Wednesday 31st May 2006: -

• Tax on e-mails, SMS mulled - European Union lawmakers are investigating a proposed tax on e-mails and mobile phone text messages as a way to fund the bloc. A European Parliament working group is reviewing the idea, tabled by Alain Lamassoure, a prominent French MEP and member of the centre-right European People’s Party, the assembly’s largest group. Lamassoure, a member of Jacques Chirac’s UMP party, is proposing to add a tax of around 1.5 cents on text or SMS messages and a 0.00001 cent levy on every e-mail sent.

Tuesday 30th May 2006: -

• 'New evidence' found in Diana probe - The man leading the investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, has said that fresh witnesses and forensic evidence has been gathered. Sir John Stevens made the disclosure during an interview, but refused to elaborate on the nature of the new material, admitting that he had revealed more than he intended to. The former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was speaking at the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye on a range of subjects that included the controversial proposed police mergers and how to combat the increased threat of terrorism in the United Kingdom after 9/11. When asked by the festival's director, Peter Florence, about his inquiry into the events leading to Diana and Dodi Al Fayed's deaths in August 1997, Sir John said: "We've got new witnesses and new forensic evidence."   (COMMENTARY: Be aware, there is a real possibly that this is a set up... i.e. to lead nowhere, 'steam-valving' the publics interest... get them worked up about 'something that is coming' (but don't tell them what it is)... then when it comes and turns out to be sketchy at best, the anti-climax turns people off. Rather like the recent Pentagon video) (RELATED: See our popular 'Diana Assassination' archive)

A book of particular interest to listeners of today's 'Deadline Live' radio show (with host Jack Blood): -

• Babies aborted for not being perfect - The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects. Late terminations have been performed in recent years because the babies had club feet, official figures show. Other babies were destroyed because they had webbed fingers or extra digits.

• Parliament peace protest continues until July - Peace protestor Brian Haw will be allowed to continue his demonstration outside Parliament until July 11. Mr Haw, 57, appeared at Bow Street magistrates court this morning accused of breaching the conditions of his protest on May 16 because his makeshift peace camp on Parliament Square had stretched to more than 120ft. Bail conditions previously imposed demanded that the peace camp does not exceed three metres in width, two metres in height and one metre in depth. The charge was brought under the new SOCPA (Serious Organised Crime and Police Act) regulations which are designed to prevent protests within one kilometre of Parliament.

• Witness: Saddam 'victims' alive - A witness in the trial of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has said at least 23 of the 148 Shia villagers said to have been executed are in fact alive. Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial over the deaths of 148 men and teenagers after a failed attempt on Saddam's life in Dujail in 1982. "The prosecutor said they were executed but I am telling you I ate with them some time ago," said the witness. The defendants have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.

• Anti-War Protesters Hit With Pepper Spray - Police fired pepper spray as about 150 anti-war protesters tried to enter the Port of Olympia as part of ongoing demonstrations against the shipment of Army equipment to Iraq. Protesters chanted "Out of Olympia, Out of Iraq" as they rocked a chain-link gate to the port late Monday, and at least three tried to use wooden boards to pry the gate open, The Olympian newspaper reported. A 50-ton piece of equipment was moved to reinforce the gate on the other side.

Monday 29th May 2006: -

• Radio chip tracking raises privacy concerns - Major corporations in Canada have quietly started using implanted radio chips to track the movement of products and their secretive behaviour and potential for using the technology to invade the private lives of Canadians has raised serious alarm with the federal privacy commissioner. The technology, called radio frequency identification (RFID) is poised to radically expand the ability of corporations to spy on customers' shopping habits, track items in homes and allow the government to monitor the movement of immigrants.

• Scientists fear MMR link to autism - New American research shows that there could be a link between the controversial MMR triple vaccine and autism and bowel disease in children. The study appears to confirm the findings of British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who caused a storm in 1998 by suggesting a possible link. Now a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina are examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease - and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus. Last night the team's leader, Dr Stephen Walker, said: 'Of the handful of results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain and none are wild measles. 'This research proves that in the gastrointestinal tract of a number of children who have been diagnosed with regressive autism, there is evidence of measles virus.

