping to prevent terrorism but said a major controversy over presidential powers could have been avoided by obtaining court warrants. Powell said that when he was in the Cabinet, he was not told that President Bush authorized a warrantless National Security Agency surveillance operation after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Appearing on ABC's "This Week" Powell said he sees "absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions" to protect the nation.

• U.S. Airstrikes Take Toll on Civilians: Eyewitnesses Cite Scores Killed in Marine Offensive in Western Iraq - U.S. Marine airstrikes targeting insurgents sheltering in Iraqi residential neighborhoods are killing civilians as well as guerrillas along the Euphrates River in far western Iraq, according to Iraqi townspeople and officials and the U.S. military.

• THIS ISN'T RUSSIA!: Russian parliament moves to stifle dissent - Russia's lower house of parliament approved a controversial crackdown on the activities of nongovernmental organizations Friday, brushing aside widespread concern that the measure would stifle civil society in Russia and mark another regressive milestone in the country's post-Soviet evolution.

• New spyware claim filed against Sony BMG - The Texas attorney general has added a new claim to a lawsuit against Sony BMG Music Entertainment accusing it of violating the state's laws on deceptive trade practices by hiding "spyware" on its compact discs. The original lawsuit was filed by Attorney General Greg Abbott in November against the company for violating state anti-spyware laws by embedding software in its CDs and media player to monitor users' habits. The new charges brought by Abbott contend MediaMax software used by Sony BMG to thwart illegal copying of music on CDs violated state laws because it was downloaded even if users rejected a license agreement.

• Two got hepatitis from illicit body parts - A New Jersey lawyer says two clients who got bone and tissue transplants from alleged illicitly harvested cadavers both contracted hepatitis. A third man, who also had a transplant, has tested positive for syphilis, said attorney Andrew D`Arcy, the New York Daily News reported Saturday. Hundreds of people who received transplants via Michael Mastromarino`s company, Biomedical Tissue Services Ltd. of Fort Lee, N.J., are being tested after the News alleged the company failed repeatedly to gain donor consent and forged papers detailing the medical condition of the deceased.

• It's The Sugarplum Time of Year: Parents Alert: Aspartame - It's the sugarplum time of year, with myriad Candies and Sweets in bright enticing colors and flavors. Therein lies the hazard, for our Fatal Drugs Allowed folks, our FDA, has blessed several poisons as sugar substitutes for holiday confections. As the Big Bad Wolf would say, "The better to murder you with, my Dear." Under labels as Sugar Free, Low Cal, and Diet! thousands of tons of deadly aspartame/NutraSweet/Equal, Neotame and Splenda will be substituted for sugar. All in the name of good health, of course. These chemicals are a boon to candy & confection makers.

25th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Biometric devices can be fooled, researchers prove - Identity thieves are always looking for new ways to steal personal information, from trolling through trash cans to phishing for bank accounts online. But here's a method they may not have tried: Using fake fingers made from Play-Doh and gelatin, or digits from a cadaver's hand. Researchers at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., tested 66 fake fingers to see if they could outwit biometric devices, which identify individuals based on the physiological properties of their fingerprints or other body parts. The fake fingers went undetected more than half the time.

• Secret CIA torture chambers in Afghanistan - Iraq’s notorious prison Abu Ghraib has become a byword for the U.S. disastrous war. The appalling photos that had been released by worldwide media depicting the torture, abuses, and humiliations of Iraqi detainees have shocked the world and sparked international criticism of the U.S. policies against prisoners of war whether in Iraq or Afghanistan. Despite repetitive claims by the U.S. President George W. Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice that America does not employ torture as a method of obtaining information from detainees. Vice President Dick Cheney went before Congress to try to exempt the CIA from proposed anti-torture legislation.

