Ron Paul goes mainstream, Ben Bernanke goes berserk!

This may be the greatest show on earth: Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R) is picking up major bipartisan support for his proposal to audit the Federal Reserve Board, and as this happens, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is showing signs of near-panic at the prospect of being audited.

As liberal Democrats increasingly join with conservative Republicans in Paul's move to audit the Fed, Bernanke has been churning out speeches, op-eds and interviews warning of Armageddon if this occurs.

It is interesting how the Federal Reserve Board, long the champion of fiscal and monetary prudence when others spend money, has declared war on the idea that anyone should account for how the Fed spends money.

Think about it: In the largest bailout in history, neither the public nor members of Congress can even make an intelligent estimate of how much money the Fed has actually spent, or exactly how it is being spent, or exactly who are the major beneficiaries of much of the spending. We know taxpayers, consumers and jobless workers are not the beneficiaries, but we don’t even remotely know the full story of exactly which institutions benefit from exactly which programs.

The stakes are very high, and as this battle unfolds it will continue to be the greatest show on earth, and one of the most important.

TSA Changes procedure after Ron Paul Incident

WASHINGTON — Transportation Security Administration screeners at Lambert-St.
Louis International Airport probably wish that the fellow they chose to grill
last March about a box of cash wasn't a Ron Paul devotee who runs a committee
devoted to individual rights and constitutional government.

But grill Steven Bierfeldt they did, and eight months later the incident has
yielded revised rules requiring TSA agents to stick to matters related to
flight security rather than policing airports for other crimes.

Bierfeldt and the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented him in a
lawsuit, announced in a news release this week that the TSA had changed its
rules in response to the litigation.

"It's a huge victory for civil liberties that TSA agents no longer have free
rein to conduct sweeping, baseless searches and detain passengers who don't
pose a threat to flight safety," Bierfeldt said in a statement.

The TSA was closed Wednesday for Veterans Day, and the agency did not
immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

A TSA spokeswoman, Lauren Gaches, acknowledged to the Washington Times on
Tuesday that the policy with regard to cash had changed but declined to release
copies of directives. The newspaper quoted her as saying that the TSA
"routinely assesses its policies and screening procedures to ensure the highest
levels of security nationwide."

Last spring, a TSA blog post defended the questioning but concluded that
"language used by the TSA employee was inappropriate."

A later blog post referring to "the St. Louis incident" says that "the tone and
language used by the TSA employee was inappropriate, and proper disciplinary
action was taken."

Bierfeldt said he was ushered to a small room and questioned after passing a
metal box containing $4,700 through a Lambert screening checkpoint. He said the
cash related to his job as director of development for the Campaign for
Liberty, a lobbying group that sprouted from the presidential campaign last
year of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican from Texas.

Bierfeldt said he was interrogated for a half-hour in an increasingly
threatening manner and told he was being placed under arrest. He recorded audio
of the episode on his iPhone.

Bierfeldt's suit contended that the TSA's pre-flight screening should be aimed
at keeping weapons and explosives off airplanes.

Before it was due to be heard in September, the ACLU said the TSA issued a
policy directive stating that "screening may not be conducted to detect
evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security."

The government agency responded in October with a second directive pointing out
that transporting large amounts of cash is not illegal, the release said. The
ACLU added that it is taking steps to drop the suit on Bierfeldt's behalf.

First Daughters Not Vaccinated Against H1N1

President Obama's school age daughters have not been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the vaccine is not available to them based on their risk.

The Centers for Disease Control recommend that children ages 6 months through 18 years of age receive a vaccination against the H1N1 flu virus. At this time only children with chronic medical conditions are receiving the vaccination because their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the strain. The CDC also says a regular seasonal flu shot does not protect against the virus.

Judge blocks N.Y. H1N1 vaccine mandate

A judge Friday barred New York State from requiring all healthcare workers to be vaccinated for the H1N1 virus until he holds a full hearing on the issue.

Acting Justice Thomas McNamara ruled after three nurses at the Albany Medical Center filed a lawsuit against the mandate, The New York Times reported. He scheduled a hearing Oct. 30 in the Albany Supreme Court, the district level court in the state.

Dr. Richard Daines, the state health commissioner, ordered all healthcare workers to get vaccinations against the H1N1 strain, also called the swine flu. He said health workers faced fines if they missed a Nov. 30 deadline.

Experts say the vaccine is safe and that patients who cannot get the vaccine are protected from infection when healthcare workers are vaccinated. Historically, when vaccines for healthcare workers are voluntary, the rate of compliance is half or less.

The H1N1 vaccine has encountered resistance from high-profile critics of all political persuasions. Terence Kindlon, the nurses' lawyer, said they are in the middle.

"These are not libertarians, they are not lefties, they are not right-wing lunatics," Kindlon told the Times. "They are healthcare professionals, and they think the vaccination is not going to be good for them."

Bombs and Bribes

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk--

What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on US soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks? What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the US, had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?

Most Americans would not stand for it. Yet the above hypothetical events are similar to what our government is doing in Pakistan. Last week, Congress did approve an aid package for Pakistan for the stated purposes of improving our image and promoting democracy. I again made the point on the floor of the House that still no one seems to hear: What if this happened on US soil? What if innocent Americans were being killed in repeated drone attacks carried out by some foreign force who was trying to fix our problems for us? Would sending money help their image? If another nation committed this type of violence and destruction on our homeland, would we be at all interested in adopting their values?

Sadly, one thing that has entirely escaped modern American foreign policy is empathy. Without much humility or regard for human life, our foreign policy has been reduced to alternately bribing and bombing other nations, all with the stated goal of “promoting democracy”. But if a country democratically elects a leader who is not sufficiently pro-American, our government will refuse to recognize them, will impose sanctions on them, and will possibly even support covert efforts to remove them. Democracy is obviously not what we are interested in. It is more likely that our government is interested in imposing its will on other governments. This policy of endless intervention in the affairs of others is very damaging to American liberty and security.

If we were really interested in democracy, peace, prosperity and safety, we would pursue more free trade with other countries. Free and abundant trade is much more conducive to peace because it is generally bad business to kill your customers. When one’s livelihood is on the line, and the business agreements are mutually beneficial, it is in everyone’s best interests to maintain cooperative and friendly relations and not kill each other. But instead, to force other countries to bend to our will, we impose trade barriers and sanctions. If our government really wanted to promote freedom, Americans would be free to travel and trade with whoever they wished. And, if we would simply look at our own policies around the world through the eyes of others, we would understand how these actions make us more targeted and therefore less safe from terrorism. The only answer is get back to free trade with all and entangling alliances with none. It is our bombs and sanctions and condescending aid packages that isolate us.

Swine flu death rate similar to seasonal flu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The death rate from the pandemic H1N1 swine flu is likely lower than earlier estimates, an expert in infectious diseases said on Wednesday.

New estimates suggest that the death rate compares to a moderate year of seasonal influenza, said Dr Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University.

"It's mildest in kids. That's one of the really good pieces of news in this pandemic," Lipsitch told a meeting of flu experts being held by the U.S. Institute of Medicine.

"Barring any changes in the virus, I think we can say we are in a category 1 pandemic. This has not become clear until fairly recently."

The Pandemic Severity Index set by the U.S. government has five categories of pandemic, with a category 1 being comparable to a seasonal flu epidemic.

Seasonal flu has a death rate of less than 0.1 percent -- but still manages to kill 250,000 to 500,000 people globally every year.

A category 5 pandemic would compare to the 1918 flu pandemic, which had an estimated death rate of 2 percent or more, and would kill tens of million of people.

An estimate published in the journal Eurosurveillance last month by the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance put the mortality rate far higher, at 0.4 percent for all age groups.

