Wednesday 31st October 2007: -

• Immunity offer to Blackwater security guards causes outrage - The Bush administration faced intense criticism yesterday after it emerged that the state department had offered immunity to Blackwater security guards allegedly involved in a shooting spree in Baghdad that left 17 dead. The immunity offer was made by state department investigators in return for information about the September 16 killings. The offer does not mean a trial cannot be mounted but it would compromise any prosecution case and practically ensure there would be no convictions. Blackwater, a Virginia-based company employed by the state department, was guarding a diplomatic convoy outside the relative safety of Baghdad's Green Zone when it said it came under fire from insurgents. But the Iraqi government says the security guards opened fire without provocation.

• French charity workers face jail for 'abducting children' - Sixteen Europeans, including nine French people who claimed to be on a mission to save war orphans from Darfur, could be facing stiff sentences and hard labour after they attempted to airlift 103 children out of Chad. Members of the group, which is linked to a French charity called l'Arche de Zoé (Zoe's Ark), were charged yesterday in eastern Chad with extortion and child abduction. Amid evidence that the 103 children are not necessarily sick, orphaned or even from Darfur, the failed mercy mission has grown into a diplomatic scandal that could jeopardise international plans to deploy peacekeepers in the borderlands of the troubled Sudanese region.

• WITNESSES PICK OUT MYSTERY FIAT DRIVER IN DIANA CRASH - A COUPLE who saw a white Fiat car zig-zagging out of the underpass where Diana was killed yesterday identified a Vietnamese man as its probable driver. Georges and Sabine Dauzonne were giving evidence to the London inquest by video link from Paris. They independently picked out Le Van Thanh, a former security guard, from a series of photographs and said he “might well have been” the driver. Le Van Thanh, now a taxi driver, has refused to give evidence to the hearing.

• Police quiz Prince Harry over rare bird deaths - Prince Harry has been questioned by police in relation to the shooting of two of England's rarest birds of prey on the Sandringham Estate. The Prince and a friend were contacted after two hen harriers were killed on the Queen's 20,000-acre estate in Norfolk.

Tuesday 30th October 2007: -

• Diana driver 'taunted paparazzi' - Princess Diana's driver, Henri Paul, taunted photographers on the night she died, an inquest has heard. Stephane Darmon told the High Court hearing Mr Paul looked as if he wanted to be "centre stage" by the way he acted outside the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Mr Darmon, a motorcyclist for one of the paparazzi, said Mr Paul had the telltale signs of being an alcoholic. Earlier, Georges Dauzonne said he saw a white Fiat Uno swerving as it left the tunnel where Diana's car crashed.

• Peter Hain admits 300,000 migrants left out of official statistics - The Government has been forced to apologise after admitting that false information about the number of immigrant workers in Britain was given to the Commons. Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, admitted that 300,000 foreign citizens working in Britain were left out of official statistics. Some 1.1 million people from abroad have taken jobs in Britain since 1997, the Government said. The previous figure was 800,000.

• Bush and Diana share family tie - George W Bush and Princess Diana were distant cousins You would never have guessed it but Princess Diana was related to George W Bush. The late People's Princess was an 11th cousin, twice-removed, from the US president, new data shows. Dubya can also be linked to Marilyn Monroe, political rival John Kerry – and even Pocahontas' living relatives. Mr Bush is an 11th cousin to the man eager to take his place as president – Barack Obama.

• Halloween highlights Asia's supernatural links - While the money-making and party-throwing opportunities of Halloween thrive across Asia, the festival also shines a spotlight on the region's profound relationship with the afterlife. From traditional markets to modern entertainment districts, major cities across Asia are looking to cash-in on "All Hallows' Eve." In Hong Kong, markets bulged with lanterns, masks, fake pumpkins and costumes that were quickly snapped up, while online game developers, cinemas and department stores splashed special offers and products in Seoul.

• 3 Killed in Halloween Party Shooting - A shoving match that began over dancers colliding at a Halloween Party escalated into gunfire early Sunday, killing three men and sending costumed revelers fleeing from the house, police said. Shots were fired inside and outside the home in a quiet, upscale Reno neighborhood shortly after 1 a.m., said Lt. Robert McDonald. It was unclear how many shooters were involved, but two men have been arrested. "There really is no reason to kill anyone over something like this," McDonald said. "It's one of the most ridiculous motivations for a (killing) I've ever heard of."

Monday 29th October 2007: -

• Saudi king: UK ignored terrorism warning - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has stirred up controversy ahead of a rare visit to Britain which begins Monday, accusing British authorities of ignoring intelligence that could have prevented the 2005 London bombings. In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation that aired on Monday, the Saudi king said Britain failed to act on information provided by Saudi security services ahead of the suicide bombings on London's transport network in July 2005, that killed 52 people and injured more than 770. "We sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist atrocities in Britain, but unfortunately no action was taken and it may have been able to avert the tragedy," the monarch told the BBC. King Abdullah's arrival in London on Monday will mark the first state visit by a Saudi monarch in 20 years.   (RELATED: See our popular 7/7 London Bombings archive.)

• U.K. Kids Get RFID Chips In School Uniforms: Trevor Darnborough, whose company, Darnbro, filed for a patent on securing RFID tags to clothing, hopes other schools will be interested - Ten schoolchildren in the United Kingdom are being tracked by RFID chips in their school uniforms as part of a pilot program. If the program proves successful as a way to hasten registration, simplify data entry for the school's behavioral reporting system, and ensure attendance, Trevor Darnborough, whose company, Darnbro, filed for a patent on securing RFID tags to clothing, hopes other schools will be interested, according to the Doncaster Free Press.

• DNA LifePrint Kits May Help Find Lost Children Faster - Modern technology makes finding lost or stolen children and bringing them home, quicker. The new Biometric Fingerprinting and DNA Identification Kit could help keep your child safe. Dozens of families in the Lafayette area sampled the new tool in hopes of making it easier to track down their children. The FBI, The Department of Justice and America's Most Wanted host John Walsh all recommend the kit as a vital tool for parents. Kim DeBoer of Lafayette said parents should have the most recent information on their children. "I think it's important to have information on your children every year, keep them updated. I would encourage every parent to protect their children in anyway they can and this is one small way of being able to do so," said Kim DeBoer, a Lafayette parent.

• Organic food 'better than ordinary produce' - Organic food is more nutritious than ordinary produce, and contains higher quantities of antioxidants which help ward off heart disease and cancer, according to an extensive four-year study. Scientists who led the £12 million project - the biggest ever research programme into organic food - hope their evidence will help persuade the Government to recommend organic produce and stop advising that eating it is merely a "lifestyle choice". The findings come from Prof Carlo Leifert, whose Newcastle University study was funded by the EU and food companies. It found that organic fruit and vegetables contained up to 40 per cent more antioxidants, which could cut the risk of cancer and heart disease.

• House repossessions set to soar - The number of people whose homes are repossessed looks set to soar next year to levels not seen since the 1990s house price crash, it was predicted. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) warned the five interest rate rises seen since the summer of 2006 would contribute to a 50% jump in the number of homes that are repossessed during 2008. But it added that the problems would be exacerbated by the global credit crunch as lenders tightened their lending criteria, making it increasingly difficult for some people to remortgage.

Sunday 28th October 2007: -

• Brain-injured soldiers 'denied cash': New compensation rules mean 'cynically neglected' British troops are losing out on MoD aid, claims campaigner - British soldiers with serious brain injuries are being deliberately denied tens of thousands of pounds in damages, according to the mother whose son's horrific wounds prompted the government's recent review of compensation for casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Diane Dernie, whose 23-year-old son Lance Bombadier Ben Parkinson, a paratrooper, sustained multiple injuries in an Afghan mine blast, accused the Ministry of Defence of 'cynically neglecting' seriously brain-damaged soldiers.

• Royal 'targeted by blackmailers' - Buckingham Palace has refused to discuss a report that a member of the Royal Family has been the subject of a blackmail attempt. According to the Sunday Times, the case involves allegations of drugs and sex. A Palace spokesperson would only say it was a police matter and Scotland Yard was investigating. Police said two men, aged 30 and 40, appeared before City of Westminster magistrates on 13 September accused of blackmail and were remanded in custody.

• Endgame: The Rabbit Hole Doesn’t End Here - Upon hearing the announcement from Alex Jones that he was embarking on a new filmmaking adventure - and later finding out what the film would cover - I decided to conduct my own research into the various subjects that Endgame would discuss. Rather than get the information for the first time from the film, I wanted to see what I could dig up on my own prior to viewing it. The information I found - which is openly available to anyone willing to look - is incredibly sobering, but not all hope is lost. If we live our lives in fear of what the future may bring, we allow ourselves to be defeated. We still have the power to raise awareness among our fellow man, and despite what the elite may believe, they do not have a monopoly on the future.

• THE LATEST CIRCULAR FROM THE LOOSE CHANGE TEAM: -

Dear LC Supporter,

This is a really exciting time for Loose Change and the truth movement.  We’ve had a great response to our previous email and many of you have contacted us regarding theaters, public screenings, and our distribution plan.  We are very busy putting everything together to make the film fly and spread the word, and we wanted to fill you in a little on what we’re doing this week.

• Kristy and the intern crew are busy filling theater and public screening requests.
• We are happy to announce that the LC Crew is going to be hitting the road again this winter to spread the word.  If you are putting together a screening, we’d be happy to send someone out to speak at the event.  We do ask that you fund our travel and take care of the theater rental.  (Email theaters@lc911.com)
• Jason Bermas is getting ready for our first live event of the winter.  Jason will be in Minnesota on November 11th for a public screening.  More details coming...
• The new Loose Change website is nearly done and will be up soon.  It’ll be loaded with new features and style.
• The art team is creating some great new LC posters for theaters and bulletin boards.
• Dylan is working on a trailer that’ll knock your socks off.
• The sound crew is mastering the soundtrack and getting it ready for production.
• The final DVD is in the manufacturing plant and is in the proofing stages.

No time for sleep around here, but we remind ourselves daily that the drive for a new 9/11 investigation is worth every minute!

Thank you for your support and continued quest towards an independent investigation.

Peace,
The LC Team

• Aliens caused Sicily fires, say officials - Aliens were responsible for a series of unexplained fires in fridges, TV’s and mobile phones in an Italian village, according to an Italian government report. Canneto di Caronia, in northern Sicily, drew attention three years ago after residents reported everyday household objects bursting into flames. TV news footage at the time showed electrical appliances as well as cookers, a pile of wedding presents and furniture smouldering.

Saturday 27th October 2007: -

• George Carlin comments on 9/11 Truth and the NWO - George Carlin appeared today at BORDERS bookstore in downtown Manhattan, NYC (just a few blocks away from the WTC site / Ground Zero)...I just had to get his comment on the 9/11 Inside Job Issue.

• Boots raise Diana 'spy' theory - I never thought fancy footwear in a French tunnel would feature at the Diana inquest. The fact it has shows how determined this coroner is to shine an at times unforgiving light on some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the princess's death. The reference to what someone was wearing emerged during the testimony of Jacques Morel. It was a surreal moment. "So you don't want to talk about the man whose foot I stepped on?" asked this eyewitness via a video link in Paris. "Not really," replied the somewhat weary barrister. "It's very important," persisted Mr Morel. "Go on then," came the answer. So it was we learned that in the Alma tunnel Jacques Morel trod on the foot of a man wearing pointy western boots. He says he spoke to Mohammed Al Fayed hours after the crash and when he told him this, the Harrods owner said: "I knew they were there. They're the bastards that did it, the secret service."

• Japan to take fingerprints, photos of foreigners - Japan is to fingerprint and photograph foreigners entering the country from next month in an anti-terrorism policy that is stirring anger among foreign residents and human rights activists. Anyone considered to be a terrorist -- or refusing to cooperate -- will be denied entry and deported. "This will greatly contribute to preventing international terrorist activities on our soil," Immigration Bureau official Naoto Nikai said in a briefing on the system, which starts on November 20.

• Anti-EU Protests Planned for Saturday in Britain - Gordon Brown and the Labour Party promised the British people at the last election that a referendum would be held before the introduction of the European Union Constitution. Everyone agrees the EU "Reform Treaty" now being proposed is simply the EU Constitution under a different name. So where's the referendum? Our British friends across the big pond, who have been promised a vote regarding a new constitution leading to further merger with the European Union, are once again asking, "Where’s the referendum?" The Campaign for an Independent Britain is leading the demand for a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. The group will be holding a Pro Referendum Rally on Saturday, October 27.   (Follow this link to the original source: "Campaign for an Independent Britain")

Friday 26th October 2007: -

• PM urges more Nato troops for Afghanistan - Gordon Brown yesterday amplified Nato calls for more combat troops in Afghanistan to spread a burden currently being borne by UK, US and Canadian forces, but the chief of defence staff warned that the country's problems could only be resolved by political, not military, means. Echoing concerns expressed by General Dan McNeill, commander of the Nato-led international force in the country, the prime minister called for greater "burden-sharing" in Afghanistan. Speaking after talks in London with President Hamid Karzai, he added: "We are all determined that Afghanistan should never become a failed state again, and to support the democracy that's been created in that country."