• 9/11 VIRUS DESTROYS FREMONT COUNTY WORKER'S HARD DRIVE - Law enforcement officials are warning everyone to be especially careful as a new powerful computer virus makes the rounds here in Eastern Idaho. It is called the 9/11 virus and will destroy your hard drive. It is often labeled 9/11 or world trade center memorial. It claims to have pictures or asks for help in remembering the victims of 9/11. According to Fremont County Sheriff Ralph Davis, a probation and parole officer opened that e-mail and it killed his hard drive. If you get this e-mail, you are warned not to open it and to delete it immediately.

• Italian court issues arrest warrant for CIA agents - An Italian court yesterday issued a Europe-wide arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents accused of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from Milan and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. The move raises the stakes in the dispute between Europe and America over the CIA's controversial policy of "extraordinary rendition".

• New Year's Day 2006: delayed by a second - Get ready for a minute with 61 seconds. Scientists are delaying the start of 2006 by the first "leap second" in seven years, a timing tweak meant to make up for changes in the Earth's rotation. The adjustment will be carried out by sticking an extra second into atomic clocks worldwide at the stroke of midnight Coordinated Universal Time, the widely adopted international standard, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology said this week.

24th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Never mind the aching body: jogging is good for the mind - After years of arguments, worries about knee joints and sore nipples, the debate has come full circle. Jogging, it appears, really is good for you - at least for your mind. German researchers have discovered that pounding the pavement can improve concentration and boost visual memory. The researchers, who are based at the University of Ulm, sent a group of 30 people jogging twice a week for 30 minutes and then tested them for mental improvements. They found that while their memory for numbers remained much the same, their ability to recall images and complete visual tasks, such as map work, had dramatically improved.

• Greece plans biometric passport - Greece will overhaul its passport system next year and issue travel documents equipped to carry biometric data, the government said on Wednesday. Public order minister Giorgos Voulgarakis said all Greek passport holders - as part of European Union-wide measures - would have to replace their documents by the end of 2006 and obtain new passports with increased security features.

• "WE THE PEOPLE" ARE THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT - We, the citizens of the United States of America, ARE the American government. This Constitutional fact has been forcibly and underhandedly stolen from the conscious understand of the citizenry. We do not understand our Constitution. Most American people have never read the document. For decades, the public school system has steadily removed the reading and study of the Constitution, and we now have a citizenry that is ignorant of their rights and responsibilities as American people. Equally, American students have never been taught the true meaning and history of Socialism, Marxism, Fascism, and Communism.

• Stem-cell scientist resigns after school says research faked - South Korean investigators said yesterday that the apparent landmark stem-cell research by cloning expert Hwang Woo-suk had been faked, turning the onetime national hero into a disgraced fabricator. A nine-member committee from Dr. Hwang's Seoul National University said his paper published this year in the journal Science contained false information. "The data of the 2005 paper were not the result of simple mistakes, but of an intentional fabrication," the committee said in a statement issued after a weeklong probe.

• Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey: From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored - Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years. Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

23rd DECEMBER 2005: -

• 'Torture flights' call by MSPs - THE Scottish Parliament yesterday called on ministers to detail what conversations they have had with the UK government on British airport landings by alleged "torture flights". The move came a day after Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said he was not willing to order an inquiry into claims that the CIA used UK airports to transport prisoners to lands where they might be tortured.

• Tasers Now Used In Schools In Rogers - Four officers who work in Rogers schools are carrying Taser stun guns this school year. The non-lethal electric stun guns fire darts that shock and immobilize people. Rogers police spokesman Corporal Kelly Cradduck said the Tasers could prevent more injuries if a fight or shooting were to break out, especially if the aggressor was a student. He said the electric stun guns could also help in case a custody dispute turns violent at a school. Some police departments have stopped using the guns because of concerns that they might be deadly under certain circumstances. The maker of the guns, Arizona-based Taser International, has said that the stun guns alone don't cause death.