HIGHER MORTALITY?

Lipsitch took information from around the world on how many people had reported they had influenza-like illness, which may or may not actually be influenza; government reports of actual hospitalizations and confirmed deaths.

He came up with a range of mortality from swine flu ranging from 0.007 percent to 0.045 percent.

Either way, having new information about how many people were infected and did not become severely ill or die makes the pandemic look very mild, he said.

"The news is certainly better than it was in May and even better than it was at the beginning of August," Lipsitch said.

But another expert cautioned this does not mean the pandemic will not have severe effects on people and communities because it will infect more people than seasonal flu usually does in any given year.

"This is not a severe pandemic," said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin of Seattle & King County Public Health and the University of Washington.

"We are going to see probably twice as many people die from the flu as we do in a typical flu season. That is tens of thousands of people. And many of these people are going to be younger."

H1N1 swine flu was declared a pandemic in June after flashing around the world in six weeks, in part because most people have virtually no immunity to it. Experts all said a true death rate would not be clear for weeks because it is impossible to test every patient and because people with mild cases may never be diagnosed.

This lack of information made the epidemics in various countries and cities look worse at first than they actually were, Lipsitch said. People sick enough to be hospitalized are almost always tested first.

"Yes, there's been hype, but I don't think it's been an outrageous amount of hype," Lipsitch said.

Seasonal flu is usually far worse among the elderly, who make up 90 percent of the deaths every year. In contrast, this flu is attacking younger adults and older children, but they are not dying of it at the same rate as the elderly do during seasonal influenza, Lipsitch said.

Justice in Gaza

Richard Goldstone, the former chief prosecutor for war-crime tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, is the head of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

By RICHARD GOLDSTONE

I ACCEPTED with hesitation my United Nations mandate to investigate alleged violations of the laws of war and international human rights during Israel’s three-week war in Gaza last winter. The issue is deeply charged and politically loaded. I accepted because the mandate of the mission was to look at all parties: Israel; Hamas, which controls Gaza; and other armed Palestinian groups. I accepted because my fellow commissioners are professionals committed to an objective, fact-based investigation.

But above all, I accepted because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war, and the principle that in armed conflict civilians should to the greatest extent possible be protected from harm.

In the fighting in Gaza, all sides flouted that fundamental principle. Many civilians unnecessarily died and even more were seriously hurt. In Israel, three civilians were killed and hundreds wounded by rockets from Gaza fired by Hamas and other groups. Two Palestinian girls also lost their lives when these rockets misfired.

In Gaza, hundreds of civilians died. They died from disproportionate attacks on legitimate military targets and from attacks on hospitals and other civilian structures. They died from precision weapons like missiles from aerial drones as well as from heavy artillery. Repeatedly, the Israel Defense Forces failed to adequately distinguish between combatants and civilians, as the laws of war strictly require.

Israel is correct that identifying combatants in a heavily populated area is difficult, and that Hamas fighters at times mixed and mingled with civilians. But that reality did not lift Israel’s obligation to take all feasible measures to minimize harm to civilians.

Our fact-finding team found that in many cases Israel could have done much more to spare civilians without sacrificing its stated and legitimate military aims. It should have refrained from attacking clearly civilian buildings, and from actions that might have resulted in a military advantage but at the cost of too many civilian lives. In these cases, Israel must investigate, and Hamas is obliged to do the same. They must examine what happened and appropriately punish any soldier or commander found to have violated the law.

Unfortunately, both Israel and Hamas have dismal records of investigating their own forces. I am unaware of any case where a Hamas fighter was punished for deliberately shooting a rocket into a civilian area in Israel — on the contrary, Hamas leaders repeatedly praise such acts. While Israel has begun investigations into alleged violations by its forces in the Gaza conflict, they are unlikely to be serious and objective.

Absent credible local investigations, the international community has a role to play. If justice for civilian victims cannot be obtained through local authorities, then foreign governments must act. There are various mechanisms through which to pursue international justice. The International Criminal Court and the exercise of universal jurisdiction by other countries against violators of the Geneva Conventions are among them. But they all share one overarching aim: to hold accountable those who violate the laws of war. They are built on the premise that abusive fighters and their commanders can face justice, even if their government or ruling authority is not willing to take that step.

Pursuing justice in this case is essential because no state or armed group should be above the law. Western governments in particular face a challenge because they have pushed for accountability in places like Darfur, but now must do the same with Israel, an ally and a democratic state.

Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during the fighting will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice, and reveal an unacceptable hypocrisy. As a service to the hundreds of civilians who needlessly died and for the equal application of international justice, the perpetrators of serious violations must be held to account.

More Questions raised on cervical cancer vaccine

The Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine is facing renewed questions about its safety and value, three years after its introduction was hailed as a public health breakthrough.

In Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a federal government analysis of 12,424 voluntary U.S. reports of post-vaccination "adverse events" ranging from headaches to deaths concludes that only two complaints - fainting and dangerous blood clots - are more common than expected, and may be related to the immunization.

But an accompanying editorial points out that many questions about Gardasil remain to be answered, including whether it really will reduce the toll of cervical cancer. The disease annually kills 250,000 women worldwide.

And a JAMA article by Columbia University public health researchers provides a disturbing history of Merck & Co.'s marketing strategy, contending the company coopted professional medical societies to promote and recommend Gardasil.

Merck - already on the defensive over Gardasil's second-quarter sales, which slumped sharply in the U.S. and worldwide - said in a statement, "we welcome continued study and discussion" of the product's safety.

"The bottom line is that Gardasil has a very positive benefit-risk profile," Merck's Richard M. Haupt said in an interview.

Gardasil, a series of three shots, protects against two strains of the sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. The vaccine also wards off two HPV strains that cause 90 percent of genital warts in both men and women.

Weird Russian Mind-Control

MOSCOW -- The future of U.S. anti-terrorism technology could lie near the end of a Moscow subway line in a circular dungeon-like room with a single door and no windows. Here, at the Psychotechnology Research Institute, human subjects submit to experiments aimed at manipulating their subconscious minds.
Elena Rusalkina, the silver-haired woman who runs the institute, gestured to the center of the claustrophobic room, where what looked like a dentist's chair sits in front of a glowing computer monitor. "We've had volunteers, a lot of them," she said, the thick concrete walls muffling the noise from the college campus outside. "We worked out a program with (a psychiatric facility) to study criminals. There's no way to falsify the results. There's no subjectivism."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has gone to many strange places in its search for ways to identify terrorists before they attack, but perhaps none stranger than this lab on the outskirts of Russia's capital. The institute has for years served as the center of an obscure field of human behavior study -- dubbed psychoecology -- that traces it roots back to Soviet-era mind control research.
What's gotten DHS' attention is the institute's work on a system called Semantic Stimuli Response Measurements Technology, or SSRM Tek, a software-based mind reader that supposedly tests a subject's involuntary response to subliminal messages.

Government snoops on public every 60 secs

UK authorities made more than 500,000 requests for confidential communications data last year, equivalent to spying on one in every 78 adults, leading to claims that Britain had “sleepwalked into a surveillance society”.

An official report also disclosed that hundreds of errors had been made in these “interception” operations, with the wrong phone numbers or emails being monitored.

The figures will fuel concerns over the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act by public bodies.

The Act gives authorities – including councils, the police and intelligence agencies – the power to request access to confidential communications data, including lists of telephone numbers dialled and email addresses to which messages have been sent.

Councils have been accused of using the powers, which were originally intended to tackle terrorism and organised crime, for trivial matters such as littering and dog fouling. Only last month, it emerged that councils and other official bodies had used hidden tracking devices to spy on members of the public.