Thursday 25th October 2007: -

• Endgame Rips The Lid Off Elite's Final Masterplan: New documentary delves into the darkest recesses of the global elite - Alex Jones' brand new documentary Endgame charts the history of the elite blueprint for social domination and control, outlining the ultimate plans that those who consider themselves the anointed have for our planet. The first section of the film documents the rise of the banking cartels, who since 1800 have funded both sides of almost every war. Endgame charts the usurpation of the British economy by the Rothchild family who went on to bankroll all factions during the first world war providing armaments companies through banks in France, Austria, Germany and England. Endgame then documents the fallout of the great war and the attempts to form a controlling League of Nations, which was ultimately blocked by Congress. Such frustration on the part of the elite led to the rise of two factions, fascists and Fabian socialists. Endgame documents how bankers again funded both sides during WW2 which ultimately led to the creation of the UN and the beginning of the movement to implement three power blocs via incremental globalism.

• Iraqi blood is 'on your hands,' anti-war protester tells Condi - Condoleezza Rice appeared agitated but generally unfazed when an anti-war protester waved blood-red hands in her face, accusing the secretary of state of being a "war criminal." "Blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands," the protester told Rice, who was President Bush's national security adviser when he decided to invade Iraq. "War criminal! ... War Criminal!" the black-clad, "blood"-soaked protester screamed as authorities dragged her from a hearing room on Capitol Hill. "Take her to the Hague."

Wednesday 24th October 2007: -

• PLEASE BEAR WITH US FOR THE NEXT DAY OR SO, AS WE ARE CURRENTLY ORGANISING A LOCAL 9/11 TRUTH SPEAKING EVENT: -

  NEW EVENT IN SKIPTON!: Lecture by Elias Davidsson in Skipton

  Thursday 25th October 2007, Doors open at 7.30pm.

  "On 11 September 2001 approximately 3,000 people were killed in the United States in what was variously designated as a terrorist attack, an act of war or a crime against humanity. These events were used to justify two wars, increased militarization and a grave assault on both international law and human rights. Contrary to popular belief, the US authorities have not positively identified the perpetrators, their accomplices and the tools of murder. Yet, the victims and society as a whole are entitled, under human rights law, to know the truth on the events of 9/11."

  In his lecture, Davidsson will outline the moral and legal foundations for the right to the truth, the obligations of states to thoroughly investigate mass murder and will illustrate the extent to which US authorities violated their international obligations to establish the truth on these events. His empirical approach, devoid of speculation, provides powerful conceptual tools to those who are committed to defend democracy and the rule of civilized law at both the domestic and international level.

  Elias Davidsson is an independent scholar in international law and human rights. His articles in the fields of international law and human rights have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, International Journal of Human Rights, Florida Journal of International Law and International Legal Theory (published by the American Society of International Law).

  Thursday 25th October 2007, The Narrowboat Pub, 38 Victoria Street, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 1JE. This free event is open to the public. Doors open at 7.30pm.

  More info here.

• Mystery vehicle 'blocked' Diana's car before crash - The mystery surrounding the circumstances of Princess Diana’s death deepened today as details emerged of an unidentified car which had been deliberately blocking the path of her speeding Mercedes moments before the fatal crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. The inquest into her death, and that of her Egyptian boyfriend Dodi al-Fayed, heard that a “blocking vehicle” had been trying to slow down the Mercedes as it entered the underpass, apparently so that pursuing paparazzi could take photographs. The car, along with several motorcyclists, formed a “compact group” around the Mercedes, said Olivier Partouche, then a chauffeur who witnessed the incident while waiting for a client on the roadside.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive.)

• University of Florida Police Cleared of Wrongdoing in Use of Taser on Student - University of Florida police were cleared Wednesday in the use of a Taser against a student on campus. A report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the officers were justified when they used the Taser on Andrew Meyer. Police said Meyer refused to stop questioning Sen. John Kerry at a campus event last month. The videotaped altercation and Meyer's cries of "Don't Tase me bro!" were played frequently on the Internet. Two officers who were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation were reinstated.

• Vote on treaty might not be possible, says David Cameron - David Cameron risked inflaming his party yesterday when he admitted tacitly that it would be too difficult to hold a referendum on the EU reform treaty once it comes into force. The Tory leader is under pressure from MPs and activists to pledge to give the British people a vote on the treaty even if it has been ratified by all 27 EU member states. So far more than 40 Tory MPs have signed a Commons motion calling for a referendum “before or after ratification”. Mr Cameron refused to give the commitment insisting that he would devote his energy to securing a poll while “the treaty is live and being debated”.

• Campbell, that dodgy dossier and the lies that cost David Kelly his life - To the organisers of the auction to raise money for Labour Party funds, it probably seemed a good idea at the time. Why not ask Cherie Blair to autograph a copy of the 750-page document which saved her husband's political career and offer it as one of the lots? A copy was organised, Mrs Blair duly signed it, and the special souvenir edition of the Hutton report went for £400 at the event in London's Mayfair last year, with various Labour luminaries in attendance. At no point did anyone seem to reflect that treating an official document about the death of a respected civil servant as some sort of novelty item might have been in bad taste. But then, for Tony Blair and his colleagues, what was owed to Dr David Kelly in the way of decent treatment had never been much of an issue. In the weeks before he was discovered dead in a wood in Oxfordshire on Friday, July 18, 2003, he was treated as a pawn in the Government's game against the BBC.

Tuesday 23rd October 2007: -

• Beck: 9/11 Truthers "Insane", "Dangerous Anarchists", "The Kind Of Group A Timothy McVeigh Would Come From": CNN host lays into truth movement in vicious attack - CNN host Glen Beck viciously attacked the 9/11 truth movement last night on his Headline Prime show, describing the whole movement as "insane" and branding 9/11 activists as "dangerous anarchists". Beck singled out 9/11 truthers in a segment in response to the infiltration of Real Time with Bill Maher by We Are Change protesters last week. In a piece that we would normally associate with the "fair and balanced" Fox News, Beck featured two guests who BOTH argued against 9/11 truth, as well as throwing in his own two cents.

• Ewan McGregor angered by Britain's 'insane' nanny state - Ewan McGregor said he is sick of Britain's "ludicrous nanny state" rules, which he said might force him to quit the country, in an interview to be published Tuesday. Health and safety regulations were becoming "insane", the 36-year-old film star told the weekly Radio Times magazine. The Scottish actor, who played the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the most recent Star Wars trilogy, blasted the rise of security cameras and London's congestion charge, which forces drivers to pay to enter the city centre. McGregor recently completed a 15,000-mile (24,000-kilometre) motorcycle adventure, riding the length of Africa with best friend and fellow actor Charley Boorman. "Our trip opened my eyes to how insane the rules are in Britain -- CCTV cameras everywhere, congestion charge -- a ludicrous nanny state.

• Bhutto accuses government of cover-up in suicide bombing - Benazir Bhutto yesterday accused the Pakistani government of staging a cover-up after it refused her request for British and American experts to join the inquiry into last Thursday's suicide bombing. "If people have nothing to hide then they should be open to investigators from all over the world," the former prime minister told a press conference at her closely guarded Karachi home. "It's simply not right that attempts should be made to cover up an assassination attempt ... Obviously some people are being protected." Earlier the interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, rejected her call for foreign technical help. "I would categorically reject this. We are conducting the investigation in a very objective manner," he said. Police are questioning three men in connection with Thursday's suicide attack on a procession in honour of Ms Bhutto that killed 138 people and wounded about 300.

• Honours probe chief to face MPs - The police officer who led the inquiry into cash-for-honours allegations against political parties is to be questioned by MPs later. Assistant Commissioner John Yates is likely to be asked why a 16-month inquiry did not result in any charges. The Commons public administration committee is looking at the "lessons learned" from the investigation, such as whether the law needs changing. The police studied claims of peerages being offered in return for loans.

• 8-Year-Old Girl Shot in the Head by Israeli Soldiers - Zeina Mir'i an eight-year-old Palestinian girl, sustained a gunshot wound to the head on Friday during an Israeli search for 'wanted' Palestinians in the village village Izbat Al-Jarad. Palestinian security sources claim that the girl received the injury when Israeli soldiers fired arbitrarily towards Palestinian homes. Zeina Mir'i was taken to Thabit Thabit Hospital in Tulkarem and later to Al-Maqasid Hospital in Jerusalem on account of the severity of the wounds sustained.

• LATEST RELEASE FROM THE LOOSE CHANGE TEAM: -

Dear Loose Change Supporters,

We are happy to announce the final details on the upcoming release of Loose Change Final Cut. 

Many of you have asked us about a main stream theater release and are aware that we spent considerable time in Hollywood negotiating with different producers.  After many hours of consideration, we decided that a Hollywood release just isn't right for Loose Change.  In order to access the normal "big movie" distribution channels, we would have to relinquish editorial control of the film.  This just wasn't an option for us, as the integrity of our message is ultimately all that we have, and we feared that corporate mainstream would corrupt or squash our film and its movement.

Our viewers have proven that amazing success is possible through grassroots distribution.  Loose Change 2nd edition has been viewed over 80 million times, and we intend to triple that, at least, with Loose Change Final Cut.  We have decided to challenge the traditional marketing channels and reinvent the way that films are distributed. 

Loose Change Final Cut will be available at 12:01 AM, EST, on November 11, 2007 as a digital download.  One week later, the DVD will start shipping – in your hands in time for Thanksgiving in the US.  In December 2007, we will be working with theaters that have already committed to showing the film and looking to our grassroots supporters to get their local theaters to show the film.  The immediate success of the DVD and digital version will ensure the content of the film remains untouched while grabbing the interest of independent theaters throughout the world.

Distribution of the film will be done directly through the Loose Change site, through Prison Planet (Alex Jones), and through Joining the Dots TV (Mercury Media in the UK).  Digital versions will retail for $6.95, and the DVD will be $19.95.

Louder Than Words remains committed to the truth and will be donating 10% of profits to such organizations as The Feal Good Foundation.  Join us in making a difference and pushing for a real 9/11 investigation!


Thank you for your continued support.

- The LC Team

• Companies Test Fingerprint Recognition For Mobile Payments: The Atrua and Cellular South trial found that 87% of testers are interested in using fingerprint-touch based mobile payment technology once it's commercially available - Atrua Technologies, a provider of intelligent touch controls, announced on Monday that it supplied a fingerprint recognition technology used for mobile payments on Kyocera cell phones. The Kyocera cell phones were used in a mobile payments trial conducted by Cellular South, a privately held wireless carrier in four southeastern states in the United States. As part of the trial, which was launched in May in Tennessee and Mississippi, cell phone users were able to access payment cards using their fingerprints.

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Monday 22nd October 2007: -

• Diana inquest: Tunnel motorbike 'did not stop' - A motorcyclist swerved to avoid the car crash which killed Diana, Princess of Wales and quickly left the scene without stopping, the inquest into her death was told on Monday. A motorist who was driving in the opposite direction at the time said the motorbike "emerged from the smoke" coming from the crashed Mercedes immediately after the impact. The jury has been told it must decide whether there is any truth in conspiracy theories surrounding Diana's death, including the suggestion that the crash was arranged by MI6 officers who used an anti-personnel flash gun to blind Henri Paul, who was driving the car.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive.)

• Channel 4 must disclose Diana tapes - Channel 4 has been ordered to disclose certain untransmitted material relating to its documentary, Diana: The witnesses in the tunnel. Mr Justice Eady's ruling at London's High Court relates to footage of interviews recorded for the hour-long programme, which was broadcast in June. The balance of the application by Lord Justice Scott Baker, the Diana inquest Coroner, regarding other documentary material, was adjourned until next Friday, pending attempts to reach agreement. Heather Rogers QC, for Channel 4, said that it was policy not to hand over untransmitted material without order of the court.

• Loose Change Final Cut Release Date Announced: Internet phenomenon to arrive November 11th, features all-new material and interviews - After many months of anticipation, a release date has finally been announced for Loose Change Final Cut, the pre-eminent 9/11 truth documentary. The film, which features all-new material and interviews, will hit the web on November 11th and also be available to order on DVD that same day. The original Loose Change and Loose Change 2nd Edition have been viewed at least 50 million times over the Internet, making it one of the most watched movies in history, but the Final Cut goes above and beyond, making it not simply the third in a trilogy but a completely new film with oodles of unseen footage, commentary, interviews and eyewitness testimony.