22nd DECEMBER 2005: -

• Chiefs back police superforce - Three of the region's top police officers have backed plans to create a superforce merging West Midlands, West Mercia, Staffordshire and Warwickshire into a single crime-fighting organisation. Last night, chief constables Paul Scott-Lee, John Giffard and John Burbeck signed proposals that aim to unite them into one regionwide body with 14,000 officers and 7,000 staff. However, West Mercia has strongly opposed the move and has come up with its own suggestions for modernisation. Critics believe the new regional body would be too big and no more efficient.

• Lone protester hits out at CIA 'torture flights' - CAMPAIGNER Robert Lawrence staged a one-man demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament today against alleged "torture flights" into Scottish airports by the United States. The protest took place as MSPs inside were today expected to call for an inquiry into the alleged landings at Edinburgh airport and others across the country.

• Senate reaches Patriot Act deal - The US Senate has passed a six-month extension of the anti-terrorist law known as the Patriot Act. The deal is seen as a compromise as President George W Bush had pushed for a permanent extension of the bill, some clauses of which expire on 31 December. But Democrats and some Republican senators said the law did not provide enough civil liberty safeguards.

• Judge Rules Caging Ohio Children Was Abuse — A couple who adopted 11 children with a host of health and behavioral problems abused some of the youngsters by making them sleep in wooden cages without pillows or mattresses, a judge ruled Thursday. The children will remain in foster care until Juvenile Judge Timothy Cardwell holds a hearing on who should get custody. Their adoptive parents, Michael and Sharen Gravelle, have not been charged with a crime and denied abusing the youngsters. They said they built the cages in 2003 to protect the children from each other and themselves.

21st DECEMBER 2005: -

• Combining food additives could harm nervous system, study: The combination of common food additives could interfere with the development of the nervous system, raising new concerns about the health implications of children’s diets, according to a new report published today - Researchers at the Univerity of Liverpool studied the effects of food colouring brilliant blue (E133) combined with monosodium glutamate (MSG; E621) and colouring quinoline yellow (E951) combined with the sweetener aspartame (E951). According to the report, published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, when these additives were combined in levels similar to those consumed in a typical children's snack and drink, they stunted the growth of nerve cells in mice, interfering with proper signalling functions.

• Sweden to probe dark eugenics history - Sweden launched a probe on Wednesday to understand how eugenics, a theory on improving the human race used by Nazi Germany to justify the Holocaust, became broadly accepted in the Nordic state in the early 20th century. Sweden is now known for its strong social welfare system and outspoken advocacy for human rights, but in the past it has experimented with social engineering. This led to abuses such as the forcible sterilization of around 60,000 women in 1936-76.

• Bush’s Snoopgate - The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.  Bush says he had ‘legal authority’ to permit the National Security Agency listen in on American citizens without a warrant.

• Fluoride being forced on us - THE threatened, forcible fluoridation of Wodonga and Wangaratta water supplies raises serious questions. My discussions with angry people from Wodonga, Ballarat, Horsham, Gippsland and Geelong all raise the same concerns. Will there be a referendum first? The Government says no, because people reject fluoridation once they learn more about it.

• Microwave Weaponry and Covert Government Harassment Used on Many Average Americans; Too Many People Coming Forward To Be Dismissed As Paranoia - Susan Elmes of Seattle is one such victim of most every type of illegal government tactic used to silence critics, including gang stalking, mind-control and sophisticated electronic weaponry.

• Saddam Says He's Been Beaten in Detention - Saddam Hussein launched into an extended outburst at his trial Wednesday, alleging he had been beaten and tortured by his Americans captors while in detention after a witness testified that his agents had tortured people by ripping off their skin. Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mousawi said he would investigate and that if American-led multinational forces were abusing the former Iraqi leader, he would be transferred to the custody of Iraqi troops.

• INDIANA JUDGE: PRAY, BUT DO NOT MENTION CHRIST - Regardless of religious affiliation, or lack thereof, every single man, woman, and child in the United States of America should be outraged at the latest attack on the First Amendment right of free speech and freedom of religion. U.S. Federal Judge David Hamilton, Southern District of Indiana, ruled on Nov. 30 that the Indiana state legislature can have a prayer to open each session, as long as there is no mention of Jesus Christ. Hamilton was named to the court in 1994 by Pres. Bill Clinton.