• Music 'can reduce chronic pain' - Research has confirmed listening to music can have a significant positive impact on perception of chronic pain. US researchers tested the effect of music on 60 patients who had endured years of chronic pain. Those who listened to music reported a cut in pain levels of up to 21%, and in associated depression of up to 25%, compared to those who did not listen.

• Children Make Fingerprint IDs - On Saturday, Henderson police provided fingerprint processing for children at the grand opening of a Fast Payday Loans store. The prints will be put on file to help authorities and parents be better prepared in the event of an Amber Alert. Organizers say they appreciate the opportunity to highlight this important program. Parents received a copy of their child's fingerprints for verification in case of an emergency.

• A Construction Drill Provides A Martial Law Drill: Capitol shutdown highlights manic panic of post-9/11 mentality - The over hyped false alarm of a construction drill that caused a mass panic over rumors of gunshots in the Rayburn Building on Friday and the way in which it was reported by the servile media was a means of indoctrinating Americans to the procedure of martial law lock down of a major city. Following reports of gunfire in the Rayburn Building, House members were ordered to stay inside and shut all the doors. Parts of the Capitol complex, including the Capitol itself, were locked down during the height of the search.

Sunday 28th May 2006: -

• Murtha: New scandal worse than Abu Ghraib - The fallout from the killing of as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians by Marines could undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq more than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal did, a lawmaker who is a prominent war critic said Sunday. The shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, were covered up, said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. "Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Murtha said on "This Week" on ABC. "We don't know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command."

• High-tech tags may track kids in TUSD (USA): Radio devices show when pupils get on, off buses - Millions of consumers pay extra to put tracking devices in their cars in case of theft. But would parents want to shell out more money for something similar for their children? And would schools go for it? The answer seems to be yes. School districts around the nation are starting to hold themselves more accountable for the students they're paid to teach and protect. As part of the growing trend, officials in the Tucson Unified School District already are testing new technology that helps keep track of elementary students during the school day.

• Mayor to launch CCTV camera boost: Increased security is promised with five new CCTV cameras due to go live in a Birmingham suburb - The move comes after the community and Birmingham City Council worked together to help combat crime and reduce the fear of criminal activity locally. The £77,000 cameras, funded by the Sparkbrook Town Centre management budget, join the existing CCTV network.

• At least 1,000 UK soldiers desert - More than 1,000 members of the British military have deserted the armed forces since the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the BBC has discovered. It comes as Parliament debates a law that will forbid military personnel refusing to participate in the occupation of a foreign country. During 2005 alone, 377 people deserted and are still missing. So far this year another 189 are on the run.

Saturday 27th May 2006: -

• Call for database to track vulnerable children - The Government should set up a database to track the vulnerable children who drop out before secondary school, it was claimed today. There are up to 1,000 children, mainly from disadvantaged areas and the travelling community, who leave school before the age of 12. Sinn Féin TD Sean Crowe said a primary school pupils database would allow the Government to track these children.

• The secret NSA Diana tapes: Spy chiefs face revelations over deaths of princess, lover – Gen. Michael Hayden, the new head of the CIA and the former chief of the National Security Agency who is due in London at the end of the month for a meet-and-greet visit with Britain's intelligence chiefs, will face some tough questions from Lord Stevens, the former head of Scotland Yard. Known as "The Grand Inquisitor," Stevens is leading the long-running investigation into the deaths of Princess Diana and her lover, Dodi al-Fayed. Stevens already has conducted lengthy interviews with Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5; Sir John Scarlett, director-general of MI6; and his predecessor, Sir Richard Dearlove. They have all handed over secret files on the deaths. But intelligence sources in London and Washington have confirmed it is the potentially explosive evidence that NSA holds which could send the Stevens inquiry deep into what one source called "where Royal glitz met the underbelly of intelligence."   (RELATED: See our popular 'Diana Assassination' archive)