• Smith repeats calls to increase detention limit - Jacqui Smith repeated calls to extend detention without charge in terrorism cases today, but admitted that there had not yet been any cases in which investigators had needed to exceed their current 28-day limit. The home secretary told MPs that the international scope and growing technological complexity of terrorism cases meant that extended pre-charge detention would eventually become a necessity. Appearing before the cross-party Commons home affairs select committee, Ms Smith said: "Given the trend of evidence, we believe that it is likely that, in a very small number of cases, there will come a time when more than 28 days will be needed to question somebody."

• Fingerprints fail to tackle football hooligans - A fingerprint recognition system failed to prevent black-listed fans from entering football grounds and was easily fooled by simple spoofing techniques, according to a trial by Dutch research organisation TNO. Jurgen den Hartog, who undertook the research, said that with a false accusation rate of 0.1% - a low rate being a requirement for such a system, given the volume of supporters and the fact that false accusations could spark trouble - the fingerprint system failed to spot 15% to 20% of those on a volunteer black-list, recruited to test the technology, a level he described as "unexpected".

• EU treaty threatens economic freedom - So he did what we all suspected he would. Gordon Brown agreed to the EU "reform treaty" without granting a referendum. This is, of course, a political matter, par excellence, on which a humble economist can have little to say. But there are economic aspects to our European future to which this matter most definitely relates.

• Parents of obese children to get warning letters - Parents of overweight children are to be sent official warning letters as part of new plans to tackle obesity, it has emerged. Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, believes it is in the best interests of the parents if they are told that their children are dangerously overweight. The controversial proposals follow a national weighing programme, which was introduced in schools two years ago in a bid to tackle the growing problem of obesity among children.

• China unveils new leadership line-up - China's President Hu Jintao won a second five-year term in office today, and introduced an heir apparent from within the secretive world of the ruling Communist Party's leadership. At a carefully staged ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Mr Hu led the newly elected politburo standing committee on to a dais to be photographed by the world's media. They stood in silence as Mr Hu introduced them and made a short speech. No questions were allowed.

Sunday 21st October 2007: -

• Bill Maher: Corporate Media Gatekeeper and Security Guard: Activist from We Are Change LA gets under the skin of corporate shill - After HBO employee Bill Maher lent a hand in evicting a “rowdy protester” from his show on Friday, the Associated Press wasted no time characterizing him as a “security guard” for the effort. “Maher on Friday night helped security remove a rowdy protester from the studio during his weekly HBO show ‘Real Time with Bill Maher,’ and it was all captured on live television,” including the point made by the so-called protester. “Maher was talking science during one of his weekly panel discussions when a protester in his audience stood up, held up a smuggled-in sign reading ‘9/11 is a cover up fraud’ and shouted comments to the same effect.”

• 9/11 truthers Infiltrate Bill Maher Audience You Tube - At least 6 members of We Are Change LA were hauled out of Bill Mahers "Real Time". During the live taping of tonights show Members of We Are Change LA stood up and interupted the show with 9/11 questions. One member was thrown to the ground, roughed up and hauled out by security. Another member was taunted when a security gaurd took his hat and threw it.   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and our affiliated site 911truthskipton.com)

• 9/11 Worker's Kin Rejects Death Ruling - Fresh from ruling that World Trade Center dust did not kill a police detective, a medical examiner offered the man's relatives other reasons Friday for his death, an explanation the family found "not acceptable," their lawyer said. Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch would not publicly elaborate on his findings in the death of James Zadroga, who had worked hundreds of hours in the toxic dust at ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hirsch's spokeswoman said. Hirsch asked the family not to disclose what he told them, said Michael Barasch, the Zadrogas' attorney. "Dr. Hirsch felt that there were other reasons for Zadroga's death. The family disagrees with it. I disagree with it," Barasch said. The doctor "came up with reasons that were not acceptable to us," the attorney said.

• Iraq whistleblower Dr Kelly WAS murdered to silence him, says MP - Weapons expert Dr David Kelly was assassinated, an MP claims today. Campaigning politician Norman Baker believes Dr Kelly, who exposed the Government's "sexed-up" Iraq dossier, was killed to stop him making further revelations about the lies that took Britain to war. He says the murderers may have been anti-Saddam Iraqis, and suggests the crime was covered up by elements within the British establishment to prevent a diplomatic crisis.

• Why I know weapons expert Dr David Kelly was murdered, by the MP who spent a year investigating his death - For Tony Blair it was a glorious day. He was in the United States being feted by the U.S. Congress and President Bush. Their adulation was such that he was being offered the rare honour of a Congressional Gold Medal. Naturally enough, Bush and his administration were hugely grateful for Blair's decision to join the United States in its invasion of Iraq. That invasion was supposed to lead to the discovery and disposal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and make the world a safer place. But as Blair was lapping up the grateful plaudits from the U.S. Congress on July 17, 2003, the man who had done more than almost any other individual on earth to contain the threat from WMD lay dead in the woods at Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire.

• Why Portugal is a haven for paedophiles: The disturbing backcloth to the Madeleine case - A ferrari engine makes a deep, distinctive sound. When the children at Portugal's most famous orphanage heard the sports car roaring down the driveway, fear swept through the dormitories. The noise could mean only one thing: the man known as The Doctor was coming to call. Yet this medical practitioner had no intention of adhering to the ancient Hippocratic Oath. Instead, arriving at Casa Pia (House of the Pious), a 17th century Lisbon orphanage where more than 4,000 children are cared for each year behind high stone walls, the doctor would summon selected boys and girls from their beds for examinations one night each week. Where possible, he chose deaf-mutes. After checking that the children were not suffering from any sexual infections, the doctor was joined by the orphanage caretaker, known as Bibi, who ushered the unfortunate children outside to a waiting van. With the doctor following in his red Ferrari, Bibi drove the van to the prestigious homes of some of the leading members of Lisbon society - ranging from Portuguese government ministers and high-ranking diplomats, to famous television stars and members of the judiciary.

• Review of child inmate batons ban - The government is to consider allowing staff at young offenders institutions in England and Wales to use batons to control children as young as 15. Staff are currently allowed to use them only against those aged 18 and over but that policy is to be reviewed. The Prison Officers Association says its members need more protection from a rising number of assaults and to help bring situations quickly under control. But critics fear the move could be counter-productive and fuel violence.

• Chicago’s Big Brother Daly Wants Snoop Cameras on Street Sweepers - Drivers who park in the path of Chicago’s 118 street sweepers may soon find themselves in the same boat as those who run red lights: caught in the act by surveillance cameras. Three years after Mayor Daley first raised the idea, City Hall has issued a “request for qualifications” from companies interested in providing “high-resolution digital cameras” for street sweepers. Aldermen reacted coolly to the city’s latest plunge into the brave new world of surveillance cameras. They argued that it’s unfair to hammer motorists for street-sweeping violations when the signs that warn them are predominantly made of paper.

• The CCTV sham 8 out of 10 cameras don't help police fight crime - and trap motorists instead - Closed-circuit TV cameras supposed to catch violent thugs have been trained on roads instead - to trap and fine motorists who stray into bus lanes. A Home Office study of Britain's 4.2million CCTV cameras also revealed they are not proving much help to the police in collaring criminals. More than eight out of ten of the cameras - the UK has the largest number in the world - do not provide satisfactory images for officers to use.

• Philadelphia School Policy Forces Parents to Be Fingerprinted for Classroom Entry - The Philadelphia School District on Thursday was trying to clarify a policy that requires parents to submit to FBI fingerprinting before they can enter their children's classrooms. One mother said she found out about the policy when she signed in to visit her daughter's first-grade class at the Meredith Elementary School. Alison McDowell said she was told every parent who enters the school must have criminal, child abuse and FBI fingerprint clearances. McDowell went to the School Reform Commission, where commissioner Jim Gallagher urged staff to simplify the clearance process. He called the policy "crazy." A new state law requires employees to have FBI background checks. But a district official says some principals may have mistakenly extended that requirement to parent volunteers.

• Local Business Takes Steps to Protect Children - Topor Dodge hosted child safety day 2007, along with the Masonic Youth Child Identification Program. The event featured free ID program materials including a brief videotaped interview with each child, fingerprints, tooth print impressions and a cheek swab. It's all designed to help law enforcement officials in the event a child goes missing. "It's a ready tool for, if anything unfortunate does happen, it gives the parent instant access to have proper identification to give the law enforcement agencies," said Mychips, Les Lohnes. Mychip has provided more than 250,000 Massachusetts kids with ID materials.

• The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know: Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush Administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again - In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say.

• Browns' property now in government hands; search concluded - The government has taken custody of the home and wooded property of convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown after clearing the area of homemade bombs and booby traps. U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier says it took nearly two weeks for explosives teams to find, remove and blow up a large number of homemade bombs. The Browns were arrested this month after they welcomed federal agents, pretending to be supporters, to their secluded home. Officials said Thursday that the 110-acre Plainfield property where the couple stayed for months, disputing the existence of the federal income tax and refusing to surrender to authorities, now is posted with "No Trespassing -- Government Property" signs.

Saturday 20th October 2007: -

• Bhutto alleges military link to suicide bombing: Former PM handed dossier of names to government before attack that killed 138 - Benazir Bhutto yesterday accused a shadowy web of figures with links to Pakistan's powerful military establishment of orchestrating Thursday's huge suicide bombing that killed 138 people and wounded 300. Less than 24 hours after the failed assassination attempt, which has plunged Pakistan into a fresh crisis, Ms Bhutto said she had received extensive information about plots against her life - including names of ringleaders and telephone numbers - days before she flew to Karachi early on Thursday.

• Rings and 'hitmen' occupy Diana jury - It has been a week of striking images and phrases at the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed. When the video link on the west coast of America was playing up, the eyewitness there - who had been in Paris on business at the time of 1997 car crash that killed the couple - commented that he was having a "difficult communication capability". Across the channel, a French witness spoke rather beautifully of his "foggy memory" - it's a struggle several people have had as they try to recall specific details of an event 10 years ago.

• Menezes chief denies shoot order - The police commander in charge of officers who killed Jean Charles de Menezes did not give an order to shoot him, she has told the Old Bailey. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick said she told armed officers to "stop" Mr de Menezes, 27, anticipating a "conventional armed challenge". Mr de Menezes was shot dead after being wrongly identified as 21 July bomb plotter Hussain Osman. The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws.

• Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are cousins - The wife of US Vice-President Dick Cheney has revealed that her husband is closely enough related to the Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama to call him "cousin". Lynne Cheney said that she had made the unlikely discovery of kinship between President George W Bush's hawkish deputy and the charismatic black Illinois senator while researching ancestry for her new memoir, Blue Skies, No Fences. The men are apparently eighth cousins, but Mrs Cheney said she did not include this in her memoir. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family lines for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama," Mrs Cheney told MSNBC television.   (FLASHBACK: Bush, Kerry & Hefner: Odd Cousins)

• Amnesty calls for ban on Taser use after Quebec death - Law enforcement authorities rejected calls by critics to suspend stun gun use completely until a trail of deaths across the country associated with the weapons since 2001 can be fully explained. Following Quebec's second Taser-related death in less than a month, law enforcement authorities responded that no such temporary ban is warranted. "The Taser continues to be a safe and effective use of force for police services in Canada," said Steve Palmer, executive director of the Canadian Police Research Centre in Ottawa, which completed a 67-page report on the weapon's use in August 2005.

• ITV executives’ bonuses were linked to profit from phone-ins - ITV’s top executive bonuses were linked to the rapid growth of the controversial phone-ins, which in the peak year of 2006 contributed one pound in every six of operating profit made by the commercial broadcaster. The disclosure comes as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) confirmed that it was reviewing evidence into the £34 million competition scandal at GMTV, to see if police should open a formal inquiry. One of ITV’s dozen top executives received an element of their bonus based explicitly on phone-in revenue, but all payouts for senior personnel depended on hitting profit targets – in which cash from ITV and GMTV phone-ins contributed an estimated £44 million of income.

• Family DNA database launched - A private company's online database of people's DNA has been launched to help individuals discover long-lost members of their family. All those who wish to compare their DNA with those of strangers using Ancestry.co.uk's genetic database will be able to do so simply by sending off a mouth swab in the post. The online database, which currently already holds records of 15 million users, aims to link distant genetic cousins where paper records of a familial relationship no longer exists.

• Levels of fluoride in Inishowen water unsafe - Levels of fluoride in some Inishowen water supplies have have been branded 'unsafe' following a county-wide study into the issue. “There is a major problem of fluoride over-exposure in Inishowen East and in Buncrana,” Robert Pocock, a campaigner with VOICE (Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment) told the ‘Journal’ yesterday. Up to 8,500 people could be affected, as fluoride is added to the public water supply in these areas. Following concerns in the UK and the US about the effects of over-exposure to fluoride, VOICE commissioned the study, which monitored fluoride levels in the urine of volunteers in three areas in Donegal - Inishowen, Letterkenny and Stranorlar.