• ALERT: U.S. PROPOSES DOUSING WILDERNESS AREAS WITH PESTICIDES - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed to apply massive amounts of pesticides to public lands in 17 Western states. The BLM claims these pesticides need to be applied to forests, rangelands and aquatic areas in order to reduce the risk of fire and slow the spread of invasive weeds. Under the proposal 932,000 acres would undergo chemical application in 17 western states, including National Monuments and National Conservation areas.

• Welfare queen: Queen Elizabeth II received more than $1.7 million in farm subsidies from the European Union over the past two year - Queen Elizabeth II doesn't exactly fit the American Gothic image, and it's difficult to picture her milking a cow, but it turns out that the queen of England qualifies as a farmer. In today's world, that means she receives farm subsidies from taxpayers, regardless of the fact that she has a net worth that runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

• Allegations of fraud in Iraqi vote - Sunni Arab leaders are angrily rejecting preliminary election results in Iraq, saying the vote was fixed in favor of Iranian-backed religious Shiites and calling for an investigation into possible fraud. Secular politicians are also denouncing the results and demanding an inquiry.

• Steven Spielberg’s 9/11 obsession: The director’s films this year deal with Sept. 11 and its aftermath - The pair of films that Steven Spielberg released in 2005 couldn’t be more different. First was the special effects-laden “War of the Worlds,” the latest cinematic version of H.G. Wells’ 19th century novel, that invaded multiplexes this past summer; the second, “Munich,” is a rich, multi-layered political thriller that ranks as one of his best. The latter film, which opens on Dec. 23, is a dramatic meditation on Israel’s response to the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 11 members of its national team were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Together both movies serve as bookends to the same events: September 11, 2001 and the cultural shift that began on the morning of Sept. 12 when we woke up to a world where the Twin Towers and nearly 3,000 of our fellow Americans no longer existed.

• Brainwaves to be used as identification - Canadian researchers hope to soon be able to use brain waves to unlock doors and get access to bank accounts. Some companies are already offering iris recognition systems that many countries want to put into biometric passports. But Julie Thorpe, a researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa wants to take the idea much further. She says it is possible to do away with key cards, pin numbers and a litany of other security tools that allow people to retrieve bank money, access computer data or enter restricted building.

• Cheney says 9/11 changed the rules - Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday explained and defended the administration's assertion of broad presidential powers, saying that executive authority had become dangerously constrained before President George W. Bush took office and had to be restored to fight the threat from terrorism.      (RELATED: See our '9/11 Archive')

20th DECEMBER 2005: -

• BUSH BIN BUNGLING: PRESIDENT George Bush confused Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein on TV in the US yesterday - Mr Bush - defending eavesdropping on US citizens suspected of terror links - was talking about tracking terror boss bin Laden in the 1990s. He said: "And guess what happened, Saddam ... Osama bin Laden, changed his behaviour."

• Man died after being shot with Taser: Authorities don’t yet know whether weapon used in Florence County arrest led to death - Two Florence County sheriff’s deputies have been placed on administrative leave with pay after a man they arrested early Saturday morning died after being shot with a Taser.

• Report: MI5 colluded with CIA over suspects sent to torture jails - Lawyers for a former pupil at a top British independent school have accused the British government of colluding with the CIA to send him to a series of prisons where he was abused, according to a newspaper report.

• TSA Biometric ID Card Programs Move Forward - The Transportation Security Administration is seeking help in implementing two of its biometric ID card programs - one for prescreened airport passengers and another for transportation workers. In a request for information posted Dec. 15, TSA said it is seeking ideas on a business model for Registered Traveler, a voluntary program in which prescreened airline passengers are allowed to bypass some of the security procedures at U.S. airports.