The latest figures were compiled by Sir Paul Kennedy, the interception of communications commissioner, who reviews requests made under the Act. They relate to monitoring communication “traffic” – such as who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of conversations or messages themselves.

Sir Paul found that last year a total of 504,073 such requests were made. The vast majority were made by the police and security services but 123 local councils made a total of 1,553 requests for communications data. Some councils sought lists of the telephone numbers that people had dialled.

Amid growing unease about surveillance powers, ministers issued new guidelines last year about their use. Despite the promised crackdown, the 2008 figure is only slightly lower than 2007’s 519,260 requests.

In April, the Home Office said it would go ahead with plans to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public, in order to combat terrorists and other criminals.

FluTracker - H1N1 Swine Flu and Influenza Outbreak Tracking from Rhiza Labs

FluTracker - H1N1 Swine Flu and Influenza Outbreak Tracking from Rhiza Labs

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Hundreds sought for vaccination drill in NJ

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP -- Emergency management officials are looking for a few hundred area residents and their cars to participate in a training drill to combat a possible virus or other widespread illness.

On Thursday from noon to 2 p.m. volunteers will be asked to drive through a check-point at the township municipal complex at Scotch Road and Washington Crossing Pennington Titusville Road.


Motorists and their passengers who participate will be directed to a "safe" area where medical personal will ask them a few questions, provide mock vaccinations or medications, and wave them through upon completion.

In return for their cooperation, motorists will receive coupons and be entered into a drawing for prizes for gift cards and certificates from local businesses.

Mercer County officials say there is no connection between this drill and the spread of Influenza A H1N1, more commonly known as swine flu. They said that virus came along after they began planning for this practice event.

For more information, contact the Hopewell Township Health Department at (609) 737 01210, ext. 657.

Remembering Harry Kalas

Philadelphia Phillies Legendary broadcaster Harry Kalas passed away today, and I am so glad I was able to snap this photo of him in May 2008 at Citizens Bank Park. He was the Phillies announcer since 1971, and was able to be apart of two Championships - 1980, and 2008. The airways will never be the same without Harry. There was nothing better than tuning in the AM on a summer night and listening to the Phillies & Harry Kalas.

World Champions Hardware On Display In Philadelphia

ZWIRE Exclusive--

The 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies solidified their place in history today, as they received their rings during a pre-game ceremony at Citizens Bank Park. The crowd of 45,000 was treated with the display of the 14-karat white gold rings, which included 103 diamonds each. It was just the beginning of a roller-coaster of a day, in which the Fightin' Phils stormed back to defeat the Braves 12-11.

It was a day to remember in Philadelphia, and the Phillies proved today why they are World Champions. Go Phils!

G-20 Shapes New World Order With Lesser Role for U.S., Markets

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Global leaders took their biggest steps yet toward a new world order that’s less U.S.-centric with a more heavily regulated financial industry and a greater role for international institutions and emerging markets.

At the end of a summit in London, policy makers from the Group of 20 yesterday delivered a regulatory blueprint that French President Nicholas Sarkozy said turned the page on the Anglo-Saxon model of free markets by placing stricter limits on hedge funds and other financiers. The leaders also pledged to triple the resources of the International Monetary Fund and to hand China and other developing economies a greater say in the management of the world economy.

“It’s the passing of an era,” said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who helped prepare summits for presidents Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “The U.S. is becoming less dominant while other nations are gaining influence.”

A lot was at stake. If the leaders had failed to forge a consensus -- Sarkozy this week threatened to quit the talks if they didn’t back much tighter regulation -- it might have set back the world’s economy and markets just as they’re showing signs of shaking off the worst financial crisis in six decades.

That’s what happened in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt torpedoed a similar conference in London by rejecting its plan to stabilize currency rates and in the process scotched international efforts to lift the world out of a depression.

Illegal Military checkpoint shut down in Tennessee

In response to a number of calls to the Tennessee Governor’s office, the Whiteville, Tennessee police have canceled a planned seat belt checkpoint operation hat was to be conducted in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and the 251st Military Police in Bolivar, Tennessee.

Keith Sherley of 101.5 FM in Jackson, Tennessee, interviewed Representative Johhny Shaw earlier today. Shaw indicated Governor Phil Bredesen “didn’t need another headache” and canceled the checkpoint. Shaw, who represents the area in Tennessee where the exercise was to be held, admitted the checkpoint was a “bad idea in the first place.” Shaw voiced his opposition to military involvement with local law enforcement. “It would have frightened more people than it helped,” Shaw added. He said he did not think the operation would be rescheduled.

Pittsburgh approves first round of surveillance cameras

By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ending a 21-month selection process, the city of Pittsburgh today announced it has picked Maryland-based Avrio Group to deploy a network of public safety surveillance cameras, starting along riverfronts and extending into high-crime areas.

The initial funding includes $3.45 million in camera funding is federal money that includes $2.59 million from the Department of Homeland Security, intended to improve port safety, and $862,000 in local money. An additional $625,000 in state funds will allow the system to be extended into crime-plagued neighborhoods.

At an afternoon news conference on the North Side, police Chief Nate Harper said the cameras will be a deterrent to crime.

"With the technology these cameras will have, it will greatly assist us with stopping homicides on the street, as well as stopping other crimes," he said.

The system will include 32 cameras installed on bridges, 48 that can recognize license plate numbers, and several dozen that will be deployed through the city's six police zones. It also includes a computer system to receive data from those cameras and about 120 others owned by private companies throughout the Downtown area.

The first six to 12 cameras will in installed in the Mexican War Streets area in the next few months, Mayor Lyuke Ravenstahl said. The first one probably will be at the corner of Brighton Road and Jacksonia Street.

Avrio leads one of nine groups of vendors that competed for the city's business. Avrio has won a string of high-profile camera installation jobs lately, including the task of putting up surveillance systems in St. Paul, Minn., for the Republican National Convention, and Denver for the Democratic National Convention. It also got the jobs of posting camera networks in Buffalo, N.Y., and Glendale, Colo.

City Council passed a camera privacy policy last year. It gives the chief of police the role of choosing where to put cameras, giving priority to neighborhoods with "a distinct pattern of crime" where there is a "potential to deter" that activity, and "significant support" of the community.

Footage can only be preserved for 10 days unless it is needed to investigate a crime or document city liability. Cameras are not allowed to target or follow a person unless there is probable cause that they have committed or are committing a crime.

NIreland riots after police arrest 3 over killings

LURGAN, Northern Ireland – Irish nationalist gangs hurled gasoline bombs at police Saturday after three alleged IRA dissidents were arrested on suspicion of killing two British soldiers in an attack designed to trigger wider violence in Northern Ireland.

Police operating in armored cars and flame-retardant suits said none of their officers was injured during the rising mob violence in the Irish Catholic end of Lurgan, a religiously divided town southwest of Belfast. Rioters also blocked the main Belfast-to-Dublin railway line that runs alongside the hardline Kilwilkie neighborhood of the town.

Later, police said they arrested a 37-year-old man and 30-year-old woman, and seized a gun and ammunition in the neighboring town of Craigavon, where Irish Republican Army dissidents shot to death a policeman Monday.

Police would not say whether those arrests and the arms find were connected to the March 7 shooting of the soldiers or the subsequent killing of the policeman. Police said the couple were being questioned about unspecified "serious terrorist crime."

The unrest came in direct response to Saturday's arrest of Colin Duffy, 41, the best-known Irish republican in Lurgan. Police arrested two other suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents aged 32 and 21 in the overwhelmingly Catholic village of Bellaghy — all on suspicion of shooting to death two soldiers last weekend.

