CIA Official Goes to Ground After Charges

Chicago Tribune Investigation
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A senior official with an Italian prosecutor's office, has confirmed that one of those accused of kidnapping Abu Omar in Italy was a CIA officer posing as a U.S. diplomat in Milan at the time of the abduction.

Speaking on condition of anonimity, the official said that the diplomat was well known as the CIA's representative in Milan and that the dozen other suspects charged had been in cell phone contact with him during their stay in Milan.

The diplomat is believed to have left Italy, and his whereabouts are unknown. Several U.S. telephone numbers listed in his name were unanswered or disconnected on Friday.

Italy charges CIA agents

Four days before Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan vanished into the thin Italian air, three middle-aged American visitors -a man and two women- checked into the $300-a-night Milan Hilton on Via Luigi Galvani.

The names on their U.S. passports and visa cards, driver's licenses, and even frequent-flyer IDs were bogus. So was their shared corporate address, a non-existent company with a post office box in Washington. Italian authorities say the three were members of a covert action team assigned to snatch Hassan off the street and ship him back to Egypt, where he would later say he was brutally tortured.

On Thursday an Italian judge issued arrest warrants charging two of the three Americans and 11 of their colleagues with illegally detaining Hassan, a fundamentalist Muslim preacher better known in Milan's Islamic community as Abu Omar.

Although the CIA refuses to talk about the Milan abduction or even acknowledge that it occurred, documents obtained by the Tribune clearly link the intelligence agency with the identities, addresses and cell phones used by several of the American operatives.

News reports and human-rights organizations have identified at least 33 suspected terrorists who have been "rendered" by the U.S. since Sept. 11. Unnamed intelligence officials have been quoted as putting the number over the past two decades at closer to 100.

Armando Spataro, the Milan prosecutor who requested the warrants, said the names of those accused, which have not been made public, were taken from the passports and other documents used at hotels and car rental agencies in Milan.

None of the databases accessible by the Tribune contains any indication that individuals with those names have ever had a spouse, a residence, an employer, a driver's license, a telephone, a mortgage, a credit history or a family--in short, none of the things typically associated with real people.

Agents Spent $150,000

According to their U.S. passports, several of the first CIA operatives to arrive, and who apparently were used to track Abu Omar's comings and goings, were of late middle age, suggesting they might have been posing as retired Americans on holiday.

The 18 people brought into the city for the operation spent at least $150,000 at the Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton and Westin hotels, according to documents obtained by the Tribune.

Nearly all gave post office boxes as their home or business addresses. Those names and addresses are linked to what appears to be a CIA network of dozens of post office boxes in the Washington area with hundreds of names attached.

They include a 64-year-old man whose passport said he had been born in Alaska, a 57-year-old woman whose passport said she had been born in Florida and a 50-year-old man whose U.S. passport said he had been born in the former Soviet republic of Moldova.

The Moldovan-born man listed his U.S. employer's address as a post office box in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington. His name is linked, via a half-dozen post office boxes in the Washington and Boston areas, to a Massachusetts company, Premier Executive Transport Services, that until last year was the nominal owner of a Gulfstream executive jet spotted at the scene of post-Sept. 11 "renditions" in Pakistan and Sweden.

Before checking into the Sheraton's Room 814, the man also left the hotel's front desk a Virginia telephone number. When the Tribune first began making inquiries, the number was answered "Coughlin Enterprises" by an operator who described the company as a "management consulting" firm.

According to the operator, the company's owner, a man she identified as Robert Coughlin, was unavailable.

"He's in and out a lot, but he always checks his messages," she said.

The next day, a different operator who answered the same number identified the company's owner as "Rosemarie Coughlin," who she said was similarly unavailable.

Neither Coughlin ever returned a reporter's telephone calls. The operators have since been replaced by an anonymous answering machine.

Red Sox Owner Gave Plane to CIA

Most of the aircraft known to have been used in CIA renditions are executive jets, such as Gulfstreams or Learjets, that are either owned by the agency through front companies like Premier Executive Transport or chartered for upward of $5,000 an hour.