• Wrong prescription: Vaccine bill would block media scrutiny and exempt drug companies from legal challenges - ...Pushed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee physician, the proposed Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency comes wrapped in secrecy provisions that would exempt it from the Freedom of Information Act as well as congressional disclosure requirements. That would make BARDA more impervious to public scrutiny than the Central Intelligence Agency or the Defense Department, which are subject to FOIA requests.  Even worse, BARDA would be headed by a presidential appointee who would have the power to grant immunity to drug companies from most lawsuits by people harmed by vaccines the companies manufacture for the agency.

• The Pentagon is Spying on You; Don't Worry It's for Your Own Good - During his recent media blitz meant to convince us that government spying on us is in our best interest, President Bush has made some pretty outrageous claims. This past week, Bush admitted to giving a 2002 order to the National Security Agency (NSA), a super-secret, subsidiary of the Pentagon believed to be even larger than the CIA, to spy on Americans by wiretapping international phone calls and reading e-mails without warrants. NSA isn’t saying how many people it is spying on, but admits the number may be in the thousands.

• 150 Pounds of Explosives Missing in N.M. - About 150 pounds of commercial plastic explosives has disappeared from a private storage site, along with 2,500 blasting caps and 20,000 feet of explosive detonation cord, authorities said Monday. "In the hands of the wrong person, this material can be very, very destructive," Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White said at a news conference.

• Iran declares ban on western music - The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has banned western music from state radio and TV stations, it was announced today. In a move reminiscent of the 1979 Islamic revolution, when popular music was outlawed, Mr Ahmadinejad - the head of the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council - ordered the implementation of a ruling prohibiting all forms of western music.

• POLICE BRUTALITY USED AGAINST WTO PROTESTORS IN HONG KONG - The suppressed violence of the Hong Kong police broke through the thinly veiled façade of "politeness" and "responsible behavior" by a series of brutal actions beginning evening of December 17 and continuing until early morning of December 18. Sources suggest that over 600 protesters of the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations were arrested around 3 a.m. on Sunday, and were stripped and beaten up in police lock-ups like in Kong Tong (East Kowloon). It is obvious that the protesters were provoked by the use of excessive and brutal force by the police, who are now indiscriminately picking up protesters, even the injured, and jailing them.

19th DECEMBER 2005: -

• US-run 'torture jail' in Kabul: Inmates called the facility the 'Dark Prison' - America operated a secret prison in Afghanistan as recently as last year and tortured inmates there, according to a human rights organisation. Human Rights Watch, a group based in New York, said in a report on Monday that detainees were kept in total darkness and were tortured and mistreated by American and Afghan guards in civilian clothes.

• Video 'shows execution of US hostage' - An Iraqi extremist group today posted a video on the internet which it said showed the execution of the American hostage Ronald Allen Schulz. The video, seen by the Associated Press, showed an unidentified man being shot in the back of the head.

• Australians get Chinese inmate organs: UP to seven Australians have received kidney transplants from death-row prisoners executed in China - They are among dozens of Australians who have travelled overseas to buy organs in India and Asia, paying between $15,000 and $50,000 for the transplants. But a number of those who have had the operations became seriously ill on their return, suffering infections or other complications after undergoing surgery in third-world hospitals. Monash Medical Centre's Dr Ian Main said: "I am aware of one patient who has a lethal virus as a consequence and I've seen two patients who are very sick."

• London - A Camera for every 16, One-fifth of the world - There has been an unusual degree of acceptance of surveillances installed for the public. In London, where the population is 7.2 million, has got 450,000 CCTV cameras fixed. As a result, the UK market for CCTV systems is expected to increase progressively up to 2010. This includes both sales and rental. Annual growth rates will, however, be constant at 3%.

• Maggots found on hospital patient's face - A hospital trust has been criticised after maggots were found crawling on a patient's face in a hospital intensive care unit. Nyree Ellison Anjos was horrified to discover the fly larvae near a feeding tube attached to her mother's face while she was being treated at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

18th DECEMBER 2005: -

• President Bush authorised secret monitoring after 9/11 - President George Bush has admitted he authorised secret monitoring of communications within the United States in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks. He said the monitoring was of "people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organisations". The President said the programme was reviewed every 45 days, and made clear he did not plan to halt the eavesdropping.