• Metal detectors in UK schools plea after latest stabbing - Campaigners renewed their calls for metal detectors in schools today following the stabbing of a teenager in Birmingham. The issue was already in the spotlight after 15-year-old Kiyan Prince was stabbed to death outside the gates of his north London school eight days ago. After the tragedy schools minister Jim Knight appeared to rule out their introduction as being a "reaction too fast at the moment". But Dee Edwards, of campaign group Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA), said today's incident was further evidence of a growing knife crime culture.

• HERDING THE ANIMALS: Security Scores Big at World Cup Tournament - FIFA's soccer spectacle will use lots of technology to keep the games safe - Germany is anxious--in both senses of the word--about next month's World Cup soccer tournament. The country is thrilled to host one of the most coveted sports events on the planet. Yet it's also worried that something could go wrong, terribly wrong, as it did in 1972 when Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. More than three decades later, Germany is once again a global showplace. And, sadly, the potential for something to go wrong is as great--if not greater--than it was then.

• Scientists conjure true 'cloaking' device - A way to vanish matter before your eyes has become a serious possibility thanks to theoretical research announced today by British and American scientists. When built, the device theorised by the research could achieve a similar magical effect to that seen in Harry Potter movies, where the trainee wizard dons a special cape and becomes invisible. The research suggests a way to build a 'cloaking' or shielding device that renders whatever is placed inside it invisible. It would also nullify the effects of other electromagnetic radiation - meaning that objects sitting within the cloak would be impervious to radar detection.

• British Rapper MIA Denied Entry Into U.S. - British rapper MIA was reportedly refused a visa by American immigration officials due to the political content of her lyrics. MIA's lyrics are said to support the Sri Lankan political group Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan armed forces. The rapper, born Maya Arulpragasa, was planning to visit the United States to work on her new album with various Hip-Hop producers.

• CANADA: Police state looms as Vancouver engages in the War on Terror - Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham last week breezily invoked the American-invented War on Terror to justify his proposal to install police video cameras around the city’s public spaces. In an interview May 19 with Bill Good on CKNW radio, he said public cameras would help in the Vancouver Police Department’s contribution to the War on Terror, before he went on to dismiss critics warning of privacy invasions with the usual corker, “If you’re doing nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide.”

• Attack victim denied payout because he swore at yobs - A father who was struck on the head with a nail-studded post has been refused compensation because he swore at his attacker. Jonathan Wright, 33, suffered a three-inch gash to his head and still suffers from pain in his ear almost two years after the assault. He had gone to remonstrate with three teenagers who were swearing and causing a nuisance outside his home as his two young children played in the garden.

Friday 26th May 2006: -

• SCHOOL ROLL CALL WITH A FINGERPRINT: A fingerprint recognition system will replace the traditional morning and afternoon roll-call at King's School, Grantham, from September - Paper registers will be redundant when the school becomes the first in the area to use biometric technology to register students and monitor absences. Work began last week to install 16 electronic terminals students will use to scan their fingerprints before morning and afternoon lessons.

• 9/11 Commission report is a lie, says top Seattle newspaper: Writing about a speech by one of the members of the 9/11 Commission, P-I columnist Joel Connelly claimed: "Each of us needs to understand why we are doing what we are doing." ("Sept. 11 show the flaws with protocol," May 8).  Indeed! The problem is that the "why" we have been told appears to be a complete fiction. Connelly seems to assume that because the 9/11 Commission was bipartisan that we should accept its conclusions and recommendations. But is that true? Is the commission's story credible?

• Axcess Enhances RFID Method for Vehicle Tracking - Axcess International Inc. unveiled today an enhanced method for providing positioning and directional capabilities for RFID applications. The Dual Activator product is based on the company's ActiveTag platform that enables automatic tracking of personnel, assets and vehicles in multiple industries that use this capability for security, logistics and operations effectiveness.