Several planes shown by FAA records to have visited Afghanistan or the CIA's training facility at Camp Peary, Va.--destinations not normally accessible by private corporate aircraft--are registered to companies with names like Rapid Air Transport, the Path Corp. and Braxton Management Services, with mailing addresses in Nevada, Montana and Delaware.

The plane that carried Abu Omar to Cairo was not a CIA aircraft but a chartered Gulfstream owned by Phillip H. Morse, a multimillionaire Florida businessman and a co-owner of the world champion Boston Red Sox.

Morse confirmed to the Boston Globe in March that he charters his plane to the CIA and other clients when it is not being used for Red Sox business. But Morse said he knew nothing about the uses to which the intelligence agency had put the plane.

On Monday, Italy will issue the arrest warrants through the European police agency, Europol, and the international police agency, Interpol.

Poll: 84% Opposed to Draft

With military recruitment shortfalls reaching a near-crisis, a new Gallup poll suggests further troubles, as far fewer American adults express support for their children enlisting. Gallup also has found that Americans opposed the return of the military draft by overwhleming numbers, with 85% against it, the highest level ever."

Feds Claim Pot Clubs Fronted for Drug Crime

Three San Francisco medicinal marijuana clubs raided by federal agents were being used as fronts for a major drug trafficking operation, Federal drug enforcement authorities alleged Thursday.

Their probe, they insisted, was about dismantling a large-scale operation that allegedly was using cannabis clubs as a cover as it grew and distributed thousands of pounds of marijuana throughout the Bay Area. The affidavit describes a network of associates who hid behind ``nominee owners'' of cannabis clubs. The majority of the profits came not from medicinal marijuana sales, but from street sales. One of the men arrested, San Francisco resident Enrique Chan, 26, allegedly told an undercover agent he planned to use the clubs as a defense if arrested.

Aftermath of Abuse -Kathy's Story

Peter Mullan's award-winning film The Magdalene Sisters made international headlines by exposing the abuse that took place in the Magdalen laundries in Ireland. Over the course of eighty years, thousands of young Irish girls were incarcerated in homes run by nuns -where they were virtual work slaves. Many were beaten and sexually abused.

Kathy O'Beirne was one such Magdalen Girl. Now at the age of 44, in 'Kathy's Story - A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries' she give voice to the thousands of other women who were abused.

In a shocking interview on Irish radio this week, she recounted the failure to investigate the murder of many of these defencless girls; she described their continuing battle with the institutions who oversaw the abuse; and the relentless toll of suicide among the victims -which continues to this day.

The lessons of her story apply to the worldwide incidence of such abuse cases. Justice is not served just by bring the perpretrators to account. Not if the victims continue to take their lives, as we offer only pious words to comfort them -and not our effective support.

BreakForNews Audio Special on DSL or 56K Mp3

Kathy's Story - A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries
Also on Amazon

Kofi & Condi's Big Iraq Sellout

It's the G8 New World Order! In Brussels on Wednesday 22nd June, at an international conference on the future of Iraq, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, sat down next to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to lend the endorsement of the United Nations to a policy of genocide against the Sunni of Iraq.

It was a historic occasion for the U.N.. Previously accused of failing to halt genocide, the international body now for the first time underlined it's tacit backing for genocidal war crimes in support of crushing opposition to the colonial takeover of a soverign nation and the looting of it's national assets.

Even as radiation poisoning begins to show it's deadly effects; even as infant mortality soars; even as up to 60,000 Iraqis are dragged from their homes to languish in concentration camps -subject to brutal and unrestrained torture; even as women, children and the elderly are shot in the back in the streets of Iraqi towns and cities; even as bombing raids demolish civillian homes across Iraq; even as international corporate thieves loot Iraqi funds; even as hospitals are stormed and wrecked by occupation troops and doctors handcuffed; these blood-stained goons who front for power have the gall to urge the puppets in Baghdad to ensure minority Sunnis "help shape Iraq's future."