Police arrested two teenage rioters and advised motorists to stay away from the Catholic north side of Lurgan to avoid having their cars seized and burned as road barricades. An Associated Press reporter driving through the area at dusk Saturday night had to make a rapid escape to avoid youths — some wearing masks or with scarf-covered faces — hurling rocks and bricks in an apparent attempt to stop his vehicle.

Police long considered Duffy the IRA godfather of Lurgan and twice charged him with murders in the town in the run-up to the IRA's 1997 cease-fire — which breakaway factions are now trying to destroy.

Duffy was convicted of killing a former soldier in Lurgan in 1993, but was freed on appeal three years later after the key witness against him was identified as a member of an outlawed Protestant gang.

He was back behind bars within a year after police identified him as the gunman who committed the IRA's last two killings before its cease-fire: two Protestant policemen shot point-blank through the backs of their heads while on foot patrol in Lurgan in June 1997.

The prosecutors' case against Duffy collapsed after their key witness suffered a nervous breakdown and withdrew her testimony. Two years later, Protestant extremists assassinated Duffy's lawyer, Rosemary Nelson, with an under-car booby trap bomb in a case still being investigated today because of allegations that police were involved.

Saturday's arrest of Duffy appeared likely to pose a political challenge for Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party that is the leading Irish nationalist voice in Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration — and is trying to convince Protestants of its newfound support for British law and order.

The leading Sinn Fein member of the coalition, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, earlier this week denounced IRA dissidents as "traitors" and pledged to support the police's hunt for the gunmen. But previously, Sinn Fein has defended Duffy as an innocent man and a victim of British conspiracies.

Sinn Fein declined to comment on the arrests. McGuinness was traveling Saturday in the United States and could not be reached for comment.

Saturday's arrests came a week after the Real IRA splinter group fired more than 60 bullets at several unarmed, off-duty soldiers outside an army base as they collected pizzas, the first of two deadly gun attacks against British security forces.

Two soldiers, aged 21 and 23, died and four other people were seriously wounded, including both pizza delivery men — whom the Real IRA described as legitimate targets because they were "collaborating" with the enemy. Police said the attack involved two masked men armed with assault rifles and a getaway driver.

The IRA dissidents next struck Monday when Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, was shot fatally through the back of the head as he sat in his police car in Craigavon, the town beside Lurgan. A different splinter group, the Continuity IRA, admitted responsibility for that killing.

Three people — a 17-year-old boy and two men — have been arrested since Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in killing the policeman. All remained in custody Saturday.

The dissidents insist they have no intention of stopping attacks on British security forces and the civilians who work with them. The IRA pursued the same policy during its own 1970-97 attempt to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. Most IRA members agreed to renounce violence and disarm in 2005.

Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus

Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.

“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.

That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.

“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.

“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”

Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”

He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.

Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.

“We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.

“And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. ... This is very important.”

The IRA's history of splits

The 2005 peace accord between Sin Fein, The Unionist Party, and Tony Blair was rushed based on the 7/7 bombings.

BBC News
The attacks against the military and police in Northern Ireland are part of a pattern in Irish history in which dissident groups split away from mainstream Republican organisations to maintain their dream of a united Ireland.

The question always arises as to whether these groups themselves then take over as the main flag-bearers.
The Provisional IRA did so in 1969 when it broke away from what became known as the Official IRA. There were ideological differences, but the main motivation was that the Provisionals felt that not enough had been done to protect Catholic communities in Northern Ireland.

Although "provisional", they proved remarkably permanent.
The two groups claiming the latest attacks - the Real IRA for the killing of the two soldiers and the Continuity IRA for the policeman - are themselves breakaways from the Provisional IRA, whom they accuse of abandoning the aim of an all-Ireland republic by ending its armed campaign in 2005 and joining the new power-sharing Northern Ireland government.

ZWIRE EXCLUSIVE: SHAMROCK SHAKE

The ever elusive Shamrock Shake is alive and well.

After a strenuous search throughout the tri-state area, ZWIRE investigative reporters converged to Bedminster New Jersey on Sunday, and have discovered the delicious mint milkshake has not lost it's magical touch. The Shamrock Shake, once a very popular refreshment found at most McDonald's during the 1970's & 80's, is now more difficult to find as lets say - a Leprechaun.

New York City and North Jersey residents will have to make the journey an hour south, if they wish to indulge in the Irish treat leading up to St. Patrick's Day.

Schwarzenegger’s Nazi Fetish Surfaces in Germany

Arnold Schwarzenegger loves his Totenkopf Nazi death’s head belt buckle. The California gov was spotted wearing it at the CeBIT 2009 IT conference in Hanover, Germany, according to Spiegel Online. CeBIT 2009 is billing Schwarzenegger as one of California’s "technology leaders" at the conference.

A Spiegel photographer snapped the photo below of Schwarzenegger wearing his beloved belt buckle. “An accessory as symbol of the difficult times?” ponders Spiegel in the photo’s caption.

In 2007, Arnie appeared on the cover of Time Magazine with New York Mayor Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He proudly displayed the now infamous Nazi buckle in the photo and Bloomberg didn’t seem to care, even though he is a Jew of Russian and Polish descent. No shortage of Jews from Russia and Poland fell victim to the Nazis. Arnie’s father, Gustav, was an Austrian police chief and member of the Nazi Party and SA.

Tamiflu side effect concerns grow after Japan deaths

TOKYO (Reuters) - Concerns that the influenza drug Tamiflu -- seen as effective against a possible pandemic triggered by bird flu -- may induce fatal side effects are growing in Japan after two people who took it fell to their deaths last month.

The deaths, the latest cases of abnormal behavior by those who took Tamiflu, prompted the Health Ministry to issue a warning last week that influenza patients could show psychiatric problems, although it has denied the drug was responsible for them.

But the move was too little too late, said a group whose members say they are victims of Tamiflu side effects, which came to light in Japan in 2005 after 12 children died and 32 experienced abnormal behavior after taking the drug.

"Had they issued a warning earlier, then the number of deaths could have been halved," said Haruhiko Nokiba, whose 17-year-old son walked onto an expressway shortly after taking Tamiflu and was hit and killed by a truck in 2004.

The incident was seen as a suicide, but Nokiba, who heads the victims and families group, said his son had no reason to kill himself and circumstances showed that it was a result of abnormal behavior.

"He ran out into the snow barefoot in his pajamas, climbed over a 3-meter fence to cross train tracks and then ran into a truck," Nokiba told Reuters in an interview this week.

According to the Health Ministry, 54 people have died so far after taking Tamiflu, and in February, a 14-year-old girl and a boy fell to their deaths from their apartment homes in separate incidents after taking the drug. Neither had left a suicide note.

Flu vaccine near 100% ineffective

USA TODAY

Evidence that flu viruses are becoming more resistant to the drug Tamiflu has sown deep concern among doctors who are worried that their best flu treatment is losing its punch.
The spread of resistance also has potentially weakened a pillar of the stockpiles of drugs that will be used to combat global flu outbreaks, doctors say.

The first in-depth analysis of Tamiflu resistance during last year's flu season found that about 12% of people with one of the three strains that caused the most illness, influenza A/H1N1, were infected with resistant viruses. One in five of last year's patients caught the strain, doctors reported Monday.

This year, Tamiflu resistance in that class of viruses has reached almost 100%, turning the tables on a drug designed to defeat resistance. "They're the most common viruses circulating this year," says flu expert William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University. "There are calls coming in from all over the country to infectious-disease doctors and public health specialists asking them how to proceed."

FEMA Camps are coming to a town near you!