• Is business the real Big Brother?: Monitoring and surveillance of employees and customers by big business is now commonplace - It's increasingly a feature of our daily lives, because businesses have found that it makes good business sense. But is corporate snooping out of control? In Britain, we are all familiar with the CCTV cameras that have sprung up across our city centres and transport networks. We generally accept that they are there to counter crime and help monitor traffic flows on our busy roads. But how many of us realise that when we travel about, each of us is captured, on average, 300 times a day on CCTV, and should we be concerned?

Thursday 25th May 2006: -

• DHS Subcommittee Advises Against RFID: A draft report from a DHS advisory group argues that the benefits from using RFID-enabled documents to verify an individual's identity are overshadowed by the risks to personal privacy - RFID might be a great technology for identifying and tracking goods, but according to a draft report from a subcommittee of the Privacy Office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it's not a panacea for long lines and forged IDs at border crossings and airports. Furthermore, the report claims, its use could weaken the privacy of individuals whose government-issued identity documents might carry RFID tags. The report urges the DHS to consider "other technologies that may serve the same [identification] goals with less risk to privacy."

• FCC Refuses to Investigate Telephone Carriers for Illegal Call Monitoring - The Federal Communications Commission has decided not to investigate claims that three major American telephone providers broke the law by helping the National Security Agency compile a massive database of customer call records. FCC Chairman, Kevin Martin, said in a letter to Massachusetts congressman, Edward Markey, that the Commission could not investigate this issue because of its “classified nature.” Markey is now calling for a congressional inquiry into the telephone companies’ involvement, saying that this investigation is too important to simply abandon.

• Research Shows Tasers Can Kill Pigs and Humans - Madison: New research shows it is possible for a Taser to kill a pig. Therefore, in rare cases a taser could kill a human. John Webster is a UW Professor of Biomedical Engineering. His research on pigs and tasers is not welcome among Taser manufacturers. "I think they'd prefer that I go away." That's because research funded by Taser International says tasers can't kill, but Professor Webster says otherwise. His study measured how close a taser needle needed to get to a pig heart to send it into shock. "We could take a normal taser dart and start it some distance away and gradually move it in towards the heart until the heart went into ventricular fibrillation."

• School blogs censored - A US school district has created a new rule that will punish students for web postings that depict underage drinking, smoking or other "illegal or inappropriate behaviour". The move caused some parents to complain that the Illinois school district is invading the privacy of students and overstepping its bounds, The Chicago Tribune reported. As parents, "we have to watch what they're doing," said Mary Greenberg, who has a son at Libertyville High school north of Chicago. "I don't think they need to police what students are doing online. That's my job."

• Web inventor warns of 'dark' net - The web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it into different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said. Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different levels of online access web were not "part of the internet model," he said in Edinburgh. He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a two-tier internet, the network would enter "a dark period".

• Secret FEMA Plan To Use Pastors as Pacifiers in Preparation For Martial Law: Nationwide initiative trains volunteers to teach congregations to "obey the government" during seizure of guns, property, forced inoculations and forced relocation - A Pastor has come forward to blow the whistle on a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation. In March of this year the Pastor, who we shall refer to as Pastor Revere, was invited to attend a meeting of his local FEMA chapter which circulated around preparedness for a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.

Wednesday 24th May 2006: -

• NHS Should Stop Funding Alternative Therapies, Say UK Top Doctors - Some eminent British doctors are urging the National Health Service (NHS) to stop paying for alternative therapies. They argue that these ‘bogus' therapies are not proven according to ‘solid evidence'. While UK patients are being denied such drugs as Herceptin, the NHS, which is strapped for cash, should not be paying for ‘unproven or disproved treatments', such as homeopathy.