The only aspect of Iraq the Sunni are going to shape is the graveyards. But don't tell the general public that. It might disconcert them.

The same Sunnis are currently being targetted with a genocidal program of ethnic elimination. Is it ethnic cleansing if you wipe Fallujah from the map of the world? Apparently not.

Annan was not alone.

Eighty countries attended the Iraq 'government' public relations conference. Annan and Rice were joined at a final news conference by Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Even Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov chimed in with his country's support. Lavrov said the conference reflected the global community's desire to proactively help the Iraqis improve their situation.

What planet are these people on?

This is the same U.N. which postured against the illegal invasion of Iraq. This is the same EU which supposedly opposed the same invasion. In the interim, the occupation forces have ironically and ruthlessly bombed Iraq with nuclear weapons; flattened Fallujah and slaughtered up to 6,000 of it's inhabitants with napalm, nerve gas and other weapons of mass destruction.

That U.N. and EU political opposition to the invasion was fake. Merely a sop to outraged public opinion in countries around the world. The gloves have been off for quite a while.


Partners for Generations

At the opening sesion of the Iraq conference, Rice had said: "We have agreed to work together to build a renewed international partnership with Iraq."

Which is rather reminiscent of a statement by the G8 economies from their summit at Sea Island, Georgia on June 9, 2004 about what they termed "The Broader Middle East and North Africa."

U.S. Centcom, in other words.

They used the 'partnership' word back then too.

"We commit ourselves today to a Partnership for Progress and a Common Future with the governments and peoples of the Broader Middle East and North Africa... Supporting reform in the region, for the benefit of all its citizens, is a long-term effort, and requires the G-8 and the region to make a generational commitment." [Source]

'Partnership' is what Mob offer when they come into your store to help prevent 'trouble.'

'Generational commitment' is what Rice, and the Neocons have already spoken about when they refer to generations of Americans dying for corporate power over the years ahead.

Same deal. Same partnership. Same Mob.

This is a continuation of the G8 "setting aside their differences" and ending the EU/UN pretence as the conscience of the international community. For "international community," read instead: "G8 monopoly market capitalism."

You cannot pretend to be the conscience of G8 capitalism. That's a non sequitor. Capitalism is simply an amoral utilitarian economic system. By definition, it has no conscience.

Over the last ten to fifteen years, the blood of millions of Iraqis -mostly children- has been shed to facilitate this imperial takeover. These are the people fronting for that genocide. The financial and corporate entities behind them, answer to money not morality.

Back in June, 2004 the G8 also announced it intends to create a global 'peacekeeping' force of more than 50,000 over the next five to six years.

Next stop -wherever the pickings are rich, or the poor are defiant.

Welcome to the G8 New World Order.

SECRETARY RICE: "I would like to thank Secretary General Annan for being here on behalf of the United Nations which critically will play a role here in Iraq over the next several months in helping the Iraqi people prepare for their historic elections for a permanent government at the end of the year."

"We are witnessing as an international community the emergence, of course, of an Iraq free of tyranny, a great culture and a great people who are finally throwing off years and decades of tyranny and horror for their people to try and build a free and democratic future."

"It is, of course, a process that is challenged by evil people who would try and destroy those hopes and dreams..."

See Also:

• Dawn of the G8 New World Order
• Fallujah's 9/11: U.S. Used Weapons of Mass Destruction

Killed Soldier's Brother Stepped Before Truck

The brother of a soldier killed in Iraq, Justin 'Paul' Byers, 19, of Schleswig, died Monday night after he was hit by a pickup truck when he walked out of ditch one mile west of Vail on U.S. Highway 30.

The Crawford County medical examiner announced the death was ruled a suicide on the same day Byers' family held a funeral for his brother, Sgt. Casey Byers. Casey Byers was killed in Iraq on June 11 when a bomb detonated under his armored Humvee.

Justin Byers, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve transportation company of Sac City, was also upset that his military unit was scheduled to leave for Iraq this fall, said Dr. Dennis Crabb, Crawford County medical examiner.