Continuing his assigned role as corporate media siren of the apocalypse, Glenn Beck interrupted a discussion on Russia and Iran last night on Fox & Friends to mention a heretofore no-no for national television — FEMA camps. At two minutes into the video below, Beck declares he attempted to “debunk these FEMAS camps” because he is “tired of hearing about them,” but was unable to do so. “We now for several days have done research on them… I can’t debunk them.” Beck follows this with a declaration that the United States may be headed for totalitarianism.

The anti-tobacco campaign of the Nazis: a little known aspect of public health in Germany

Quick, start smoking!

Robert N Proctor

Historians and epidemiologists have only recently begun to explore the Nazi anti-tobacco movement. Germany had the world's strongest anti smoking movement in the 1930s and early 1940s,encompassing bans on smoking in public spaces, bans on advertising,restrictions on tobacco rations for women, and the world's most refined tobacco epidemiology, linking tobacco use with the already evident epidemic of lung cancer. The anti-tobacco campaign must be understood against the backdrop of the Nazi quest for racial and bodily purity, which also motivated many other public health efforts of the era.

Tobacco in the Reich

One topic that has only recently begun to attract attention is the Nazi anti-tobacco movement.(4-6) Germany had the world's strongest anti smoking movement in the 1930s and early 1940s,supported by Nazi medical and military leaders worried that tobacco might prove a hazard to the race.(1) (4)Many Nazi leaders were vocal opponents of smoking. Anti-tobacco activists pointed out that whereas Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt were all fond of tobacco, the three major fascist leaders of Europe-Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco-were all non-smokers.(7) Hitler was the most adamant,characterising tobacco as "the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man for having been given hard liquor." At one point the Fuhrer even suggested that Nazism might never have triumphed in Germany had he not given up smoking.(8)

UFO's over New Jersey

Prosecutor investigates red lights, citing possible danger to aircraft

The Morris County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the red lights that have been spotted flying over Morris County on several occasions during the past month, most recently on Tuesday night, with officials saying they may present a hazard to airplanes.

Capt. Jeff Paul, a spokesman for Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi, said on Wednesday that federal authorities have expressed concern that the objects — which could be flares attached to balloons — might be a threat to flights on their final approach to Newark Liberty International Airport.

Serious Reaction Reports After Gardasil and Menactra vaccines

Guillain-Barré syndrome disease on the rise.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Comparing serious adverse event reports to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) following Gardasil (HPV) and another vaccine for meningococcal (Menactra), the National Vaccine Information Center (www.NVIC.org) found that there are three to 30 times more serious health problems and deaths reported to VAERS after Gardasil vaccination. As reported by CBS News, the longtime vaccine safety watchdog group is calling for action, including an investigation by the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) and the U.S. Congress into the fast-tracked licensure and government recommendation that all young girls and women get Gardasil vaccine.

“Merck only studied the vaccine in fewer than 1200 girls under age 16 and most of the serious health problems and deaths in the pre-licensure clinical trials were written off as a 'coincidence,'” said NVIC co-founder and president, Barbara Loe Fisher. “If the new Administration and Congress want to make government recommended health care safer, more effective and less expensive, a good place to start is by looking into the human and economic costs of Gardasil vaccine.”

Gardasil and Menactra vaccines are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for gradeschool, high school and college age children, although Gardasil is only given to girls while Menactra is given to both girls and boys. If reports of Gardasil vaccine-related adverse events are only coincidental as maintained by CDC officials in October 2008, there would be little or no difference in the number and severity of adverse event reports for both vaccines.

Using the MedAlerts database, compiling data for VAERS through November 30, 2008, NVIC found that compared to Menactra, Gardasil is associated with at least twice as many Emergency Room visit reports (5,021), four times as many Death reports (29); five times as many “Did Not Recover” reports (2,017) and seven times as many “Disabled” reports (261). There have been 34 reports of thrombosis, 27 reports of lupus, 23 reports of blood clots, 16 reports of stroke, and 11 reports of vasculitis following Gardasil vaccine given alone without any other vaccines. There are three to six times more fainting or syncope reports after Gardasil vaccination than after Menactra and there have been 544 reports of seizures following Gardasil and 158 after Menactra (73 Menactra-associated seizures involved co-administration with Gardasil).

Rechallenge reports to VAERS involve cases where there was a worsening of symptoms after repeated vaccination. There were 275 Rechallenge reports after Gardasil compared to eight after Menactra (7 Menactra-associated Rechallenge reports involved co-administration with Gardasil). In the entire VAERS database for all vaccine adverse event reports, there are 467 rechallenge reports, of which nearly 60 percent are for Gardasil.

A 15-year old gymnast, cheerleader and honor roll student in Kansas has been diagnosed with Gardasil vaccine-related brain inflammation after receiving three Gardasil shots. Her first symptoms included muscle and joint weakness and pain, numbness and tingling in her hands and feet, severe headaches excessive fatigue, rash, dizziness, and loss of concentration after the first shot. After the second and third shots she began losing her hair and developed seizures, bouts of paralysis, mini-strokes, partial loss of vision, and severe chest pain, memory and speech loss. Click here to learn more.

A 21-year old Maryland artist, athlete and honor roll college student died suddenly without explanation in June 2008 after her third Gardasil shot. She is one of the 29 Gardasil death reports in VAERS. Click here to learn more.

A nonprofit, non-medical organization founded by parents of vaccine injured children in 1982, NVIC issued three VAERS analyses in 2007 warning that Gardasil appeared to be highly reactive and asking for federal health agencies to inform physicians and parents about serious health problems associated with the new vaccine.

Police Forcibly Hospitalize Florida Boy for Tantrum

LARGO, FL — Police this week removed an unruly 7-year-old from his classroom and forced him to be hospitalized under the state's Baker Act — against the wishes of his outraged parents.

The boy spent the night alone at Morton Plant Hospital before he was seen by a child psychologist the next day and discharged.

"This is a total abuse of police power," said the boy's father, Richard Smith, 41. "My son has no mental health problems. He's never hurt himself. He's never hurt anyone else."

Smith and his wife, Barbara, said they want to consult a lawyer.

But Largo deputy police Chief John Carroll said his officers did the right thing.

By all accounts, the second-grader threw a tantrum at Mildred Helms Elementary on Wednesday. Carroll said the boy tore up the room during his fit. In the process, he stepped on a teacher's foot and "battered" a school administrator.

Carroll said the tantrum was so bad that school officials had to evacuate students from the classroom.

School officials called the parents and police. When officers arrived, they decided the boy needed a mental health examination.

This was not the first time the boy had acted up, Carroll said, and the lead officer, Michael Kirkpatrick, decided the boy couldn't just go home again with his mother.

"He just felt that this young man needed some mental health service he wasn't getting," Carroll explained. "The Baker Act is a kind of a Band-Aid that allows us to have somebody introduced to the service providers that can actually do something for him."

Barbara Smith said she could have defused the situation had officers let her see her son. Instead, they kept her from him as they conducted their investigation, she said.

When police decided to take him to a hospital, she agreed to ride with the boy in a police car to comfort him.

The incident was terrifying for the boy, whose name is not being used by the St. Petersburg Times. Barbara Smith is keeping the boy and his 9-year-old sister out of school because they are "scared to death" to go back, she said.

The Baker Act allows people to be taken for mental health examination against their will. But it requires a person show a substantial likelihood of causing serious injury to himself or others.

Absent that, police cannot use the Baker Act to take someone into custody against their will, even if they think the person needs help, said Raine Johns, who handles Baker Act cases for the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender's Office.

"That's not the purpose of the Baker Act at all," said Johns, who is not involved in the case. "Stepping on somebody's foot doesn't rise to the level of substantial bodily harm."

Martha Lenderman, a Pinellas-based Baker Act expert, said a child can be taken against parents' wishes, but only if he meets all the criteria.