• Police begin knife amnesty in the UK - A nationwide knife amnesty begins across the country today - the first of its kind for 10 years. For the next five weeks - until June 30 - people will be able to hand in all bladed instruments without fear of reprisal. The initiative is being backed by police forces throughout England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Scotland is running its own amnesty concurrently. Secure bins will be placed in the public reception areas of most police stations to encourage people to hand in their weapons.

• Euan Blair 'Wins' Scholarship To Skull and Bones Yale - DOWNING Street was under pressure last night to explain how Euan Blair has secured a Pounds 50,000 scholarship at a leading American university. Yale, the Ivy League institution where President George W Bush and Bill Clinton studied, has offered the Prime Minister's son a two- year postgraduate place. Insiders said it was highly unusual for anyone to land a scholarship with fees paid. Students generally pay their own way.

• Heavy marijuana use not linked to lung cancer - Despite popular belief, a new study shows that people who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk of developing lung cancer. It seems even heavy, long-term marijuana users do not appear to increase the risk of head and neck cancers, such as cancer of the tongue, mouth, throat, or esophagus. Senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles says the findings were a surprise as they expected to find that a history of heavy marijuana use would increase the risk of cancer from several years to decades after exposure to marijuana.

Tuesday 23rd May 2006: -

• SYMBOL OF FREE SPEECH AND DISSENT AGAINST TERROR DESTROYED: Anti-war protest placards seized - Police have removed placards belonging to anti-war protester Brian Haw at his long-running demonstration outside Parliament. Mr Haw said he had been left with just one placard after officers took the action over alleged breaches of his demonstration conditions. Earlier this month, Court of Appeal judges overturned a ruling that allowed him to carry out his round-the-clock vigil which he began in June 2001. Mr Haw, who was not evicted from Parliament Square, said his large display of anti-war banners, placards and flags had been "completely destroyed". He said: "They have left me with just (one) placard. All of my personal belongings have been taken and dumped in a container along with nearly all the displays. "They have completely destroyed all the expressions of people who opposed the war in Iraq. What gives them the legal right to remove 40m of evidence of genocide and reduce it to just 3m?" The legal size of the protest - 3m - was imposed by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (Socpa) 2005.    (RELATED: See our section 'Brian Haw's Parliament Square Protest' for more info)

• West's 'terror deceptions' rapped - Governments have sacrificed principles and ignored human rights in the name of the "war on terror", says a leading rights group in its annual report. But Amnesty International celebrates what it calls a "wake-up call" issued to governments over the last year. It says their "doublespeak and deception have been exposed by the media, challenged by activists and rejected by the courts". The report highlights crises which it says have been ignored in this climate.

• German Court Rules Against Random Searches for Terror Suspects - Germany's highest court has ruled that random data profiling for terror suspects is legal only when the country faces a specific threat to security or lives. Germany's Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that the general threat of terror since September 11, 2001, does not warrant random profiling. Analysts say the ruling could force many German states to revise laws on random searches.

• Tom Cruise Stands Firm on Anti-depressants Issue: Cruise says that antidepressants are harmful drugs as part of a machine - Tom Cruise will not let this anti-depressant issue go, and is refusing to back down from his stand against psychiatry and anti-depressants. For the most part, Cruise says the antidepressant drugs harm people. Mr Cruise, who is a devout Scientologist, wants to make people aware of the harm they are in for even though he knows that his opinions are unpopular.

• Summer crackdown for city police: Police in Bristol have launched a new initiative against street robbery during the summer months - Additional high-visibility patrols and greater use of plain clothes officers will be used in some of the city's robbery hotspots. Operation Beet would run until the end of June, a police spokesman said. Young people are also to be encouraged to register high-value equipment on the national Immobilise database which helps to identify stolen property.