The circumstances at the scene of the accident led officials to conclude that Byers' death was an 'intentional act,' Crabb said. No alcohol was found at the scene, but a toxicology report wasn't yet available. A letter Byers wrote for his brother's funeral was read at the services by Casey Byers' brigade commander, Col. Tim Orr.

'If I could say anything to him, it would be 'Yes, Casey, I'm exactly like you and I stand here today proud to say it,'' Justin wrote. 'I will not cry for my brother because I know he would not want me or any of you to.'

Feds Raid Pot Providers in Calif.

Raids on businesses, homes and pot clubs were conducted Wednesday as part of a crackdown by U.S. federal drug agents on medical marijuana providers in northern California, the Associated Press reported.

Three pot clubs and more than 20 homes and businesses in San Francisco were searched by drug agents. The raids were the result of a more than two-year investigation into all alleged marijuana trafficking operation, the AP reported.

But in Sacramento, Dr. Marion Fry and her husband, attorney Dale C. Schafer, were charged with conspiracy to grow and distribute marijuana from their California Medical Research Center in Cool, a community northeast of Sacramento.

An attorney for the couple told the AP that the raids Wednesday may be linked to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago. The court said that U.S. federal laws prohibiting the sale and distribution of narcotics supersede state medical marijuana laws.

US not losing War, Rumsfeld insists

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came under attack at a Senate hearing Thursday, as he insisted the military shouldn't set a deadline for withdrawing American troops from Iraq.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a Democrat, condemned as 'gross errors and mistakes' in the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. He demanded Rumsfeld step down.

'In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out. What is it for the Secretary of Defense?' Kennedy asked at the fractious Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. 'Isn't it time for you to resign?' he asked.

The Defence Secretary rejected calls from some senators that the military set a timetable to pull troops out of Iraq, calling it a 'mistake' that would 'throw a lifeline to terrorists.'

Iraq Saw Almost 500 Car Bombings in a Year

Car bombers have struck Iraq 479 times in the past year, according to an Associated Press count based on reports from police, military and hospital officials. The toll has been tremendous, with the blasts killing 2,174 people and wounding 5,520.

Last month was the most violent for Iraqi civilians since the U.S.-led invasion. There were 77 car bombs in May, killing 317 people and wounding 896.

Massive Crack Opens In Earth In Texas

CLAUDE, TX -- A massive crack in the earth opened up last week in Claude, Texas and its creating a stir among geologists. Geologists said Tuesday the crack was a joint in the earth's crust. They believe the opening is the result of a weak point in the joint where one spot slips away from the other.

Some parts measure more than 30-feet deep and it drained what use to be a pond. Experts say earth cracks are common but the size of the crack in Claude is not.

Three U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq

Three U.S. soldiers were killed by small-arms fire during combat operations west of Baghdad, the military said Wednesday. The soldiers were killed Tuesday near the city of Ramadi, the military said. They were attached to the U.S. Army's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which is assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force.

FBI Drops Osama - Seeks Wanted Tomato

Once was a time when Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaida were the FBI's key anti-terror focus, but no more. A top FBI official has just declared that violence by environmental and animal rights extremists against U.S. drug makers is currently the FBI's top domestic terrorism issue.

John Lewis, FBI deputy assistant director in charge of counterterrorism made the startling claim in his address to some of the 18,000 biotechnology executives gathered in Philadelphia for the biotech industry's annual convention.

Outside, a helicopter hovered overhead the convention center, amid high security preparedness -as scattered handfulls of demonstrators made their way through police cordons.

Nobody seemed to be looking out for middle-eastern types.

"There has been an increase in the use of incendiary devices as well as explosive devices," said the FBI terror chief. The agency has about 150 open cases of arson, bombings and other violent crimes associated with militant environmental and animal rights activists protesting the experimental use of animals in medical research, he said.

Protesters — some dressed as tomatoes and ladybugs — gathered outside the convention center, banging drums and holding signs with slogans that read, "We Are Not Lab Rats" and "Biotech is Biohazard."