Johns said she has seen children as young as 7 taken into custody under the Baker Act before, but usually it's voluntary.

Pinellas schools police report they have been involved in 83 Baker Acts from the beginning of the school year to the start of this week. That does not include any handled by other police agencies.

School Board member Peggy O'Shea said she didn't think that sounded like a large number given the 105,000 students in Pinellas schools.

School board member Janet Clark noted there were several other Baker Acts in Pinellas schools that day. She plans to raise the issue with the superintendent.

School officials said a region superintendent has agreed to meet with the Smiths and the principal.

Carroll said the it's not as if police officers enjoy taking kids into custody.

"We look like the big tough cops with the tiny kid," he said.

But in the case of this boy, it was justified.

"The child got interviewed by mental health professionals," he said. "He didn't get arrested. There's no criminal charges against him."

Richard Smith and his wife are not sure of their next step.

"We can't just sweep this under the carpet," she said. "We do want to talk to a lawyer. … Our main goal is to make sure this does not happen to another family."

Guns for Roses in South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Police in South Carolina gave away roses on Valentine's Day. All you had to do to get one for your sweetie was turn in a gun.

Hoping to get the weapons off the streets with the "Guns for Roses" program, authorities in two central South Carolina cities set up a program where anyone who turned in a gun received a free rose and a Best Buy gift card.

At a Columbia church, five cars lined up to give away guns before the exchange had even started. At the end of the day, Columbia area police had collected 191 weapons and police in Sumter collected 32.
"We've got a great turnout so far," Richland County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Chris Cowan said.
A handgun was worth a $100 gift card, while a rifle or shotgun netted a $50 gift certificate. Cowan said one man turned in six handguns, worth $600 in gift cards.

Cowan did not immediately have a total value for gift cards given out. Sumter Police Chief Patty Patterson said her program gave out $550 in gift cards for long guns and $2,100 for handguns.
There was no amnesty for those turning in the guns. The weapons were being checked to see if they were stolen, names and addresses were jotted down and ballistics tests would also be done to see if the firearm was used in a crime.
Both Cowan and Patterson said there were no incidents and no arrests made Saturday.

Cowan said the idea was spawned in part by Columbia Police Chief T.P. Carter and Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, who has made headlines recently for investigating Michael Phelps after a photo surfaced showing the Olympic swimming champion smoking a marijuana pipe. The program was modeled after a California one; similar exchanges have been done in New York and San Francisco.

Cowan said gun donors were young and old, men and woman. Many had a big smile and some said it was a relief to get rid of the weapons.

And did they even care about the rose?

"Most of them have taken it," Cowan said.

Luxury Chinese Hotel Survives Massive Fire

Flames engulfed a luxury hotel that forms part of the landmark new headquarters of Chinese state television yesterday after sparks from fireworks set off to celebrate the biggest holiday of the year showered the capital.

The wail of police sirens from hundreds of vehicles racing to the building was almost drowned by the constant eruptions from firecrackers and fireworks being lit to mark the Lantern Festival, which is the final day of the Chinese New Year holiday.

The flames shooting up the side of the 44-storey building sent off plumes of black smoke and showered the ground with embers. At least seven fire crews fought to bring the fire under control.

The Television Cultural Centre was to have housed the 241-room Mandarin Oriental Hotel as well as a theatre and recording studios. It formed the smaller of two huge buildings that make up the China Central Television complex due to be completed towards the end of this year at a cost of about $730 million (£490 million).

NJ to fluoridate more drinking water

An extra 6 million people in New Jersey would get water treated with fluoride under a bill that cleared an Assembly committee yesterday.

The measure, approved by the Assembly Health Committee, was strongly pushed by medical professionals but opposed by environmentalists and water companies.

Committee chairman and bill sponsor Herb Conaway (D-Burlington) made it clear from the outset the bill would be approved by the panel, saying it was "appalling" that only Hawaii has lower percentage of people who have access to teeth-strengthening fluoride in their water.

"We need to do something to change that," he said.

Nationwide, about 184 million people -- nearly 70 percent -- drink fluoridated water. In New Jersey, where municipalities are free to decide whether to mandate water fluoridation, 1.7 million people -- only 22.6 percent -- have fluoridated water, according to state and federal reports. They live in 78 towns, mostly in Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth and Somerset counties.

Three officials for the New Jersey Dental Association urged the committee to support the bill, noting tooth decay is the most prevalent chronic disease among children.

"This will not only improve oral health," said Arthur Meisel, the group's executive director. "We're not asking you to spend money. We're coming to you to ask you to save money," noting there would be fewer dental claims submitted to the state health benefits plan.

Environmental advocates unsuccessfully tried to persuade the committee it was rushing the bill (A3709) Conaway introduced Feb. 5. They wanted to delay action until they reviewed research about the impact of fluoride and other potentially dangerous additives on riverbeds, as well as overexposure in humans.

"The sponsors' goal to reduce tooth decay is laudable but there are safer, cheaper ways to do it than mass medication," said Sharon Finlayson, chairwoman of the New Jersey Environmental Federation.

Finlayson brought food items she said contain enough fluoride, like some baked potato chips, cereals and sweetened iced tea. "We already are getting fluoride from many sources," she said.

Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said he worried residents may be exposed to cheap "industrial-grade" fluoride, laced with arsenic, lead and mercury. "Our concern is to make sure it's a pure form of fluoride," he said.

Karen Alexander, president of the New Jersey Utilities Association, said the federal Drinking Water Act regulates fluoride as a "water contaminant" and could affect "more sensitive populations."

Utility operators "should not have the responsibility for ensuring the appropriate dosage of fluoride, Alexander said.

Conaway, a physician, declined to postpone the vote. He said the state departments of health and environmental protection would set and enforce safety standards.

Noting the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has strongly endorsed adding fluoride to drinking water, he said: "I guess the CDC must be nuts and not know what they are doing."

The bill was approved 10-0. Assemblyman Vincent Polistina (R-Atlantic) abstained, saying he wants to do more research. The measure moves to the full Assembly.

Ellen Gulbinesky of the Association Environmental Authorities, representing 110 waste water and solid waste authorities, said the recommended dose of fluoride is 1 part per million, and it is difficult to maintain that level.

"They make it sound like all they have to do is wheel in a tank of fluoride and add it, but there is a lot of science involved in it," she said.

James Schulz, the dental association's lobbyist, said communities are already passing that test.

"This is not new territory," he said. It's monitored on a regular basis in communities across the country, including 20 percent of the population in New Jersey."



For a list of New Jersey communities already receiving fluoridated water, go to http://www.nj.gov/dep/watersupply/FluorideAS_9_3_03.pdf.

Israel to probe phosphorus claims

The Israeli army is to investigate claims it used white phosphorus illegally during its three-week offensive in Gaza.

The move follows numerous allegations by rights groups and in media reports that the army fired phosphorus shells where they could harm civilians.

The UN said its headquarters were hit by three such shells causing a fire destroying much of its aid supplies.

The Israeli army says all its weapons in the Gaza offensive were entirely legal, but until now has refused to specify which weapons it used.

White phosphorus sticks to human skin and will burn right through to the bone, causing death or leaving survivors with painful wounds which are slow to heal. Its ingestion or inhalation can also be fatal.

Is Ehud’s Poodle Acting Up?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

As Israel entered the third week of its Gaza blitz, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert regaled a crowd in Ashkelon with an astonishing tale.

He had, said Olmert, whistled up George Bush, interrupted him in the middle of a speech and told him to instruct Condi Rice not to vote for a U.N. resolution Condi herself had written. Bush did as told, said Olmert.