Monday 22nd May 2006: -

• ANNOUNCEMENT: Bilderberg to Meet in Canada - The secretive group known as Bilderberg will hold its annual secret meeting at the posh Brook Street Resort a few miles from Ottawa, Canada, June 8-11. The location and part of the agenda was disclosed to American Free Press by a source inside Bilderberg’s inner circle. High on the Bilderberg’s secret agenda this year are oil prices and the political upheaval in Latin America. When meeting last year in Rottach-Egern, Germany, Bilderberg called for dramatic increases in the price of oil. Oil prices started climbing immediately from $40 a barrel to $70. Whether Bilderberg will call for still higher prices is unclear, but Henry Kissinger and others had gleefully anticipated ultimate prices at $150 a barrel a year ago. Bilderberg is certainly concerned about supply, which is related to the “Latin American problem,” as one insider said.

• Obesity tests: The fat police: Every four-year-old in the country to be officially screened - Primary schoolchildren are to be routinely weighed and their parents told if they are obese in a controversial initiative to tackle the worsening health crisis, The Independent on Sunday can today reveal. Ministers have decided to overrule the Children's Commissioner and their own child health officials, who fear that telling parents the test results will stigmatise some children.

• Apology to woman listed as thief - The head of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has apologised to a woman rejected for teaching jobs after she was wrongly said to have convictions. Emma Budd, from Maesteg, was shown to have theft convictions on a CRB check made by potential employers. She is one of an estimated 2,700 people across the UK wrongly listed as criminals by the CRB.

• Ransoms paid to Iraq kidnappers - FRANCE, Italy and Germany sanctioned the payment of $US45million in deals to free nine hostages abducted in Iraq, according to documents seen by British newspaper The Times. All three governments have publicly denied paying ransom money. But according to the documents, held by security officials in Baghdad who have played a crucial role in hostage negotiations, sums ranging from $US2.5million to $US10million a person have been paid over the past 21 months.

• HOW TO SPOT AN RFID PASSPORT - Now that the U.S. has begun issuing RFID-tagged passports, how can you tell if your new passport has an unwanted spy on board? Edward Hasbrouck, the Practical Nomad (author of numerous guidebook and a tireless defender of travel privacy), has come to the rescue. He has posted a helpful page on his blog showing how to spot whether your new passport contains a spychip.

Sunday 21st May 2006: -

• THE MARK OF THE BEAST TECHNOLOGY IS JUST SOOOO COOOOOL!: RFID Hand Implant to Open Your Front Door - Automating your front door lock is pretty cool. Automating your access with RFID is even better. But embedding RFID chips in your own hand so you just need to wave it in front of the door tops the lot! The latest episode of the free IPTV Tech show - Systm.org, includes some very interesting footage for all home automators...

• City Council measure calls for `safety zone' - In a move to crack down on school violence, Chicago aldermen have advanced a measure that calls for stiff fines and possibly jail time for anyone involved in violence at or near a city school. Ald. Michael Zalewski (23rd Ward) said Saturday that he supports the effort as a way to "strengthen a safety zone around schools where we see a spike in violence. We want to make it safer for students, faculty and residents of the community." The measure, expected to come before the City Council on Wednesday, calls for fines of $500 to $1,000 and/or jail time of up to 6 months for anyone convicted of battery within 1,000 feet of a Chicago school--including private schools.

• Cannes director urges CCTV debate - The British director of CCTV movie Red Road has said the future of 24-hour surveillance of society needs to be debated. Andrea Arnold is in Cannes with her first feature film, which is in competition for the Palme d'Or. The film focuses on a Glasgow council official who monitors the city's CCTV network helping to crack down on crime. Arnold said: "You can see why it is there but we should consider what it means for our future."

• 'Sex for passport' man suspended - An immigration officer has been suspended following allegations that he offered to help a teenage asylum seeker in return for sex. According to a report in a newspaper, the man offered to coach the 18-year-old Zimbabwean woman on her asylum interview so that she could give the correct answers. In return, he made clear that he wanted to have sex with her, the paper said.