• Venezuelan bishops, rights groups criticize Chavez reforms - Roman Catholic church leaders and rights groups in Venezuela on Friday denounced sweeping constitutional reforms pushed by President Hugo Chavez as a threat to civil liberties that hand too much power to the state. The country's bishops said the proposed changes to the constitution "limit the liberty of Venezuelans, excessively increase the power of the state, eliminate decentralization and allow the government to regulate a large degree of a citizen's life." The parliament has already approved changes to 33 articles in the 1999 constitution, and lawmakers are now considering amendments to an additional 25 articles.

Friday 19th October 2007: -

• Clinton bucks the trend and rakes in cash from the US weapons industry - The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama. Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.

• Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom: The Case Against Expanding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Powers - "I've got nothing to hide, so electronic surveillance doesn't bother me. To the contrary, I'm delighted that the Bush Administration is monitoring calls and electronic traffic on a massive scale, because catching terrorists is far more important that worrying about the government's listening to my phone calls, or reading my emails." So the argument goes. It is a powerful one that has seduced too many people.

• Dodi Fayed bought £11,000 engagement ring for Diana: Visit to jeweller's hours before couple's fatal crash / Princess was never given purchase, inquest jury told - Dodi Fayed, the son of the Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, did buy Princess Diana an £11,600 engagement ring a few hours before the couple's death in the Paris crash in 1997, though he had no chance to give it to her, the inquest jury heard yesterday. The jury, sitting in the high court, was shown grainy CCTV footage from the Repossi jeweller's shop, across the square from the Ritz hotel in Paris, taken the afternoon before the crash. It showed Dodi Fayed, who was not accompanied by the princess, surrounded by staff as he inspected rings before leaving with a brochure.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive.)

• 9/11 New World Rising: Final Director's Cut - A new place for 9-11 films, 9-11 new world rising explores not only the imposiblility of the official story of 9-11 but also names names of all the key suspects who stood to gain from the black operation that was September 11th 2001.And wish to usher in a "new world order". But also shows what YOU can do to take action to alert others of the goals set forth after 9-11 in an attempt for global domination.

• Fraud inquiry over GMTV phone-ins - The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has said it will review evidence connected to the GMTV phone-in scandal to decide if a criminal investigation should begin. Its inquiry comes three weeks after ITV1's breakfast broadcaster was fined £2 million by regulator Ofcom for failings over its phone-in quizzes. Documents supplied by the media watchdog will now be examined. The fine was imposed after it emerged many callers had no chance of winning competitions over a four-year period. During this time, finalists were chosen before lines had closed, with some viewers therefore wasting up to £1.80 on each call.

• School nurse mistakenly gives out wrong pills to kindergartners - Fifteen upstate New York kindergartners were accidentally given Ritalin pills Thursday by a school nurse who thought she was dispensing fluoride pills to the children, school officials said. DeRuyter Elementary School Principal Janice Ahlsen said the school nurse inadvertently administered the wrong prescription to the children but, they spit out the pills quickly. The children, who take chewable fluoride supplements each day as part of a school program, spit the Ritalin out quickly because of the bitter taste, Ahlsen said.

• SCOTLAND: 'Support' for organ donor opt-out - Public support is growing in Scotland for a radical change to organ donation, according to doctors' leaders. A British Medical Association survey suggested three-quarters of people in Scotland favoured presumed consent. This means organs are automatically taken unless individuals specifically opt-out of the system before they die.

Thursday 18th October 2007: -

• Ed Brown Gassed, Tortured In Deprivation Tank: Tax protester speaks for first time since arrest in prison phone call - In a disturbing audio clip, Ed Brown speaks for the first time since his arrest and relates how he was gassed by noxious fumes for three days in a detention center as well as being put in a deprivation tank for 15 hours. Shaun Kranish of MaketheStand.com was able to call the Ohio prison that Brown has been incarcerated in and talk with him on the phone for 10 minutes. Sensory deprivation is a form of torture and extended deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and antisocial behavior. Brown also said he had been prevented from making any phone calls or receiving mail. For the first time, Brown reveals what happened when he was tricked and arrested by U.S. Marshals, including how he was tasered multiple times.   (RELATED WEBSITE: makethestand.com)

• Menezes control room 'not noisy' - The officer in charge of Scotland Yard operations on the day Jean Charles de Menezes was shot has denied claims the control room was "noisy and chaotic". Deputy assistant commissioner Cressida Dick was responding at the Old Bailey to claims that officers had to shout to make themselves heard in room 1600. Mr de Menezes, 27, was killed after being wrongly identified as one of the 21 July London bomb plotters. The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws. Brazilian Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head on a train at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005, after being wrongly identified as 21 July bomb plotter Hussain Osman. Deputy assistant commissioner Dick was the commander in charge of overall operations on that day. She has since been promoted.

• Polly Klaas Foundation in Alton Saturday to fingerprint children - Marc Klaas, the father of kidnap/murder victim of Polly Klaas and president of the KlaasKids Foundation, will be in Alton Saturday as part of a Print-A-Thon event. The Print-A-Thon is being held to promote and educate families about child safety and to fingerprint and photograph each child at no cost. The family of each participating child will receive copies of their digitized fingerprints, an updated photo of their child, a DNA Collection Kit developed by the California DNA Laboratory and pro-active child safety tips and a plan about what to do if a child disappears.

• Biometrics Allows Students to Purchase with Fingerprint - Students at some K-12 schools no longer have to bring their lunch money. The ability to purchase food is right at their fingertips. Through a process called biometrics a student's fingerprint is scanned on a machine that links to a personal account set up in advance by parents. "The parents have said that it's really great to simply deposit the money and know it's there," said Mike Tubbs, information technology manager at JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. "The kids don't have to take money to school and parents can simply know their children will be buying lunch every day." The school uses a biometric system developed especially for schools and has two fingerprint readers set up in the school's cafeteria.

• Finger on pulse of cloakroom security - LOST cloakroom tickets are a thing of the past thanks to a fingerprint scanner. Bakers Bar, in Southend, Alexendar Street, has installed Cloakscan, the world’s first biometric cloakroom and lost property system. The computer registers a customer’s fingerprint, which recognises the print when the customer returns. Bakers’ general manager, Ian Thomas, said the scanner would ensure punters can get easy access to their coats, jackets, bags and other valuables when ready to leave the bar.

• 'Cruel injustice' of axed asbestos pay-outs - FAMILIES and campaigners yesterday condemned the "injustice" of a House of Lords ruling which will end compensation for thousands of workers suffering from an asbestos- related condition. The judgment removes an established right to compensation, which had existed for 20 years, to allow people with pleural plaques - scars on the lungs - to claim damages. Those affected claim these scars can develop into more serious conditions including cancer. However, their longstanding right to compensation was subject to an appeal by insurance companies, with the Court of Appeal finding in the companies' favour last year that pleural plaques was not a disease.

• U.S. ‘Terrorologist’ Webster Tarpley Tours Britain To Reveal 9/11 Truth - Since 9/11, evidence has come to light that contradicts that day’s infamous terrorist attack. American historian Webster Tarpley argues that this is nothing new, serious inconsistencies have been associated with terror attacks for hundreds of years throughout the Western world. Whilst much post 9/11 evidence has been well sourced it has trickled out, having far less impact than the official narrative which holds Islamic fanatics entirely responsible. The end result is that press and public are left confused and disorientated by a lack of resolution to one of the biggest stories of our age. Terrorology is a growing discipline that seeks to bring academic rigour and reasoned argument to analysing this highly emotive subject.

• Key witness fails to appear at Diana inquest - Proceedings at the inquests of Diana, the Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed were interrupted today when a key witness failed to appear. Souad Moufakkir, one of only two witnesses who claim to have seen the crash in a Paris underpass that claimed the lives of the couple and their driver, was due to attend a courthouse in the French capital to give her evidence over a video link to the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. When she did not turn up at the appointed time Lord Justice Scott Baker, the coroner, asked officials to telephone her home. There was no reply, but they left a message asking her to attend at 2.30pm Paris time. The coroner adjourned the hearing for two hours. When the court reconvened at the appointed hour there was still no sign of Ms Moufakkir, and the coroner asked French officials who have been co-operating with the English inquests to track her down.

Wednesday 17th October 2007: -

• Menezes picture 'was manipulated' - Police have been accused of manipulating a photo of Jean Charles de Menezes so it could be compared to that of one of the 21/7 bomb plotters. The image had been "stretched and sized" to form a composite image of the Brazilian and Hussain Osman to show the jury, prosecutors told the Old Bailey. Mr de Menezes was shot dead after being wrongly identified as one of the men who targeted London's transport system. The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws. Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head on a train at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005, after being wrongly identified as Osman.   (COMMENTARY: Noooo, they wouldn't lie.  The police are there to protect us, they would never do such a thing!)

• Diana 'rumours' on night of crash - There were rumours that Diana, Princess of Wales, was to announce a pregnancy or engagement to Dodi Al Fayed on the night she died, an inquest has heard. A photographer said in a statement that on 30 August 1997, paparazzi outside the Ritz Hotel in Paris were told to expect an imminent announcement.   (COMMENTARY: We cannot stress enough how so very important this point to emphasise.  Many of the promoters of the 'accident' theory will try to make their case hinge on the issue of whether or not Diana was actually pregnant.  One must be 'street-wise' with this issue  however, as this is really not the case to fight tooth and nail for.  Basically we are talking about the motive of Diana's killer(s), so if there was a rumour of her pregnancy - and we can prove this - then it matters little if the rumour was actually true (i.e. that she was pregnant).  Our case is therefore; It was believed that that Diana was pregnant by members of the establishment and this likely played a large part in taking the decision to remove her permanently - RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive.)

• Depleted Uranium – Far Worse Than 9/11 - In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y., which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing morethan 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars. Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Plan for 20mph urban speed-cam zones touted: Live slow, die old, leave a wrinkly corpse - Just when you thought it was safe to go driving again without being repeatedly photographed - with news breaking this week that the government has put national road pricing on the back burner - the nanny state lobby has bounced back off the ropes with ambitious new plans. The 'casts and sheets this morning are full of a new report from transport safety think tank PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. That sounds as though it might be an official body, but it's not - it's a private company with charitable tax exemptions which is allowed to operate half in and half out of the Houses of Parliament, like many others.

• New Film Exposes How Rudy Failed Firefighters On 9/11 - Filmmaker Robert Greenwald has released another explosive short documentary film about Rudy Giuliani, this time highlighting the former New York City mayor’s controversial handling of radios used by the city’s fire department on Sept. 11. Greenwald is also petitioning the New York City Council to launch an investigation into the matter. The web video, released Monday by Brave New Films, alleges that during his administration Giuliani failed to equip the FDNY with adequate, let alone functioning, communication equipment. That in turn created massive problems on 9/11 and may have contributed to the unnecessary deaths of dozens of servicemen.

• Notorious Dr Crippen wrongly hanged, scientists say - It was sensational stuff that riveted a nation: A mild-mannered American doctor poisons then dismembers his unfaithful wife, flees England in disguise with his mistress -- and is caught, tried and hanged. The problem is that the poisoned corpse that sent Dr Hawley Crippen to the gallows in London in 1910 was not that of his wife, according to new evidence found by U.S. researchers. A team led by John Trestrail, head of the regional poison centre in Grand Rapids, Michigan, took mitochondrial DNA -- genetic material passed on through the mother -- from a tissue sample from the corpse kept in a London museum.

• 'We do not need or want digital TV' - "If it was Kingston-upon-Thames there would have been riots in the streets." Not everyone in Whitehaven was happy to be making television history today as the first town in the country to switch from analogue to digital terrestrial TV. Andrew Davies, who runs a guest house in the Cumbrian coastal town, said the process of becoming the first place in Britain to have its analogue TV signal switched off had been ill-thought-out and expensive. It cost Mr Davies - who runs the eight-bedroom Glenfield guest house with his wife Margaret - around £1,000 to convert his business to digital. Initial estimates had put the cost as high as £5,000. "We did not want or need digital TV," said Mr Davies. "It is a financial burden that has been put upon us without any consultation whatsoever.

Tuesday 16th October 2007: -

• Witness saw 'white flash' in Diana death crash tunnel - A man who claimed he saw a blinding flash of light in a Paris road tunnel just before the car crash that killed Princess Diana spent hours yesterday answering questions about inconsistencies in statements he has made. Francois Levistre, whose testimony to the British inquest differed at key points from other witnesses, testified that he saw two men on a motorcycle ahead of the princess's car, a "major flash of light," and then a crash. Afterward, he said, the passenger on the motorcycle looked into the crumpled Mercedes and gave a two-hand gesture to indicate "job done."