• Imminent attack might affect torture rules - Sen. John McCain, who pushed the White House to support a ban on torture, suggested Sunday that harsh treatment of a terrorism suspect who knew of an imminent attack would not violate international standards. The Arizona Republican said legislation before Congress would establish in U.S. law the international standard banning any treatment of prisoners that "shocks the conscience." That would include, McCain said, mock executions and the controversial technique known as "water boarding," in which a subject is made to think he is drowning.

• Britain tortured suspects in a secret German jail: Post World War II atrocities have now come to light - DESPITE the six years of bitter World War II fighting that lay behind him, James Morgan-Jones, a major in Britain's Royal Artillery, could not have been more specific about the spectacle in front of him. "It was one of the most disgusting sights of my life," he reported in 1947.

• POLICE STATE PRECEDENTS FOR AUSTRALIA: Locations of road closures and lockdowns - Lockdown points in NSW for the weekend of December 17 to 18: Where cars are being stopped and occupants spoken to, with only people who live in the area or those with reasonable purpose allowed in.

17th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Senate Blocks the Renewal of Patriot Act: The rebuff to Bush comes amid news that he authorized wiretaps of Americans without court clearance. Fate of post-9/11 law is unclear - The Senate on Friday blocked legislation to renew the Patriot Act, delivering a dramatic rebuff to President Bush that reflected rising concern over his treatment of civil liberties and privacy rights in the war on terrorism. A Republican bid to end debate and consider a bill that the House easily approved this week fell seven votes short, leaving the fate of the anti-terrorism law unclear as Congress prepared to recess. Key provisions of the statute are to expire Dec. 31.

• TV reporter 'sacked for refusing to go to Iraq' - A television correspondent who claimed he was sacked for refusing to work in Iraq has won his case for unfair dismissal. Richard Gizbert, a London-based broadcaster for the American channel ABC News, said his freelance contract was terminated after he twice declined assignments in the Middle East.

16th DECEMBER 2005: -

• Sinn Fein expels 'British agent' - A senior Sinn Fein figure has been expelled by the party which accused him of being a "British agent". Charges of involvement in an alleged IRA spy ring against the party's former Stormont head of administration, Denis Donaldson, were dropped by the Crown. Party leader Gerry Adams claimed he was about to be "outed" by the same "securocrats" who set him up as a spy.

• Schäuble: Facts Obtained Through Torture Should be Used - German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wants information which may have been extracted from suspected terrorists through torture to be used in court as he searches for greater powers in Germany’s own "war on terror." Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wants information which may have been extracted from suspected terrorists through torture by a third party to be admissible in court as he searches for greater powers to prosecute Germany's own "war on terror."

• Caught On Tape, Suspect Shot With Taser Gun: Man Charged With Aggravated Battery - A dashboard camera captured a suspect being shot with a Taser gun by Florida police. When Daytona Beach Shores police pulled the man over, he took off, taking police on a chase across town. He eventually ran over "stop sticks" and bailed out of his car. Officers then chased him and shot him with the Taser gun. The suspect's family said he was having mental problems.

• Police use teargas on Nigerian mothers - Nigerian police have used teargas and arrested women staging a peaceful rally to protest against poor air safety after a plane crash last week in which about 50 of the 106 killed were children. About 200 mothers wearing black gathered in an upmarket area of Lagos on Friday to deliver a letter of protest to the government when riot police surrounded them, witnesses said. Bola Belgore, one of 17 women arrested, said: "We told them we were concerned mothers of Nigeria and we insisted on walking to government house, but they blocked the road and threw teargas in front of us and behind us. Everyone scattered."

• Bush 'backed spying on Americans' - President Bush allowed security agents to eavesdrop on people inside the US without court approval after 9/11, the New York Times has reported. Under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been monitoring international communications of hundreds in the US, the paper says. Before, the NSA had typically limited US surveillance to foreign embassies.