The crowd loved it. Here is the background.

After intense negotiations with Britain and France, Secretary of State Rice had persuaded the Security Council to agree on a resolution calling for a cease-fire. But Olmert wanted more time to kill Hamas.

So, here, in Olmert’s words, is what happened next.

“In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a cease-fire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favor.

“I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone.’ They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now.’ He got off the podium and spoke to me.

According to Olmert, Bush was clueless.

“He said: ‘Listen. I don’t know about it. I didn’t see it. I’m not familiar with the phrasing.”

“I told him the United States could not vote in favor. It cannot vote in favor of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favor. …

“She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favor.”

The U.N. diplomatic corps was astonished when the United States abstained on the 14-0 resolution Rice had crafted and claimed her country supported. Arab diplomats say Rice promised them she would vote for it.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, with Rice at the United Nations during the debate on the resolution, said Olmert’s remarks were “just 100 percent, totally, completely untrue.”

But the White House cut Rice off at the knees, saying only that there were “inaccuracies” in the Olmert story. The video does not show Bush interrupting his speech to take any call.

Yet, the substance rings true and is widely believed, and Olmert is happily describing the egg on Rice’s face:

“He (Bush) gave an order to the secretary of state, and she did not vote in favor of it — a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organized and maneuvered for. She was left pretty shamed. …”

With Bush and Rice leaving office in hours, and Olmert in weeks, the story may seem to lack significance.

Yet, public gloating by an Israeli prime minister that he can order a U.S. president off a podium and instruct him to reverse and humiliate his secretary of state may cause even Ehud’s poodle to rise up on its hind legs one day and bite its master.

Taking such liberties with a superpower that, for Israel’s benefit, has shoveled out $150 billion and subordinated its own interests in the Arab and Islamic world would seem a hubristic and stupid thing to do.

And there are straws in the wind that, despite congressional resolutions giving full-throated approval to all that Israel is doing in Gaza, this is becoming a troubled relationship.

Two weeks ago, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in opposing any truce, assured the world there “is no humanitarian crisis in the (Gaza) Strip,” and the humanitarian situation there “is completely as it should be.”

Not so to Hillary Clinton. In her confirmation hearings, the secretary of state-designate, reports The New York Times, “struck a sharper tone toward Israel on violence in the Middle East.”

Clinton “seemed to part from the tone set by the Bush administration in calling attention to what she described as the ‘tragic humanitarian costs’ borne by Palestinians, as well as Israelis.”

More dramatic was a weekend report by the Times’ David Sanger that the White House had rebuffed Olmert’s request for new U.S. bunker-buster bombs and denied Israel permission to overfly Iraq in any strike on Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz.

Sanger described these U.S.-Israeli talks as “tense.”

Repeatedly, Israel has warned that Iran is close to a bomb and threatened to attack unilaterally. Indeed, Israel simulated such an attack in an air exercise of 100 planes that went as far as Greece.

Bush both blocked and vetoed that attack, says Sanger. But he did assure Olmert that America is engaged in the sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program by helping provide Tehran with defective parts.

This would seem a stunning breach of security secrets, but no outrage has been heard from the White House, nor has any charge come that the Times compromised national security.

With Olmert, Rice and Bush departing, and Obama and Hillary taking charge committed to talking to Iran, can the old intimacy survive the new friction and colliding agendas?

U.N. compound in Gaza hit by white-phosphorus shells

CNN's John Roberts talked with John Ging who is the director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza. Ging believes that Israeli shells that recently struck the U.N. complex contained white phosphorus. "It looks and smells like phosphorus and it's burning like phosphorus. That's all I can say. That's why I'm calling it phosphorus," said Ging.

The complex under fire is the U.N. central distribution facility in Gaza. "We're trying to deal with our whole transport compound. It's on fire and now have some danger spreading into the warehouse, where all of the food and thousands of tons of food and medicine. This is a hub of the whole operation, the whole United Nations operation in Gaza, this is the hub, where it all comes to, gets distributed from," he said.

White phosphorus being used on Gaza civilians

Medics in Gaza say latest casualties include at least 60 people affected by suspected phosphorus shells fired illegally near civilian areas.

An Israeli army spokeswoman strongly denied the report, saying all its munitions complied with the law.

An Israeli spokesman also denied Human Rights Watch allegations of multiple use of white phosphorus in the bombing.

Phosphorus shells are allowed to make smoke in battlefields. Their use where civilian may be harmed is prohibited.

Palestinian medics in Khan Younis said the Israelis fired phosphorus shells at Khouza, east of the southern city, killing a woman and causing at least 60 people to suffer gas inhalation and burns.
"These people were burned over their bodies in a way that can only be caused by white phosphorus," said Dr Yousef Abu Rish.

Human Rights Watch said its researches observed multiple shell-bursts of white phosphorus on 9 and 10 January near Gaza City and Jabaliya refugee camp.

There is no way to independently explain the contradiction between the Israeli military's denial and claims by Dr Abu Rish as well as other Palestinian doctors and HRW.

Israel has prevented international journalists from entering the Gaza Strip during its bombardment.

Horrific burns

HRW cited numerous photos and video of the Israeli bombardment appearing to show the characteristic outline of white phosphorus shells.

It acknowledged the weapons appeared to have been used legally to make smoke screens to hide troop movements, but warned of the risk to Palestinian civilians.

"White phosphorus can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin," said Human Rights Watch analyst Marc Garlasco.

The Israeli army said operational secrecy prevented disclosure of its weaponry, but emphasised it "only employs weapons permitted by international law".

White phosphorus sticks to human skin and will burn right through to the bone, causing death or leaving survivors with painful wounds which are slow to heal.

The international convention on the use of incendiary weapons says it should not be used where civilians are concentrated.

Controversial use

The US military in Iraq admitted using white phosphorus as a weapon in the assault on Falluja in 2004 - after initial denials, although it insisted the use was legal.

Afterwards, officials for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons stressed white phosphorus use was permissible only if it was to produce smoke.

However, if its "toxic or caustic properties" are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, it would be considered a chemical rather than incendiary weapon and therefore would be banned.

The Israeli military has used phosphorus shells in the past, during its bombardment of Lebanon in 2006.

Minister Jacob Edery told the Israeli parliament after the 2006 war: "The [Israeli Defence Forces] holds phosphorus munitions in different forms... [and] made use of phosphorous shells during the war against Hezbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground."

The Israeli military was strongly criticised for some of its tactics in 2006, including the widespread use of cluster munitions in the final hours before a ceasefire came into effect.

Israel intentionally targeting civilians in Gaza

Doctor estimates 2,000 - 2,500 civilian casualties

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor working in Gaza, told Sky News on Monday that that he believes Israel is deliberately attacking the Palestinian population, not just targeting Hamas as Israeli authorities have said numerous times.

How Israel helped to create Hamas

February 12, 2007 Issue
The American Conservative

Brendan O'Neill


In the bloody street struggle between Hamas and Fatah for control of the Palestinian territories—a civil war in all but name—Israel is firmly pinning its hopes on a Fatah victory. It sees its old enemies in Fatah as far preferable to Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and whose members still occasionally blow themselves up on streets and buses inside the Jewish state.

Fatah has been a thorn in Israel’s side for over 40 years. It is the largest group in the Palestine Liberation Organization, and its name is a reverse acronym of the Arabic title Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini, which literally translates “Palestinian National Liberation Movement.” But Israel is ready to overlook all that and is making moves toward its old secular, nationalist opponents—“Arafat’s men”—in an attempt to isolate what it sees as the cosmically minded religious extremists of Hamas.