There was one moment of high drama, as a police officer collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack on Tuesday near where police had skirmished with protesters. But it turned out the officer was not directly involved in the confrontation.

"I don't think Officer Paris Williams was involved in the scuffle, but anyhow, he saw the scuffle, he went toward the scuffle, he collapsed," Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said outside the hospital. "We're not blaming anybody for what happened," he said.

Nevertheless, in a bid to make themselves look useful, the FBI quickly offered to enhance the video of the collapse to get a better idea of exactly what happened.

No middle-eastern men were thought to be involved.

Officer Williams' death clearly affected the protestors, who expressed their condolences in a statement. Only a few dozen protestors showed up later at the conference gala dinner.

The biotech industry is urging a hardline response to the direct action tactics being used by some who oppose them. Chiron Corp. of Emeryville, Calif., won a restraining order in a California court against a group allegedly involved in much of the activity.

Later this year, following a technical mistrial, six Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) members will again face federal charges that carry maximum penalties of between three and five years, under federal laws which treat their activism as domestic terrorism.

FBI security for the biotech convention in Philadelphia did not reportedly include distributing flyers depicting either Osama Bin Laden or Musab al-Zarqawi. Perhaps America is safe at last from Al-Qaida.

However, this is little reason to relax our collective vigilance. Nor to reduce the counterterrorism budgets of the FBI and/or Dept. of Homeland Security.

If you are approached by someone dressed, for example as a tomato or a cucumber, please contact your local FBI office immediately -giving a full description of the vegetable involved.

by Fintan Dunne
based on news agency and local affiliate reports.

Microsoft Monopoly Rolls On -Antitrust Judge

Microsoft Corp. is still trying to 'leverage' its Windows operating system monopoly to control all software markets, said the former judge who ordered the company's breakup in the U.S. government's landmark antitrust case.

'Nothing has changed, to my observation, in the five years that have elapsed since my decision,' said Thomas Penfield Jackson, who retired last year as a federal judge. 'Windows is an operating-system monopoly, and the company's business strategy was to leverage Windows to achieve a comparable dominion over all software markets,' Jackson said yesterday in Washington at a conference sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute.

Jackson's 2000 decision ordered the breakup of Microsoft, but in 2001, a U.S. appeals court overturned that element, leaving the company intact. The Bush administration, which inherited the case from the Clinton administration, settled with Microsoft once the company agreed to let computer makers promote rival software products.

Jackson defended his decision to grant the Clinton administration's request to break up the company. 'The Microsoft persona I had been shown throughout the trial was one of militant defiance, unapologetic for its past behavior and determined to continue as before,' he said.

Writer Ken Auletta, who wrote a book about the Microsoft case, based in part on interviews with Jackson, quoted the judge as comparing Microsoft executives to members of a drug gang because of their unrepentant attitude in court.

Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under Occupatiion

Summary of Dahr Jamail Report
by Bert De Belder

From April, 2004 through January, 2005, Dahr Jamail surveyed 13 hospitals in Iraq in order to research how the healthcare system was faring under the US-led occupation.

The report documents the desperate supply shortages facing hospitals, the disastrous effect that the lack of basic services like water and electricity have on hospitals and the disruption of medical services at Iraqi hospitals by US military forces.

Three out of the eleven hospitals surveyed are frequently raided by the US military, five others sporadically.

Although the Iraq Ministry of Health claims its independence and has received promises of over $1 billion of US funding, hospitals in Iraq continue to face ongoing medicine, equipment, and staffing shortages under the US-led occupation.

Dr. Qasim al-Nuwesri, the chief manager at Chuwader General Hospital, one of two hospitals in the sprawling slum area of Sadr City, Baghdad, an area of nearly 2 million people, said that for his hospital, the lack of potable water was the major problem. The hospital needs at least 2000 liters of water per day to function with basic sterilization practices. According to Dr. al-Nuwesri, they received 15% of this amount.