• Mortgages becoming more difficult to obtain - The number of rejected mortgage applications has surged by almost 60 percent over the past six months, new figures show. A total 738,000 home loan applications were rejected in the half-year to October as interest rate rises started to bite and borrowers came up against tougher lending criteria, according to research by price comparison service MoneyExpert.com. That is up 59 percent on the previous six months. The Bank of England has raised the base rate five times since August 2006.

• Cynthia McKinney’s Big Issue - 9/11 Truth: Courage Under Fire - A constant thorn in the US government’ side, controversial former congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney tells Helena Drakakis why the authorities have been revealed as ‘huge liars’. Cynthia McKinney hates the word ‘conspiracy’. As a former democrat and congresswoman she is never more than one step away from controversy, and she’s in London to promote the 9/11 Truth Movement, an organisation which disputes the official version of the Twin Towers attacks in 2001.

(ABOVE: Cynthia McKinney with cremationofcare.com webmaster Joseph Skelton and Riaz Ahmed of the West Yorkshire Truth Campaign)

• Pay with new notes? Don't bank on it - USING a Scottish banknote south of the Border frequently results in uncomprehending stares and whispered discussions. Now the machines are at it as well. The Bank of Scotland's new notes are proving a potential headache for anyone wanting to use them in a vending machine, including those at the Scottish Parliament.

Monday 15th October 2007: -

• FINGERPRINT DOUBT OVER KELLY 'SUICIDE': Secret knife evidence points to murder, says MP - Newly released evidence adds to the theory that MoD scientist Dr David Kelly was murdered and did not commit suicide, an MP has claimed. Norman Baker revealed that the penknife Dr Kelly apparently used to slash his wrist did not carry his own fingerprints. Lib Dem Mr Baker said: "The angle you pick up a knife to kill yourself means there would be fingerprints. "Someone who wanted to kill themselves wouldn't go to the lengths of wiping the knife clean of fingerprints.   (RELATED: See our archive The 'Suicide' of Dr David Kelly.)

• DIANA TRUTH WILL DESTROY BRITAIN - THE truth about Princess Diana’s death could “spell the ruination of Britain”, it was claimed last night. The allegation was made by the father of Henri Paul, who was driving Diana’s car on the night of the Paris crash. Jean Paul says his son is being made a scapegoat by the authorities for the crash that killed him, Diana, 36, and her lover Dodi Fayed, 42. With the six-month inquest on Diana set to continue today, Mr Paul claimed Henri, 41, had to discreetly eject a mystery intruder at the Ritz minutes before he took to the road – proving he could not have been drunk at the wheel. And he says French police are refusing to hand back some of Henri’s blood-covered possessions because they do not want him to have access to his blood from that night.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive.)

• 9/11 TRUTH: ICELANDIC SCHOLAR ELIAS DAVIDSSON’S UK TOUR - Elias Davidsson is an Iceland-based musical composer, human rights campaigner and researcher. He was born in Palestine in 1941 to Jewish refugees from Germany and grew up in Jerusalem in a neighbourhood where Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in peace together, which as he says has permanently coloured his outlook on current Middle Eastern problems. Although he has no university background he describes himself as an “independent scholar in international law and human rights”, with the emphasis on ‘scholar’. His articles in the fields of international law and human rights have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, International Journal of Human Rights and Florida Journal of International Law and International Legal Theory (published by the American Society of International Law). He is among the very few Icelanders, including tenured professors, whose articles have been published in such periodicals.

IN OTHER NEWS (SATIRICAL)...

CORRECT, THIS WAS NOT REALLY TAKEN FROM THE BBC WEBSITE, BUT THINGS ARE GETTING CLOSE TO BEING THIS RIDICULOUS!!!

Sunday 14th October 2007: -

• EU treaty could spell the end of overtime - British workers could lose their right to work more than 48 hours a week and have to forfeit lucrative overtime because of the EU Reform Treaty which Gordon Brown is due to sign next week. In a report on the treaty —which is expected to be agreed by Mr Brown and 26 other European heads of state in Lisbon on Friday — a parliamentary committee says it is "quite possible" that the UK's special deal on working hours could be successfully challenged in the European Court of Justice. This is likely to infuriate business leaders who believe that Britain's "opt out" from the European Working Time Directive is a key reason for the competitiveness of the UK economy. It will also increase demands for the British people to be granted a referendum on the Treaty, which The Daily Telegraph has called for. The warning that Britain's exemption from EU employment rules could face legal challenges has been raised by the House of Commons European scrutiny committee, which examines European documents before they become law.

• Lockerbie witness 'given £2m reward' - DAMNING new evidence that a key witness in the Lockerbie case was paid a £2m reward by US investigators will form part of the court appeal by the Libyan convicted of the attack. Sources close to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) have revealed that the cash was paid to Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci as a direct reward for giving crucial prosecution evidence but was disguised as "compensation". Scotland on Sunday can also reveal that another key plank in the appeal will be new evidence that the type of timer used in the bomb was available "all over the place" and not just sold to Libya as claimed in court.   (RELATED: See our popular Problem > Reaction > Solution archive.)

• Robert Fisk: Do you know the truth about Lockerbie?: I urge anyone who is aware of government lies over Flight 103 to come forward - After writing about the "ravers" who regularly turn up at lectures to claim that President Bush/the CIA/the Pentagon/Mossad etc perpetrated the crimes against humanity of 11 September, I received a letter this week from Marion Irvine, who feared that members of her family run the risk of being just such "ravers" and "voices heard in the wilderness". Far from it. For Mrs Irvine was writing about Lockerbie, and, like her, I believe there are many dark and sinister corners to this atrocity. I'm not at all certain that the CIA did not have a scam drugs heist on board and I am not at all sure that the diminutive Libyan agent Megrahi – ultimately convicted on the evidence of the memory of a Maltese tailor – really arranged to plant the bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

• Henri Paul's father raises dramatic new questions over Diana's death crash - The father of Henri Paul, the driver who was killed alongside Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed has raised disturbing new questions about his son's death. In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Jean Paul claimed his son ejected a mystery intruder from the Ritz Hotel in Paris shortly before he drove off in the Mercedes carrying the couple. And he said there were baffling irregularities in his son's finances and speculated about why the police had failed to return some of Henri's personal effects to the family.

• Feds may have sought surveillance before 9/11 - Former Qwest Communications International Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio said the National Security Agency (NSA) approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11 attacks about an unidentified NSA program, according to court documents unsealed this week. Nacchio, who is appealing a conviction for insider trading, also said the government withdrew a $200 million contract after Qwest refused to participate in an NSA program the company's top lawyer said was illegal. Details about the alleged NSA program have been removed from the documents, but Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless-surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.

• LOOSE CHANGE NEWS: -

Dear Supporter,

Thank you so much for your past support of Loose Change.  We are happy to announce that Loose Change Final Cut will be done today.  That's right, DONE TODAY!  Later this week we'll be sending more info on the release schedule, so stay tuned.

To celebrate the occasion, we're offering 10% off any order over $15 placed through the Loose Change Store before Friday, October 19th.  Your continued support helps us make the film happen and aids in the press for an independent investigation!

Cheers,
The LC Team

• De Menezes officer knew he wasn't bomber - The Metropolitan Police commander who ordered the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes knew the Brazilian was not one of the wanted July 21 bombers some time before he was killed, the Old Bailey heard yesterday. Surveillance officers following the 27-year-old formally identified him as not being Hussain Osman, who they were hunting over the failed suicide attempts on London's transport network the day before. Commander Cressida Dick, who oversaw Operation Theseus, ordered the surveillance Grey Team to stop Mr de Menezes and question him about the area in which he lived. He had been spotted in Scotia Road in Tulse Hill, south London, which was linked to 28-year-old Osman after the terrorist's gym card was found bearing the same address. But despite being negatively identified "in minutes", Mr de Menezes was followed from his home, onto a bus and into Stockwell Tube station where he was killed on July 22, 2005.

• CCTV to outwit Jason Bourne - A closed circuit television (CCTV) system to outwit even the most elusive secret agent or criminal has been devised by scientists. The flaws in the present systems were revealed in the Hollywood blockbuster The Bourne Ultimatum. In the film, Jason Bourne, a rogue CIA agent played by Matt Damon, tells another character, via a mobile phone, how to evade the searching eyes of CCTV cameras while charting his way across the concourse of Waterloo Station in London. The new system plugs the surveillance gap by enabling an operator to choose a suspect and follow him through dense crowds, and any subsequent changes in appearance. It works by attaching about 30 "tags" on small clusters of pixels on the footage, fixing them on different parts of the subject. It then "locks on" to these tags, and as the subject is filmed, the computer is able to follow his or her exact progress on the film, as the target moves about. The system has been developed by scientists at the defence company BAE Systems, the University of Reading and Sagem, a French telecoms company.   (RELATED: See our Total Global Surveillance archive)

Saturday 13th October 2007: -

• In pictures: UK Forces Memorial - A new national Armed Forces Memorial has been unveiled in Alrewas, Staffordshire. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh attended the dedication of the £6m stone circle. Prayers were led by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.

(COMMENTARY: Full of the usual and traditional Illuminati symbols of death and sacrifice to the 'gods'... utterly disgusting, disguised in plain view.) 

• UK School to fingerprint pupils for new school dinner payment system - IT will be food for fingerprints for pupils in Todmorden after a controversial new method to pay for school dinners was adopted. The system, introduced at Todmorden High School, takes details of children's fingerprints and allows them to pay for their dinner by touching their thumb on a screen. The biometric method is still in its infancy and has sparked nationwide controversy. It was recently introduced at Morley High School, Leeds, prompting parent protest about putting children's identities at risk.

• JURY SEE HORROR PICS OF DYING DI - Gory pictures of a bloodied Princess Diana just seconds before she died were shown to a jury yesterday. The shock close-ups show the Princess badly injured. She is slumped on the floor in the back of the crumpled Mercedes, with one leg in the air. And as duty doctor Frederic Mailliez battles to save Diana’s life paparazzi circle him, taking pictures. The shots had Di’s face pixellated but are so traumatic coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker has banned them from being shown on the Diana inquest website. He said: “These photographs will not go on the website because it is possible for photographs that have been pixell-ated to be unpixellated.”

• Eighty million years without sex - The mystery of how an animal has survived for 80 million years without sex has been solved by UK scientists. A Cambridge team says the creature owes its existence to a genetic quirk that offers some recompense for its prolonged celibacy. Many asexual organisms have died out because they cannot adapt to changes in the natural world.   (COMMENTARY: Eighty million years?.... I hear you!)

Friday 12th October 2007: -

• £50 fines for feet on seats - Rail and Tube passengers who put feet on seats or play music too loudly face £50 on-the-spot fines from British Transport Police. Senior officers recognise that commuters often feel intimidated by low-level bad behaviour. They believe it also leads to more serious disorder and to clashes when troublemakers are confronted. Officers will mount extra patrols as part of a major drive to reduce fear and cut crime on London's transport network.

COMMENTARY: I wonder if the new measures will cover punishment for people who spread 9/11 truth on the London underground?...

• Brown rules out vote on EU treaty - Gordon Brown will veto the proposed European Union treaty if it fails to safeguard Britain's no-go areas on further EU integration. The Prime Minister has dropped his previous threat to call a referendum on the treaty as a means of putting pressure on Britain's EU partners to protect his "red lines" at a summit of European leaders in Lisbon next week. A "no" vote in any EU country would scupper the entire treaty. Eurosceptics had seized on the threat as a way of securing the referendum for which they are mounting a vociferous campaign.

• Anxiety 'haunts primary schools' - Primary school children and their parents are suffering from "deep anxiety" about modern life, according to a study of education in England. The Cambridge-based Primary Review's report said the pressure of Sats tests dominated the last two primary years. Researchers ran 87 discussions with groups of children, parents, teachers and others; 750 people took part. The government said most children lived in better conditions than 10 years ago and rejected criticism of testing. Primary Review director Professor Robin Alexander told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that young children faced a range of pressures. "What people wanted to talk about was the stress of government tests, then life outside school, road safety, physical dangers, the sense young children are having to grow up too soon."

• Witness tells of how he had to swerve to avoid slow moving white car on entering tunnel - A driver was forced to swerve to avoid a 'light-coloured' Fiat Uno driving 'extremely slowly' into the Alma tunnel just seconds before the crash which claimed Princess Diana's life. David Laurent claimed the car was travelling at little more than 18mph, forcing him to pull at speed into another lane.The limit in the underpass is 31mph. Seconds later he heard another car frantically hooting behind him, followed by the sound of screeching brakes and then a loud crash.