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly supported Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in December and promised to donate £13 million to Fatah, he won the fulsome praise of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who thanked Blair for his “good and interesting ideas” and agreed that it is time for “moderate [Palestinian] elements to be strengthened.” To this end, Olmert hinted that more than $700 million in tax receipts currently being withheld from the Palestinian Authority on the grounds that the money might end up in the coffers of Hamas could be released if a friendlier Fatah-led government were in control. This was seen by many as Israel giving the green light to Fatah to continue facing down Hamas. According to the military wing of Hamas, Fatah has even passed details of Hamas’s “military projects” to Israel so that Israeli forces can more efficiently deal with Hamas militants.

But there is something bitterly ironic in Israel’s support for Fatah against Hamas—and it should be a lesson to governments everywhere that meddle in other states’ affairs. In the past, Israel supported Hamas against Fatah. Indeed, in the 1970s and 80s, Israel played a not insignificant role in encouraging Hamas’s emergence in the belief that such an Islamist group might help rupture support for the mass nationalist movement of Fatah. Twenty years later, Israel has switched sides, hoping that it can encourage Fatah to see off Hamas. It wants “moderate” Palestinians to take on the “extremist” Palestinians it helped create. Like America and Britain before it—both of whom have supported and armed Islamist movements in the Middle East in attempts to undermine secular nationalist parties—Israel is learning the hard way that it is one thing to let radical Islamists off the leash but quite another thing to rein them back in again. If you make monsters, you shouldn’t be surprised if they come back to bite you.

Hamas first emerged in 1987. It was formed from various charities based in the Palestinian territories with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement born in Egypt in the 1920s from which many of today’s radical Islamic sects, including al-Qaeda, have sprung. Israel allowed these Islamic charities to gain strength and influence in Palestinian areas, hoping that they would counter the influence of secular Palestinian resistance movements. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas until his death by Israeli air strike in 2004, formed Hamas as the military wing of his group the Islamic Association, which was licensed by Israel 10 years earlier. During that period, when there was open conflict between Israeli forces and Palestinian nationalists, Israeli officials gave the nod to and even indirectly funded the establishment of Islamic societies in the West Bank and Gaza that might weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization. Martha Kessler, a senior analyst for the CIA, has said, “[W]e saw Israel cultivate Islam as a counterweight to Palestinian nationalism.” The very Islamic groups “cultivated” by Israel in the 1970s became Hamas in the 1980s, which went on to become Israel’s biggest nightmare in the 1990s. It remains so today.

After the Six Day War of 1967, Israel began administering the West Bank, Gaza, and the Sinai Peninsula. Where the Arab nationalist forces that had previously controlled these areas were hard on Islamist activists, rightly judging them to be enemies of secular nationalism, Israel was much more lenient, even permissive in its attitude towards the Islamists. One of the first actions taken by Israel after its victory in the 1967 war was to release from prison various Muslim Brotherhood activists, including Ahmed Yassin, future founder of Hamas. Yassin and others had been jailed by the Egyptian authorities after the Muslim Brotherhood tried to assassinate Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the anti-colonialist and pan-Arabist who considered political Islam a threat and an anachronism and was fairly unforgiving in his treatment of its practitioners. Israel, by contrast, sensing that such radical Islamists might be helpful in undermining Arab nationalists like the Nasser-influenced Fatah in the Palestinian territories released the Islamists from their cells and encouraged them to take root in Palestinian society.

According to Robert Dreyfuss, author of the enlightening and exhaustive book Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, political Islamism grew exponentially as Israel took control of the Palestinian territories:

Starting in 1967, the Israelis began to encourage or allow the Islamists in the Gaza and West Bank areas, among the Palestinian exiled population, to flourish. The statistics are really quite staggering. In Gaza, for instance, between 1967 and 1987, when Hamas was founded, the number of mosques tripled from 200 to 600. And a lot of that come with money flowing from outside Gaza, from wealthy conservative Islamists in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. But, of course, none of this could have happened without the Israelis casting an approving eye upon it.

It is from these Islamist roots that Hamas emerged in 1987. Dreyfuss continues

There’s plenty of evidence that the Israeli intelligence services, especially Shin Bet and the military occupation authorities, encouraged the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood and the founding of Hamas [in Palestinian territories].

Indeed, according to former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman, Shin Bet—the Israeli counter-intelligence and internal security service—knowingly created Hamas: “Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet, which had a feeling that they could use it to hem in the PLO.”

A former senior CIA official recently told UPI that Israel’s duplicitous support for the Islamist groups that subsequently became Hamas was “a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative.” Dreyfuss agrees, pointing out how useful it was for Israel that an Islamist movement in the Palestinian territories antagonized, in some cases violently, the mass Fatah outfit:

The Hamas organization was a bitter opponent of Palestinian nationalism and clashed repeatedly with the PLO and with Fatah, of course. And there were armed clashes on university campuses in the 1970s and 1980s, where Hamas would attack the PLO, the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], the PDFLP [Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine], and other groups, with clubs and chains. This was before guns became prominent in the Occupied Territories.

In allowing the emergence of radical Islamism, Israel was following in the footsteps of successive British and American governments and their policy of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood itself, midwife to Hamas, is a creation of British colonialism. In the 1920s, the British, then the colonial rulers of Egypt, helped set up the Muslim Brotherhood as a means of keeping Egyptian nationalism and anti-colonialism in check. Dreyfuss describes the original Muslim Brotherhood as an “unabashed British intelligence front.” The mosque that served as the first headquarters of the Brotherhood, in Ismailia, Egypt, was built by the (British) Suez Canal Company. In the 1930s and 1950s, with Britain’s knowledge and tacit approval, the Brotherhood both challenged anti-colonial parties within Egypt and spread to other parts of the Near and Middle East, setting up branches in Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, where under the “approving eye” of Israel from the late 1960s to the 1980s, it eventually mutated into Hamas. Following Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power in 1954, both the British and Americans viewed the Brotherhood as a useful weapon against secular nationalism and communism. In his book Sleeping With the Devil, former CIA officer Robert Baer describes the “dirty little secret” in Washington in the early 1950s, namely that “the White House looked on the Brothers as a silent ally, a secret weapon against—what else?—communism.”

Al-Qaeda itself, that most radical and obscure of Islamic sects, springs from the Muslim Brotherhood. Osama bin Laden is heavily influenced by the thinking of Sayyid Qutb, a radical member of the Brotherhood. The Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second-in-command and currently the public face of al-Qaeda in its occasional grainy videos and crackly audio recordings, was first radicalized by the Muslim Brotherhood before moving on to the more radical Islamic Jihad group in 1979 and subsequently fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Indeed, in both intellectual and physical terms, al-Qaeda has benefited from Western intervention in Middle Eastern affairs. It takes its intellectual inspiration from the Muslim Brotherhood, that group supported by both American and British intelligence in the early and middle 20th century, and it was physically forged in the heat of the Afghan-Soviet War, a conflict largely facilitated by American, British, and Saudi support for the Mujahideen.

In playing the same game as the Brits and Americans—the “devil’s game”—Israel created its own gravediggers. Israel’s encouragement of Hamas’s emergence to counter secular nationalism represented an attack on the idea of popular and secular democracy, so it is not surprising that Hamas retains its somewhat extreme religious leanings and suspicion of traditional politics.

From Egypt to Palestine to Afghanistan, the explicit aim of Western and Israeli support for radical Islamism has been to isolate, weaken, and ultimately destroy popular political movements that very often were based on Western ideas of democracy and progress. Israel is now trying to rein in the consequences of its earlier actions by encouraging Fatah to take on Hamas, which is a recipe for further conflict and division in the Palestinian territories.

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Brendan O’Neill is deputy editor of spiked in London. (spiked-online.com)