In November 2004, shortly after razing Nazzal Emergency Hospital to the ground, US forces entered Fallujah General Hospital, the city’s only healthcare facility for trauma victims, detaining employees and patients alike. According to medics on the scene, water and electricity were “cut off,” ambulances confiscated, and surgeons, without exception, kept out of the besieged city.

“I was with a woman in labor, the umbilical cord had not yet been cut,” said Asma Khamis al-Muhannadi, a doctor who was present during the US and Iraqi National Guard raid on Fallujah General Hospital. “At that time, a US soldier shouted at one of the (Iraqi) national guards to arrest me and tie my hands while I was helping the mother to deliver.”

As an occupying power, the US was responsible for conforming with international humanitarian law and human rights law, regarding the situation of healthcare in Iraq. The Fourth Geneva Convention contains specific provisions pertaining to the delivery of healthcare services.

The report clearly illustrates the abject failure of the US to carry out even minimal humanitarian duties as occupying power.

(The report has been published by the BRussells Tribunal, Medical Aid for the Third World, El Taller International, the Asian Women’s Human Rights Council, the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers and SOS Iraq. It was launched at a press conference in Brussels on June 21, 2005.)

Report Extract:

"Many doctors in Iraq believe that, more widely, the lack of assistance, if not outright hostility, by the US military, coupled with the lack of rebuilding and reconstruction by foreign contractors has compounded the problems they are facing.

"According to Agence France-Presse, the former ambassador of Iraq Paul Bremer admitted that the US led coalition spending on the Iraqi Health system was inadequate. "It’s not nearly enough to cover the needs in the healthcare field," said Bremer when referring to the amount of money the coalition was spending for the healthcare system in occupied Iraq.8

"When asked if his hospital had received assistance from the US military or reconstruction contractors, Dr. Sarmad Raheem, the administrator of chief doctors at Al-Kerkh Hospital in Baghdad said, "Never ever. Some soldiers came here five months ago and asked what we needed. We told them and they never brought us one single needle... We heard that some people from the CPA came here, but they never did anything for us."

"At Fallujah General Hospital, Dr. Mohammed10 said there has been virtually no assistance from foreign contractors, and of the US military he commented, "They send only bombs, not medicine."

Dahr Jamail reports on the struggling health care situation in Iraq. The report surveys 13 Iraqi Hospitals, examines the actions taken by US military against hospitals and care workers that constitute war crimes as defined by the Geneva conventions, discusses and documents cases of US medical personnel complicit in torture through failures to document the visible signs of torture on their patients, and much more.

See the Full Report at http://www.brusselstribunal.org/DahrReport.htm

See Also:
Commentary on the report by Bert De Belder
Electronic Iraq Coverage
Iraqi Doctors Strike over Police Gun Threats

Schwarzenegger Support Crashes -Poll

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suddenly ranks among the most unpopular governors in modern California history, as residents grow increasingly unhappy about the action hero-turned-politician's budget plans and his call for a special election, according to a new Field Poll.

Less than a third -- 31 percent -- of the state's adults approve of the job the governor is doing in Sacramento, down from 54 percent in February.

"There's very little for the governor to cheer about in this poll,'' said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "There's a very broad-based view that the governor is off on the wrong track.''

Schwarzenegger's approval rating among registered voters is lower than any number recorded by the Field Poll for governors Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown and George Deukmejian. He now ranks fourth in unpopularity, behind Democrats Gray Davis and Pat Brown and Republican Pete Wilson.

Schwarzenegger's high-profile battle with the Democrat-led Legislature and his continuing disputes with groups representing California teachers, nurses and public employees have taken a toll. Only 16 percent of registered Democrats approve of the job the governor is doing, while his support among nonpartisan voters has shrunk to 35 percent, down from 48 percent four months ago. Schwarzenegger's sinking support even shows up among Republicans, where his approval numbers have fallen from 84 percent in February to 66 percent in the new survey.