• Fluoride in Our Water: Governments push it despite lack of evidence - The UK government has been accused of massaging research findings in order to present a positive picture on the safety and benefits of fluoride in our tap water. The claim is made by the pro-vice-chancellor of York University, whose own institute was commissioned by the government in 1999 to review all the evidence. Prof Trevor Sheldon accuses the government of “one-sided handling of the evidence” that his university gathered for the Department of Health. The Department used the evidence “selectively. . .to give an over-optimistic assessment of the evidence in favour of fluoridation,” he says.

• BBC gags its big names over job cuts - BBC personalities such as John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman were told yesterday to stop publicly criticising cuts that could lead to the loss of 2,800 staff. Chairman Sir Michael Lyons told well-known figures to keep their views within the corporation. Mr Humphrys, who presents Radio 4's Today, and Mr Paxman, who hosts Newsnight on BBC2, have hit out at plans to slash costs, claiming they will undermine news and current affairs programmes.

• MoD to pay more for worst war injuries: Row wins higher payouts but cap set at £285,000 / Less serious wounds still subject to old rules - The government yesterday bowed to growing public pressure by agreeing to increase financial compensation for troops suffering from the most serious multiple injuries received on a battlefield. Responding to a number of high-profile cases, the defence secretary, Des Browne, abandoned the existing system whereby full compensation was only given for one injury, with others "discounted", and paid according to a sliding scale. He proposed that in future armed forces personnel will get full compensation for all of the most serious injuries suffered in a single incident. The lump sum payments will be subject to a cap of £285,000.

Thursday 11th October 2007: -

• The sinister truth about what they do with our children's fingerprints - Fionna Elliot does not look like a firebrand. A hard-working mother, she has never had the time or the interest to dabble in politics. Yet when the local primary school wrote to her saying they were about to fingerprint her son Alexander, eight, and daughter Jessica, only six, she was furious. The 29-year-old housewife from Balby in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, saw it as a dangerous step towards a Big Brother society.

• Prodi: Italy won't block EU treaty on EU Parliament rejig plan - Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Wednesday his country would not block a new EU treaty over a plan to redistribute seats in the European Parliament under which Italy would lose the largest number of members. But Prodi said the discussion of the parliament reform may have to be postponed until after the treaty, meant to replace the bloc's ill-fated constitution, is ratified in all EU member states. The draft treaty sets the maximum number of EU parliamentarians at 750, down from the current 785, as of the next European elections in 2009. A plan by a Romanian and a French lawmaker, expected to be approved by the assembly Thursday, sees Italy lose six seats, Britain five and France four.

Wednesday 10th October 2007: -

• Putin Sees No Proof of Iran Arms Plans: Russia defies Western pressure over Iran - Russia defied Western pressure to toughen its stance over Iran's nuclear program on Wednesday, days before President Vladimir Putin has talks in Tehran and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Moscow. Western powers suspect Iran is running a secret nuclear bomb-making program and are pushing hard for a new round of international sanctions. Russia could uses its veto powers in the United Nations Security Council to block such moves.

• Dragonfly or Insect Spy?: Scientists at Work on Robobugs - Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month. "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects." Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too. "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' " That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

• Al Gore told there are nine inconvienient truths in his film - A High Court judge today ruled that An Inconvenient Truth can be distributed to every school in the country but only if it comes with a note explaining nine scientific errors in Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film. The Government had pledged to send thousands of copies of the film to schools across the country, but a Kent father challenged that policy saying it would “brainwash” children. A judge was asked to adjudicate between Stewart Dimmock and the Department of Children, Schools and Families. Mr Justice Burton ruled that the film could be sent to schools, but only if it was accompanied by new guidlines to balance the former US vice-president’s “one-sided” views. The judge said some of the errors were made in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration” in order to support Mr Gore’s thesis on global warming.

• Fort Lauderdale police defend Taser use, but warn of possible abuse - A young drug suspect riding away on a bicycle, a belligerent pregnant woman at a traffic stop, a mentally ill man cutting himself with broken glass. Police shocked them all with Tasers. The long arm of the law got 25 feet longer in Fort Lauderdale when, after several years of research and consideration, the Police Department in January did what many other law enforcement agencies already had done: began arming officers with Tasers. The department handed out about 100 of the 50,000-volt Taser X26 stun guns, which launch darts on a tether to embed in clothing or skin, overriding the nervous system.

• '9/11 Truthers' flip the bird at Bill Maher - After being broadly denounced as "crazy people" by HBO's sharp-tongued Bill Maher, some members of the so-called 9/11 Truth movement -- a group convinced that US government accounts of the Sept. 11 tragedies do not fully explain the events of that day -- decided to give Maher a taste of his own caustic medicine. In a new video making its rounds on the internet, one band of miffed Los Angeles-based "Truthers" borrows the graphics, theme music and trademark bite of Maher's popular "New Rules" segment to push back at the comedian's charges that conspiracy theorists are lunatics. "Crazy people are defined by acting crazy," activist Stewart Howe says in the clip, sitting alongside a Maher-esque video window depicting Fox News host Bill O'Reilly in a straight jacket. "9/11 Truthers," he continues, "are defined by a patriotic quest for the truth."

• Low birthweights linked to 9/11 - An increase in low birthweight babies born in and around New York in the months after 9/11 has been blamed on stress caused by the attacks. The journal Human Reproduction reported a two-thirds increase in the risk of giving birth to a slightly underweight baby in the week after 9/11. The University of California at Berkeley researchers found it was higher even months later.

• Cash for honours saga ends as the Tory party is cleared - NO CHARGES will be brought as part of the so-called "cash for honours" inquiry into the Conservative Party, it emerged yesterday. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence. The announcement finally brings an end to the prolonged saga which began last year with the launch of the Scotland Yard inquiry into claims that peerages were awarded in return for political donations.

• Met chief calls for more time to hold terror suspects as plots 'mount' - THE 28-day detention limit for terrorist suspects should be extended, Britain's most senior police officer told MPs yesterday as he warned of a "mounting" number of plots in the UK. Sir Ian Blair, the Scotland Yard Commissioner, said a pre-charge period "somewhere between" 50 and 90 days was needed. Giving evidence to the home affairs select committee, Sir Ian said: "The number of the conspiracies, the number of conspirators within those conspiracies and the magnitude of the ambition in terms of destruction and loss of life is increasing year by year." He insisted that although police had not yet required more than four weeks to assemble evidence, "we believe that case will emerge".

(COMMENTARY: The realty of the situation... "Give us what we want or we'll set the dogs on your arse!!!")

• Analysis: It's hard to defend the BBC - Another day and another public relations disaster for the BBC. The corporation, whose reputation has been deservedly battered over rows over fakery, incompetence and misrepresenting the Queen, now faces a hugely unpopular strike uniting household name presenters, with middle managers, and junior office staff. Key programmes could come off the air.

• Fingers point way to healthy school meals - A FUTURISTIC till system using technology more suited to James Bond films than school canteens is helping pupils have a healthier lunch. Rather than pay with cash, the pupils at Hampton College now just have to scan their fingerprints into the till to get their school dinner. And the healthier the pupils eat, the more chance they have of claiming a reward at the end of the year. Headteacher Peter Hains said: “The computer gives points every time you chose a healthy option.   (RELATED: See our Cashless Society Control Grid archive)

• Madeleine McCann police 'ask for British tourists' DNA' - Police have asked tourists who stayed at the resort where Madeleine McCann went missing to provide DNA samples and fingerprints after new evidence of a kidnapping emerged, it has been reported. British police have written to former guests requesting help in their efforts to identify a number of samples recovered from the McCanns' apartment at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, according to a report in the Times.

• MPs question new passport costs - MPs have questioned why British citizens will have to pay out for both an identity card and an ePassport - when both contain similar information. Similarities in production "should be reflected in the combined fee", the Commons public accounts committee said. Passport costs have gone up since 2003 to pay for the new biometric passports and future security measures. The Home Office says both ID cards and passports are needed as they have different functions.

• MPs point to flaws in Brown's 'red line' EU treaty safeguards: As crucial Lisbon meeting nears, pressure mounts on PM to hold a referendum - William Hague yesterday renewed calls for a referendum on the EU reform treaty, ahead of next week's crucial talks in Lisbon. The shadow foreign secretary accused the prime minister of a "cynical betrayal of promises" because the government pledged a mass vote on the document's predecessor, the constitutional treaty which had to be abandoned. Gordon Brown insists the new document bears little relation to the old one, largely thanks to the "red lines" the UK has established. He has pledged that unless these four conditions are upheld at the informal summit on the treaty he will either veto the treaty or hold a referendum. But this week's highly technical report from the cross-party European scrutiny committee has placed him under fresh pressure, with the Labour chairman, Michael Connarty, telling the BBC that he feared the supposed safeguards would "leak like a sieve".

Tuesday 09th October 2007: -

• New EU treaty seen same as Constitution - MPs gave ammunition to campaigners for a referendum on a new European Union treaty on Tuesday by saying the treaty was substantially the same as the defunct EU Constitution. The government promised a referendum on the Constitution, rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. But it has resisted calls for a referendum on the new treaty on the grounds that it is far less ambitious. Parliament's all-party European Scrutiny Committee concluded in a report that the effect of the entire new treaty was "substantially equivalent" to that of the Constitution.

• Met chief calls for stronger anti-terror law - Police will soon need the power to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charge, the country's most senior policeman said today. Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said the growing complexity and magnitude of terrorist plots meant that before long anti-terrorist officers would need extra time to hold suspects beyond the current 28-day limit. His remarks represented Scotland Yard's first public intervention in the debate on new counter-terrorism laws since senior officers were accused of meddling in politics in the run up to the extension of detention periods from 14 to 28 days.

• Four detained at UK anti-war rally - Thousands of protesters marched from Trafalgar Square to parliament to call for the government to withdraw troops from Iraq as politicians gathered on the first day after the summer recess on Monday. Permission to hold the event was given less than an hour before the start, organizers said. "I feel it is important to show solidarity with a growing realization that the war was wrong," said George Solomou, who refused his call up to serve in the conflict.

• Seven years jail for gay hate preachers - People convicted of stirring up hatred against homosexuals face up to seven years in jail under a new law. Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, told MPs that existing prohibitions against race and religious incitement would be extended to cover ''homo-phobic" behaviour. His statement prompted fears among Christian organisations that they could be prosecuted for preaching that homosexuality was wrong.

• US forces torture Press TV reporter - Press TV correspondent in Afghanistan, Fayez Khurshid has said that he was tortured by US forces after his illegal detention last night. According to Khurshid, foreign soldiers stopped him on the way home, grabbed him by the collar and asked if he was a member of the IRGC (The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) and worked for the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Afghan journalist was rendered unconscious by a taser and taken to a US base where the officers in charge of interrogating him, forced him to watch all the reports he had made for Press TV, while "shocking him on an electric chair and beating him on the head".

• Supporters Fear Ed Brown Is Being Tortured: Authorities refuse to divulge location of tax protester - Federal officials have refused to divulge the location of tax protester Ed Brown who was arrested on Friday, prompting many of his supporters to fear that Brown has been disappeared into a black hole and is being mistreated or even tortured. Brown and his wife Elaine were arrested on Friday after U.S. Marshals posing as supporters gained access to their Plainfield home and apprehended the couple.

• Walmart Intercom: 9/11 Truth - Nathan Moulton shows just how easy it is to get on a Walmart intercom to spread some 9/11 truth. This is a ruddy awesome video, good on Calgary 9/11 Truth.org!!!.  (RELATED: Go to calgary911truth.org)

• The ‘Silent’ 9/11 Settlement - Four of the comparatively few families who declined to participate in the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund have settled claims against the airline and other companies involved with American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon. The families assert that they opted for litigation to learn more about what went wrong. Said Irene Golinski of Columbia, Maryland, whose husband, Ronald was aboard Flight 77 and one of 125 people to die at the Pentagon: “I really didn’t go into it for the money, I went into it for the answers.” The families, however, will be unable to share those answers because of a broad gag order that is part of the settlement, the financial terms of which also are confidential. It therefore is not known if the families received more than they would have from the compensation fund set up by Congress after the terror attacks.

• New Evidence that the Official Story about 9/11 is Indefensible: by David Ray Griffin - Early in 2007, Interlink Books published my Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. The stimulus for my writing this book was the appearance in August 2006---just before the fifth anniversary of 9/11---of four publications intended to bolster the official account by debunking the alternative view, according to which 9/11 was an inside job. The most explicit and well-known of these publications was a book by Popular Mechanics entitled Debunking 9/11 Myths.

Monday 08th October 2007: -

• FBI Puts Antiwar Protesters on Criminal Database: Canada Uses It To Ban Protesters From Entry - Two well-respected US peace activists, CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin and retired Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright, were denied entry into Canada On October third. The two women were headed to Toronto to discuss peace and security issues at the invitation of the Toronto Stop the War Coalition. At the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Bridge they were detained, questioned and denied entry. "In my case, the border guard pulled up a file showing that I had been arrested at the US Mission to the UN where, on International Women's Day, a group of us had tried to deliver a peace petition signed by 152,000 women around the world," says Benjamin. "For this, the Canadians labeled me a criminal and refused to allow me in the country."