• NEW WEBSITE ANNOUNCEMENT: "Hi! I'm Cindy Champion, a hard working mother of five in Jasper County, GA. I've owned my own media monitoring business for the past 18 years, so when my son came through the door with a camera, I knew the capabilities of that camera. And more importantly, I knew I needed to get answers! This is what I do for a living: I record news for my clients but I never wanted to BECOME the news. However, since my son trusted me and knew in his mind that I could take care of the problem of a camera being in his school bathroom, I realized that I owed it to him to do something for all students at his school and schools around the country. So now I must move forward to do whatever I can to make a change. This is not my fight: IT'S OURS. Parents, teachers, concerned adults and students across the country: join me in standing up for our children on this issue. There is much we can do!!" - WWW.PACIR.ORG

• Government moots ID card links for new UK voter database - Honey, I broke the democratic process... The Government is moving ahead with plans to establish a centralised national register of voters, together with central checking and verification of the data held on electoral registers. The system, to be implemented in the form of CORE (Co-ordinated Online Record of Elector) schemes, is intended to be brought in via the Electoral Administration Bill currently before Parliament, and is subject to a consultation process ending on 7th March.

• US no-fly list vexes travelers from babies on up - Sarah Zapolsky was checking in for a flight to Italy when she discovered her 9-month-old son's name was on the United States' "no-fly" list of suspected terrorists. "We pointed down to the stroller, and he sat there and gurgled," Zapolsky said, recalling the incident at Dulles International Airport outside Washington in July. "The desk agent started laughing. ... She couldn't print us out a boarding pass because he's on the no-fly list."

15th DECEMBER 2005: -

• ASPARTAME: Cancer fears over supermarket products - An artificial sweetener found in 6,000 types of food, drink and medicines should be banned, an MP urged last night. Politicians were warned of 'compelling and reliable' evidence that aspartame can cause cancer. The controversial additive is found in a huge number of popular products such as cola, cereal and chocolate. Roger Williams, a member of the parliamentary select committee on food and the environment and Liberal Democrat MP, said any items containing aspartame should be withdrawn from sale.

• Child protection system makes debut - Logan Elrod might have been a little young to appreciate the kind of history he was making Tuesday morning as he sat in front of equipment set up in the fourth floor meeting room of the historic Butler County Courthouse. He had the honor of being the first child to be voluntarily enrolled in a child protection system making its Kansas debut in Butler County. The Children's Identification and Location Database (CHILD) Project was officially launched in this county and state during a news conference held in the meeting room... Equipment used in the CHILD project will identify and locate missing children and adults through the use of iris recognition biometric technology.

• Undercover Air Marshals to Expand Mission - Federal air marshals are expanding their work beyond airplanes, beginning counterterror surveillance at bus and train stations and mass transit facilities in a three-day test. As of Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration said, teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers were arriving at the new posts.

• Pentagon to spread pro-U.S. messages - A $300 million Pentagon psychological warfare operation plans to place pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the U.S. government as the source, the military official in charge of the program says. Run by psychological warfare experts at the U.S. Special Operations Command, the worldwide media campaign is being designed to counter terrorist ideology.

• QUESTION OF SECURITY: Biometric Readers Fooled With Fake Fingerprints - Researchers at Clarkson University fooled biometric systems with fake fingerprints made out of Play-Doh nine out of ten times, demonstrating a weakness of some computer security systems.

• Government puts brakes on speed cameras - Speed cameras will no longer be funded by the fines they generate, an arrangement which has been blamed for the proliferation of devices across the country, the Government said today. Instead, Britain's 6,000 cameras will be incorporated into a broader road safety plan, according to the Transport Secretary, Alastair Darling, who announced the change alongside a four-year study of the effectiveness of speed cameras.

• Exercise your brain and body to improve memory - Memory exercises and stress reduction coupled with a healthy diet and regular physical exercise improves memory in older adults, a study shows. This