Halliburton Wins $1.25 Bn US Army Contract

(HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The U.S. Army on Tuesday awarded Halliburton's KBR subsidiary (Kellogg Brown & Root) a troop logistics contract for the Balkans valued at up to $1.25 billion, despite an ongoing federal criminal probe into the legality of the company's existing Balkans contracts.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened a probe last year into allegations by Bunnatine Greenhouse, a senior contracting specialist with the Army, who said Halliburton's troop logistics work in the Balkans was 'out of control.' The Army opened an investigation into her allegations last year.

Greenhouse's attorney, Michael Kohn, is calling for an independent organization, outside of the Pentagon, to investigate charges of cronyism regarding Halliburton's contracts. 'This needs to be done by an outside agency,' he told the Associated Press last year. A report from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) found that President Bush has repeatedly appointed individuals with Republican political backgrounds to serve as nonpartisan inspectors general at federal departments and agencies.

See Also: Haliburton Abandons Wounded Employee

Kidnapped Girl 'Rescued' by Lions

Enlarge Pic ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP)

A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said Tuesday.

The girl, missing for a week, had been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them, said Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo, speaking by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, about 350 miles southwest of Addis Ababa.

She was beaten repeatedly before she was found June 9 by police and relatives on the outskirts of Bita Genet, Wondimu said. She had been guarded by the lions for about half a day, he said.

"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest,'' Wondimu said. "If the lions had not come to her rescue, then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage,'' he said. "Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people."

The girl, the youngest of four siblings, was "shocked and terrified'' after her abduction and had to be treated for the cuts from her beatings, Wondimu said. He said police had caught four of the abductors and three were still at large. The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction.

Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said the girl may have survived because she was crying from the trauma of her attack.

"A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they didn't eat her,'' Williams said.

Ethiopia's lions, famous for their large black manes, are the country's national symbol and adorn statues and the local currency. Despite a recent crackdown, Hunters also kill the animals for their skins, which can fetch $1,000. Williams estimates that only 1,000 Ethiopian lions remain in the wild.

See Also: The Lion of Zion

Bill would Force mentally ill to take Meds

(Bangor Daily News AUGUSTA) - The mental health community is divided over a proposed new law that would require some people with mental illness to take prescribed psychiatric medications or face involuntary admission to a state hospital.

In its final amended form, L.D. 151, An Act to Improve the Delivery of Maine's Mental Health Services, would set up a one-year, Augusta-based pilot project to treat a maximum of 50 people. It would trigger a court review of patients with multiple psychiatric hospitalizations and repeated outpatient noncompliance with their medication orders.

The bill has engendered strong opposition from Maine's Disability Rights Center. Public Policy Director Helen Bailey said last week that people with mental illness have the same rights as those with other illnesses. "There are good reasons why people may choose not to take their medications," she said, and the right to do so should be protected.

Ex-KKK Member Found Guilty in Slayings

(AP PHILADELPHIA, Miss.) - An 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman was convicted of manslaughter Tuesday in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers — exactly 41 years after they disappeared.

The jury of nine whites and three blacks reached the verdict on their second day of deliberations, rejecting murder charges against Edgar Ray Killen. Killen showed no emotion as the verdict was read. He was comforted by his wife as he said in his wheelchair. He was wearing an oxygen tube. Heavily armed police a barrier outside a side door to the courthouse and jurors were loaded into two waiting vans and driven away.

The verdict was 41 years to the date after James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were ambushed, beaten, and shot.

Downing St. Memo's Achillies Heel

From an AP Report:

"The eight memos — all labeled 'secret' or 'confidential' — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.

"Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals."

Scientists Find Early Signs of Alzheimer's

A subtle change in a memory-making brain region seems to predict who will get Alzheimer's disease nine years before symptoms appear, say researchers who scanned the brains of middle-aged and older people while they were still healthy.

They discovered that lower energy usage in a part of the brain called the hippocampus correctly signaled who would get Alzheimer's or a related memory impairment 85 percent of the time.

"We found the earliest predictor," said the lead researcher, Lisa Mosconi of New York University School of Medicine. "The hippocampus seems to be the very first region to be affected."