• Diana jeweller: It WAS an engagement ring, but police made me change my story - A jeweller who claimed to have sold Dodi Fayed a ring for his engagement to Princess Diana has accused police of putting him under pressure to change his evidence. Alberto Repossi, who is expected to be a key witness in the inquest into the couple's death, said that he had been intimidated by Scotland Yard detectives from the official inquiry into their fatal car crash. At the centre of the extraordinary claim is a £130,000 star-shaped ring with five diamonds that Mr Fayed was allegedly planning to give the Princess on the night that they died.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive.)

• DIANA BODYGUARD'S WIFE: SOMETHING SINISTER WENT ON THAT NIGHT - A secret witness to the last hours of Diana and Dodi has admitted she fears "sinister" forces were at work. Rebecca Murrell, 44, watched the Princess and Mohamed al Fayed's playboy son visit the father's villa outside Paris on the afternoon before the couple's deaths. The wife of Ben Murrell, 42, one of Dodi's bodyguards, said: "I'm sick of people talking about a version of events I don't recognise. "I am convinced there was something sinister going on, to the point where I doubt if even my own husband was telling me the whole truth."

• Anti-war protesters to defy ban for Parliament march - Anti-war protesters are expected to clash with police today as they defy a ban to march to Parliament on the day MPs return to work after the summer recess. Campaigners say this is the first time Scotland Yard has invoked an ancient law to prevent them demonstrating near Parliament, describing it is an "unprecedented attack on civil liberties". One said the impetus for the crackdown on the march had come from Government, adding: "In this new era [under Gordon Brown] they want to draw a line under the anti-war movement." Appealing to the Metropolitan Police to reverse the decision to impose a ban and ensure the safety of peaceful demonstrators, the Stop The War Coalition (STWC) said the ban had served only to swell their numbers. Undeterred, organisers plan to hold a rally in Trafalgar Square then march to Parliament to call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. Tony Benn, the veteran Labour MP who announced his desire last week to return to the Commons, said he would be defying the ban. In a letter to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, he said: "The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history."

• War On Terror Labelled A Disaster - The War On Terror has been a disaster and has played into the hands of Al Qaeda, according to a damning report. Civilian lives have been lostBritish military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan must be fundamentally changed if the terrorist network is to be defeated, it warned. The study by the Oxford Research Group think tank claims Iraq has become a training ground for violent jihadists - and advises that British and US forces withdraw from the country immediately. It also warns of the dangers of military action against Iran.

• Iraq Says Blackwater Shootings Killed 17 - An official Iraqi investigation into a deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA security guards raised the number of Iraqis killed to 17 and found the gunfire was unwarranted, the government said Sunday. It also said the shootings amounted to a deliberate crime and recommended those involved face trial. The Blackwater guards are accused of opening fire on Iraqi civilians in a main square in Baghdad on Sept. 16. They claimed they came under fire first. The Iraqi investigative committee, which was ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, found that convoys from the Moyock, N.C.-based security company did not come under direct or indirect fire before the men shot up the intersection. "It was not hit even by a stone," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

• Mother wants disabled girl to have hysterectomy ‘to give her a better life’ - A severely disabled teenager’s womb may be removed to improve her quality of life, and not because it is medically necessary, in what is thought to be a British first which has reignited debate over medical ethics. Disabled charities yesterday condemned the plan while experts in the field cautioned against proceeding with such radical surgery before all other options were exhausted. Doctors are seeking legal approval to perform a hysterectomy on Katie Thorpe, 15, in a radical solution to her mother’s fears that the girl, who has cerebral palsy, will not be able to cope with the onset of adulthood.

Sunday 07th October 2007: -

Mercedes driver Henri Paul (above, right), one historical 'fall-guy' out of a long list...

• No matter what the question is, Rudy says 9/11 - For Rudy Giuliani, 9/11 is the answer. To almost anything, it seems. After all, it's why America fell in love with him on that darkest of days, when the mayor was the only person on TV reassuring the nation. It's why he's the Republican front-runner for President. "For me, every day is an anniversary of Sept. 11," he said in Florida last month. Giuliani wastes no opportunity to bring up 9/11 on the campaign trail. Sometimes, it looks like a stretch.

• Hillary Using 9/11 for her Campaign - Out of all the candidates, I honestly thought Giuliani was going to be the only one who use the 9/11 events as a part of their campaign advertisement. It turns out Hillary Clinton is now probably the first to put it into action. The reaction to it is still unclear. There are people who support her more and people who don't think 9/11 should be used in a campaign at all. I think it's brilliant. She knew what she was getting herself into before her 9/11 commercial was aired. And this kind of reaction to the public is what she expected all along. The Fox news said something about Hillary shouldn't have the rights to use 9/11 as a part of her campaign. But the CNN said that Hillary had contributed a lot to 9/11. So, now I'm somewhat confused and will continue to do research. I trust CNN more by the way. Meanwhile, the families of 9/11 victims have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Obviously, the event was very painful for some of them. They're not so sure if it should be used for politics purposes. If you remember, George Bush also used 9/11 for his campaign during the Presidential election in 2004. Was he justified to use the 9/11? Well, many people didn't seem to have problems with it although it did cause some controversies. He's still the President and everything!

• UK 2017: under surveillance - IT is a chilling, dystopian account of what Britain will look like 10 years from now: a world in which Fortress Britain uses fleets of tiny spy-planes to watch its citizens, of Minority Report-style pre-emptive justice, of an underclass trapped in sink-estate ghettos under constant state surveillance, of worker drones forced to take on the lifestyle and values of the mega-corporation they work for, and of the super-rich hiding out in gated communities constantly monitored by cameras and private security guards. This Orwellian vision of the future was compiled on the orders of the UK's information commissioner - the independent watchdog meant to guard against government and private companies invading the privacy of British citizens and exploiting the masses of information currently held on each and every one of us - by the Surveillance Studies Network, a group of academics.

• ‘Kiddyprinting’ takes off in Scots schools - ALMOST HALF of all local authorities in Scotland have schools using fingerprint or palm-print machines to record the identity of pupils. A Sunday Herald survey revealed the speed at which biometric systems have spread since a palmprint reader was piloted at a Paisley primary school just one year ago. Since then, 14 educational authorities have introduced biometric identification, with at least two others planning to put such systems in place. The technology is currently used to record information about library accounts and register pupils' school meal status in the hope that anonymity will help tackle the stigma of free school dinners. Despite fears that such systems are eroding civil liberties by creating unnecessary banks of identity data, experts believe "kiddyprinting" will continue to expand in the near future.

Saturday 06th October 2007: -

• Browns Were Duped By "Trojan Horse" Marshals Posing As Supporters: Open door policy allowed officials to walk in and arrest Ed and Elaine Brown - Tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown were tricked by US Marshals who entered their home yesterday afternoon posing as supporters. The Marshals entered the house at a time when there were no other supporters present and catching the Browns off guard were able to arrest them and remove them from the property. As we reported earlier this morning, the speculation was that the Browns were infiltrated and tricked before being violently subdued as authorities refuse to provide any details behind their arrest beside the fact that they did not peacefully surrender.

• Cop Pepper Sprays, Punches, Nearly Breaks Girl's Arm During Curfew Arrest - Another shocking example of police brutality has been caught on camera showing a cop nearly breaking a girl's arm, punching her and then pepper spraying her in the face as she cries after being arrested for violating a city curfew. Watch the dramatic video of the incident which occurred in Fort Pierce, Florida. The cop twists the 15-year-old's arm right up behind her back to almost breaking point before the girl appears to bite the officer, upon which the cop punches the grl and pepper sprays her directly in the face.

• British scientists make water defy gravity - British scientists have managed to make drops of water defy gravity by flowing uphill. Researchers achieved the unlikely feat by vigorously vibrating the droplets. The force created when they bulged upwards as the surface they were on dropped was enough to make them trickle up a steep slope. Small raindrops on windscreens can remain in place due to surface tension, until they grow to a size where this force is overcome by gravity.

• PREORDER: ENDGAME: Blueprint For Global Enslavement - For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest wars—creating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Friday 05th October 2007: -

• U.S. peace activists say Canada setting dangerous precedent keeping them out - Canada is setting a "dangerous" precedent by refusing entry to Americans convicted of misdemeanours during peaceful anti-Iraq protests, say two women who couldn't cross the border this week. The high-profile activists, who are listed in an FBI database called the National Crime Information Center, say they were detained for more than two hours Wednesday at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ont., before being turned away. "First, the FBI should not have put us on that list," Ann Wright, a retired army veteran, told a news conference Thursday outside the Canadian Embassy. "And secondly, the Canadian government should not be doing the dirty political intimidation work for the Bush administration by using that database."

• Henri Paul 'signalled' to paparazzi that Diana and Dodi were leaving the Ritz - Henri Paul signalled to the paparazzi to let them know Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed were just about to leave the Ritz, the couple's inquest heard today. The driver of the Mercedes waved at a handful of photographers gathered at the rear of the hotel on the night of the crash, moments before Diana and Dodi departed, CCTV footage shown to the jury revealed. Inspector Paul Carpenter, of the Metropolitan Police, said as he explained the images: "You will see Henri Paul exit into Rue Cambon and when you watch this sequence you will see him raise his hand as if waving to the paparazzi across the road.

• Schools chief pushes Big Brother out of dinner line: Gov purees fingerprints for food policy - The government has told head teachers to lighten up after one British school told children in the dinner queue that if they didn't give their fingerprints they wouldn't get any food. The Department for Education and Skills said this week in a statement to the BBC Radio 4 Programme You and Yours that schools who refused school dinners to kids who won't scan their fingerprints might be in breach of the law, contrasting with the long-overdue guidance note it issued on school fingerprinting in the summer. This draconian application of fingerprint technology at Morley High School, Leeds, had forced one parent to make her child packed lunches, since the school provided no alternative way for children to get their dinner.

• Child ID Kits Will Be Distributed During Saturday's Game - Families attending the University of Arkansas vs. the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga football game will have an opportunity to maintain their children's safety while rooting the Razorbacks to victory. The Little Rock chapter of the FBI Citizens Academy Alumni Association (FBI CAAA) has joined efforts with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) and the FBI's National Child Identification Program to provide ID kits from 4:30-6 p.m. at the north, east and west entrances at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock on Saturday, Oct. 6. Members of the FBI CAAA will distribute 12,000 kits while supplies last to children and their families prior to the game's kickoff. In addition to the three entrances, a roving unit of volunteers wearing khakis, red or white shirts and ball caps also will distribute kits to tailgaters.

Thursday 04th October 2007: -

• Diana ‘was on Pill’ when she died - so how could she be pregnant?: Coroner exposes weaknesses in conspiracy theories on Princess’s possible pregnancy and a murder plot by intelligence services - Holding the conspiracy theory of the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed up to the light yesterday, Lord Justice Scott Baker found it, if not shot full of holes, at least a patchwork quilt of darkest grey. Lawyers representing Mohamed Al Fayed have their needles ready to stitch up the gaps and colour in the squares, but by the end of a lengthy opening address to the jury yesterday, the coroner had enumerated a number of key areas where hard evidence was distinctly lacking.   (COMMENTARY: See our commentary from yesterday on this issue... Diana's possible pregnancy is not an issue that will make or break the argument that she was murdered.)

• Footage shows Diana's driver going to the bar - Henri Paul, the driver of the car in which Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed, spent his last few hours in and around the bar of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, before getting behind the wheel of the Mercedes that was involved in the fatal accident. CCTV footage, taken from the Ritz on the night of August 30, 1997, was shown to the jury at the High Court in London on the third day of the inquests of the Princess and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. The driver, who also died when the Mercedes crashed into the wall of Pont de l’Alma tunnel, is seen in the footage walking around the lobby, smoking and talking with paparazzi outside the hotel, and entering the bar after he went off-duty. Mr Paul, acting head of security at the Ritz, went off duty at 7pm. He was summoned back to work at about 10pm – when Mr Fayed and Diana returned unexpectedly to the hotel, followed by paparazzi – when he was seen returning in his mini, and headed straight for the bar. It is not clear whether he drank alcohol in the intervening period. There is no CCTV footage of the Ritz bar so it is unknown if Mr Paul consumed alcohol, or if so, how much.

• Belgium launches multipurpose ID cards: Scheme includes cards for children that act both as an identification document and a form of protection - Ministers grappling with the technical and political problems of electronic identity cards are looking with interest at the experience of a close continental neighbour. The government of Belgium expects to be the first to issue multipurpose national chip cards to all citizens and residents. Unlike Britain, where residents will have to be 16 to qualify for the card, Belgians are eligible from birth. The Belgian government has begun issuing stylishly designed blue and green children's cards both as an identity and a child protection measure.

• WTC Worker Witnessed Lobby Explosions On 9/11 - A man who was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11 has told WeAreChange.org that he personally witnessed explosions in the lobby area after he left the building to buy hot dogs at the same time that the first plane hit the north tower. "Once the plane hit the top, that's when the bombs started going off on the first floor," said Dean Brown. "It's like the plane actually hit the first floor." "You were hearing boom, boom, boom, boom from the top floor all the way down to the first floor." The eyewitness also describes talking to devastated firefighters who told him there were bombs in the building.

• FBI Refuses To Confirm Identities Of 4 Aircraft Used During 9/11 Attacks - A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for documentation confirming the recovery and positive identification of debris from the commercial aircraft allegedly used in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (N334AA, N612UA, N644AA, N591UA), has been denied. An appeal is pending.

• Prince Philip 'told MI6 to murder Diana and lover' - SENSATIONAL claims that Princess Diana was murdered on the instructions of the Duke of Edinburgh after she expressed fears of an attempt on her life dominated the opening of the inquest into her death yesterday. The jury heard allegations that Prince Philip was at the heart of a conspiracy to murder Diana and her lover, Dodi Fayed, after ordering MI6 to prepare a report on them for the Royal Family. The car crash that killed them both in Paris on August 31, 1997 was then engineered, the jury heard. The claim of murder by Dodi's father, Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed, was at the heart of coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker's opening statement to the jury at the inquest at the High Court in London yesterday.

• Bankruptcy among UK pensioners doubles in five years - Twice as many pensioners are going bankrupt than they were five years ago, according to new figures. They made up 7 percent of bankruptcies in the past year, up from just 3 percent in 2002, according to chartered accountant Wilkins Kennedy. It said the trend was set to continue as increased life expectancy put greater strain on pensioners' savings and inflation-beating rises in the price of food and fuel bills exacerbated the situation.

• I want to be an MP again - Benn - Veteran left-winger Tony Benn is planning to stand for Parliament again, he has said. The 82-year-old, a Labour MP until 2001, wants to be the party's candidate for Kensington in west London. Mr Benn said: "There's a general election on the way and Kensington is looking for a candidate. I've written to them to see if I can stand." Mr Benn's son Hilary is in the Cabinet and his granddaughter Emily is already a Labour candidate in East Worthing.

Wednesday 03rd October 2007: -

• McCain: People should have been urged to join military after 9-11 - White House hopeful John McCain said today that President Bush made a mistake after the September 11th terror attacks by encouraging people to shop rather than urging citizens to join the military or volunteer. McCain told students at a military school in Camden, South Carolina, that people would have joined the military or volunteer groups if the president had urged them to do so. The Arizona senator made the comments after shelving a speech that was highly critical of Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

• UK police can now force you to reveal decryption keys: Refuseniks face jail time - Users of encryption technology can no longer refuse to reveal keys to UK authorities after amendments to the powers of the state to intercept communications took effect on Monday (Oct 1). The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) has had a clause activated which allows a person to be compelled to reveal a decryption key. Refusal can earn someone a five-year jail term. Part III of RIPA was in the original Act but was not activated. The Home Office said last year that it had not implemented the provision because encryption had not been as popular as quickly as it had predicted. It launched a consultation which culminated in Part III being made active on 1st October. The measure has been criticised by civil liberties activists and security experts who say that the move erodes privacy and could lead a person to be forced to incriminate themselves. It is also controversial because a decryption key is often a long password – something that might be forgotten. An accused person might pretend to have forgotten the password; or he might genuinely have forgotten it but struggle to convince a court to believe him.

• Hague condemns 'political deceit' of new EU treaty - David Cameron staked out his position on Europe yesterday by guaranteeing a referendum on any future transfers of power to the European Union if the Tories are elected. The Tory leader has already committed to holding a referendum on the current negotiations if he wins power, but he went a step further yesterday by vowing that a Conservative government would change the 1972 European Communities Act that paved the way for Britain's entry to the EU as a means of forcing future governments to hold a referendum on further transfers of power. The commitment was also seen by many as a move to counter the appeal of Ukip in winning over Eurosceptic Tories at the next general election.

• Diana jury told to consider multiple conspiracy theories - The jury at the inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed will explore 10 key elements supporting the conspiracy theory that the couple were murdered on the express orders of the Royal Family. Lord Justice Scott Baker, the coroner presiding over the six-month-long inquiry into the fatal car crash in a Paris underpass 10 years ago, said yesterday that it was important that the court "got to the truth". This, said the judge, would mean that the six women and five men jurors must consider not just Mohammed al Fayed's allegations that Diana and his son were killed because the establishment did not want them to marry, but other conspiracies that might come before the court.   (RELATED: See our popular Diana Assassination archive.)

• How trusts can safeguard the family riches - Family trusts may sound rather grand but they are well worth considering now inheritance tax (IHT) affects rising numbers of homeowners who may not regard themselves as rich. Any assets over the nil rate band for IHT - £300,000 for the tax year 2007/08 - will be taxed at 40 per cent. For many people this means that their death will be the first time they become a higher-rate taxpayer. The size of the problem has grown rapidly. The number of people whose death results in IHT being paid has doubled over the past 10 years, because the increases in the threshold for IHT have not kept pace with the rise in the value of assets. For couples, assets passing to a surviving spouse are not subject to IHT. But the future deaths of widows and widowers, as well as the impact of marriage breakdown, will mean that the numbers paying the tax in future will continue to increase significantly.

• Menezes police: 'We did our best' - The police commander who launched the surveillance operation which ended in the death of Jean Charles de Menezes has told a court: "We did our best." Commander John McDowell told an Old Bailey jury he thought constantly about what could have been done differently. His team was working under "difficult circumstances" on the day the innocent Brazilian was shot, Mr McDowell said. The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws when it mistook Mr de Menezes for a suicide bomber. Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times by two firearms officers at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005.

Tuesday 02nd October 2007: -

• Arrested For Reading The Constitution: Only pro-war groups are allowed freedom of speech in police state Amerika as cops kidnap people who recite the very document they swore an oath to protect and uphold - Peaceful onlookers were arrested by police for reading the Constitution while a pro-war group was allowed full freedom of speech in Washington DC recently in another flagrant example of how American cops are now the enforcers of a tyrannical police state. Police are required to swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution but this didn't stop them from kidnapping members of the Code Pink group, who gathered on a nearby sidewalk to calmly express their disagreement with a Neo-Con pro-war event taking place nearby by reading the bill of rights.

• Bill Clinton: "Torture Like on 24 Is OK": America needs more Jack Bauer like agents says former President - Former president Bill Clinton has told NBC's Meet The Press that America needs more intelligence agents who make their own rules and engage in whatever actions are necessary like Jack Bauer from the fictional TV show 24. "I think what our policy ought to be is to be uncompromisingly opposed to terror--I mean to torture, and that if you're the Jack Bauer person, you'll do whatever you do and you should be prepared to take the consequences... And I think the consequences will be imposed based on what turns out to be the truth." Clinton said.

• Sharp sales slowdown expected from Tesco - Supermarket giant Tesco is expected to unveil a sharp sales slowdown as wet weather and belt-tightening consumers take their toll on the company's results. Tesco surprised the market in June with slower-than-expected first quarter growth from its core domestic business, as the group faced up to trading comparisons with last summer's World Cup and stronger competition. After the rain-hit summer and another interest rate hike in July, Panmure Gordon analyst Philip Dorgan said the retailer could unveil like-for-like sales growth excluding petrol of just 3.3% for the six months to the end of August - well down on the 4.7% seen in the first three months of the year. But despite the slower sales performance, recent trading is expected to be much improved as comparisons ease and the retailer - which already has nearly 32% of the UK grocery market - takes a more aggressive stance.

• Carvings riddle stumps villagers - Puzzled residents across Yorkshire are turning detective after mysterious stone heads were left outside their properties in the dead of night. The sculptures feature the same carved symbol and come with a riddle attached. Despite CCTV film showing a man leaving three heads outside a post office, their origin remains unknown. So far, 12 have appeared in Goathland and Kilburn, North Yorkshire; four in Arthington, West Yorkshire and three in Braithwell in South Yorkshire. Each of the heads, which are up to a foot tall, looks different but all feature the same carving - which appears to spell out the word "paradox" - and a note bearing the riddle: "Twinkle twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?"

Monday 01st October 2007: -

• FBI Thought Bombs Brought Down Towers On 9/11: Working premise that truck bombs aided WTC collapse dovetails with arrest reports that were later buried - According to a terror expert interviewed by USA Today on 9/11, the FBI's initial working premise was that trucks packed with explosives aided the collapse of the twin towers, a fact that dovetails with reports of middle easterners being arrested after running away from truck bombs that later exploded that day. Lauren Ashburn: "Joining me is Jack Kelley, now he is a foreign correspondent - war correspondent - and just came back from Israel. He has some information about these attacks. Jack, what can you tell us happened, first in New York."   (RELATED: See our 9/11 archive and our affiliated site 911truthskipton.com)

• Why Did WTC 7's Rooftop Penthouse Collapse Ahead Of The Rest Of The Tower? - Why did the collapse of WTC 7 shortly after 5pm on September 11, 2001, begin with the fall of the rooftop penthouse located on the east end of the tower? Based on the following images, one can see that significant structural damage to the southeast face of WTC 7, directly below the penthouse (yellow circle), apparently did not exist. This conclusion can be based on the survival of the pedestrian bridge located near street level, directly below this rooftop penthouse (red circle). The absence of heavy structural steel from WTC 1 in the region of this bridge (right), virtually eliminates the possibility that significant damage to the southeast face of WTC 7, lead to the onset of WTC 7's collapse.

• Police on trial over Tube shooting - The Metropolitan Police will go on trial over alleged health and safety failures that led to an innocent man being mistaken for a terrorist and shot dead. Jean Charles de Menezes was gunned down at Stockwell Tube station in south London by firearms officers who wrongly believed he was about to launch a suicide attack. The 27-year-old Brazilian was followed to the station on July 22, 2005 from an address police believed was linked to attempted bomber Hussain Osman.

• Virus lab ‘ignored warning of leak’ - A BUNDLE of dusty maps alerted Steve Kendrew to the risks being run by the government’s foot and mouth laboratories at Pirbright, Surrey. The documents, some 50 years old, showed the drains beneath the Institute for Animal Health’s (IAH) laboratories, which were carrying for disinfection dangerous waste including the viruses responsible for animal diseases such as foot and mouth, bluetongue, swine fever and African horse sickness. Some of the pipes were made of tough modern plastic but most were cast iron and clay - all joined with ageing pumps, valves and pipe junctions. “It was unbelievable,” said Kendrew. “Some of the maps were missing so we didn’t even know where they all were. Few of them had been inspected or pressure tested for leaks in years. It was a disaster waiting to happen.”

• Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush "bomb Iran" - ONE of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire nuclear weapons. Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement who has joined Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile casualties in the past year.

• Big Brother Britain: Government and councils to spy on ALL our phones - Officials from the top of Government to lowly council officers will be given unprecedented powers to access details of every phone call in Britain under laws coming into force tomorrow. The new rules compel phone companies to retain information, however private, about all landline and mobile calls, and make them available to some 795 public bodies and quangos. The move, enacted by the personal decree of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, will give police and security services a right they have long demanded: to delve at will into the phone records of British citizens and businesses.

• Putin drops bombshell: I want to be the next Russian Prime Minister - Vladimir Putin today announced that he will head the candidate list for upcoming Duma elections and has a “realistic” chance of becoming Russia’s next Prime Minister when he stands down as President. The shock declaration has ended years of speculation as to what Mr Putin will do at the end of his second term as President – the constitution does not allow him to stand for a third term. He has agreed to appear on the list of candidates for the United Russia party in parliamentary elections due to be held on December 2 while he is still President.

• Nearly two-thirds of Britons want vote on EU treaty - Nearly two-thirds of Britons want a referendum on the new EU treaty, according to a poll published in The Daily Telegraph on Monday. The YouGov survey showed that some 64 percent of voters said that they wanted a referendum on the treaty, which eurosceptics say is the doomed EU constitution in all but name. About 12 percent said they did not think a referendum was necessary, content to pass the treaty through Britain's parliament, which is how the government has said it will ratify the document.

• Chocolate 'aids fatigue syndrome' - A daily dose of specially-formulated dark chocolate may help cut chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms. Patients in a pilot study found they had less fatigue when eating dark chocolate with a high cocoa content than with white chocolate dyed brown. Researchers from Hull York Medical School said the results were surprising but dark chocolate may be having an effect on the brain chemical serotonin.

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