The discovery may provide leads to scientists searching for therapies to at least delay the onset of the degenerative brain disease. [i.e. Big Bucks Loom for Pharma]

People who drink fruit or vegetable juice at least three times a week seem four times less likely to develop Alzheimer's than nonjuice drinkers, according to a study of 1,800 elderly Japanese-Americans. The theory is that juice contains high levels of polyphenols, compounds that may play a brain-protective role.

That Alzheimer's begins developing so early means even young people should adopt a brain-healthy lifestyle, said Dr. Mark Sager of the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention. 'what we're hoping is that 55 is not too late,' he said.

A War Hawk Circles Back

(LA Times) JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — With its sprawling military bases and huge population of military retirees, eastern North Carolina has believed in the Iraq war, but new doubts and divisions have come into view.

Service members' families, watching violence surge, fear it will drag on indefinitely. Others worry it is damaging the military — or that it has been prosecuted foolishly.

The debate is occurring in a place where support for the military is apparent to the most casual visitor. The highways around Jacksonville, near the entrance to the Marines' huge Camp Lejeune, are lined with car dealerships, military surplus stores, barber shops and other businesses festooned with American flags. Signs urge Americans: "Honk for the Troops" and "Pray for Our Heroes."

Kerri Hassell of Jacksonville, a 32-year-old single mother of three, said she was worried about the effect the war had on a number of close friends who were Marines, including one who was godfather to her children. She said she knew three young Marines who were about to leave the service. All have doubts about continuing the war, she said.

"Every one wants it to end," said Hassell, a community college student with a hairdressing business. "They don't know why they're over there."

In her view, "the government uses the word 'terror' and it just sends us all into a frenzy."

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said polls were showing that people were paying close attention to developments in Iraq, and that the number of people who preferred withdrawal was steadily rising.

"What I see in Iraq is a steady drip, drip, drip of eroding support for the war as the casualties mount and the instability continues," Kohut said.

Elected Iraqis Demand US Withdrawal

Eighty two Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum have pressed for the withdrawal of the US-led occupation troops from their country.

The Shiite, Kurdish, Sunni Arab, Christian and communist legislators made the call in a letter sent by Falah Hassan Shanshal of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the largest bloc in parliament, to speaker Hajem Al-Hassani, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We have asked in several sessions for occupation troops to withdraw. Our request was ignored,” read the latter, made public on Sunday, June 19.

There are currently about 160,000 foreign troops in Iraq, including 138,000 American forces and 15,000 mercenaries from private military firms, according to the estimation of Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry.

“It is dangerous that the Iraqi government has asked the UN Security Council to prolong the stay of occupation forces without consulting representatives of the people who have the mandate for such a decision. Therefore we must reject the occupation's legitimacy and renew our demand for these forces to withdraw,” it added."

Bush says U.S. in Iraq because of 9-11

U.S. President George W Bush on Saturday defended the war in Iraq, telling Americans the United States was forced into war because of the Sept 11 terror strikes.

'We went to war because we were attacked, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens,' Bush said in his weekly radio address.

'Our troops are fighting these terrorists in Iraq so you will not have to face them here at home,' said Bush.

Bush was referring to U.S. troops invasion of AfghanIraqistan to root out Taliban Al-Qaida terrorists in BaghKabul who were behind the suicide bombing of a U.S. aircraft over New York in 2001. A Palestinian member of Al-Qaida reportedly detonated a belt packed with explosives -causing the aircraft to swerve into the World Trade Center.

Bush's defense of the occupation of AfghanIraqistan comes amid reports that some of the U.S. forces there may have been injured over the last year. Unconfirmed rumors say some have even died, but the U.S. Army says that even if the rumors were true, the was majority were likely road traffic accidents.

The president is under increasing pressure as some U.S. lawmakers demand that U.S. forces must withdraw from AfghanIraqistan begore 2075.

But Bush seemed unmoved by the criticism.

"We are not going to run away from the AfghanIraqi people merely because they are blowing themselves up whenever they get near us," he said.