• Frequent Taser Gun Use At School Under Speculation - ...Newark patrol officers have had Taser guns in their arsenal for about two years. Officials said they have used the weapon 18 times in that time span. Three of those incidents have involved students at Newark High School, causing some people to wonder if the weapons, which sometimes carry dangerous side effects, should be used on teenagers. Newark police leaders said Taser guns are the best way to get a dangerous job done. "The Taser (gun) saved having to go in and physically wrestle with the student or resort to striking him with a club or resort to using chemical sprays," said Newark police Capt. Craig Riley.

Saturday 20th May 2006: -

• FDA finds cancer-causing benzene in soda drinks - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reported that it found a high level of cancer-causing benzene in five of the 100 soft drinks and beverages that it tested. The levels of benzene were more than the recommended 5 parts per billion limit for drinking water. The FDA said that it had alerted the companies that make the soft drinks in which benzene was over the prescribed limit. All companies had agreed to reformulate their drinks or have already done so, the FDA revealed on Friday. It maintained that there was no cause for concern although some environmental groups have expressed dismay at these findings.

• Child protection scheme trialled - Computer files are to be created for children in the Highlands in a pilot scheme designed to tighten Scotland's child protection system. Every newborn child in the region and about 500 Inverness schoolchildren will be logged during the trial. From 3 September teachers, police and social workers will be able to access the files on the children, which will be kept "live" until they turn 16. Ministers said the Highlands pilot would help other local authorities.  (COMMENTARY: Not satisfied with collecting and storing DNA samples for children we will now be tracking them from the moment of birth. How long before the records are setup as soon as the mother is identified as being pregnant.)

• Pope sacks Church leader over sex abuse - Pope Benedict took disciplinary action against the Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ yesterday, ordering him to renounce every public duty after a nine-year investigation into claims of sexual abuse. The 86-year-old Fr Marcial Maciel, a close friend of the late Pope John Paul II, is the most prominent figure in the Catholic Church ever to be disciplined by the Vatican on grounds of sexual abuse. He will not face a full Church trial on account of his age, but he is now forbidden to celebrate Mass, speak in public or to the press.

• Government enlists public service 'spies': Council staff may be given police intelligence to monitor local criminals - Neighbourhood wardens, community support officers, park keepers, housing officers and other frontline council staff should be given regular access to local police intelligence in an attempt to clamp down on antisocial behaviour and other low-level crime, under plans being examined by Downing Street. The plan, seen as part of a strategy to develop more effective neighbourhood policing teams throughout England by 2008, has been supported by Hazel Blears in her role as home office minister responsible for crime before switching to the post of Labour party chairman.

• Soldiers to get life in jail for refusing to act as occupiers - SOLDIERS who object to taking part in a military occupation of a foreign country will face life in prison under measures due to be rubber-stamped in the House of Commons on Monday. The little-noticed Armed Forces Bill will have its third reading in the Commons on Monday and left-leaning MPs are alarmed that it will legitimise pre-emptive military strikes. It will change the definition of desertion to include soldiers who go absent without leave and intend to refuse to take part in a "military occupation of a foreign country or territory".

• Theaters Warned Trailer For 9/11 Movie May Be Too Intense - A controversial trailer for Oliver Stone's World Trade Center will unspool for the first time preceding screenings of The Da Vinci code this weekend. Producers reportedly sent theater owners a warning that some members of their audiences might find the images upsetting. Co-producer Stacey Sher told CBS News, "They wanted the theatre owners to know that people might inquire at the box office whether or not the trailer would be shown and then it would be their decision whether they wanted to see it or not." Michael Shamberg, another producer of the film, said, "I think it's an intense recreation of what happened that day and that might be disturbing for people." The trailer has also been posted on the Internet at http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/wtc.

• NEW PENTAGON FOOTAGE REVEALS ANOTHER COVER-UP CNN’S JAMIE MCINTIRE CONTRADICTS ORIGINAL REPORT - The release of new video footage of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon has spurred yet another controversy. In anticipation of the release, CNN’s Kyra Phillips was interviewing Jamie McIntyre Tuesday afternoon, and asked him what happened at the Pentagon on 9/11, as he was reporting live from the scene that day. Referring to the idea that something other than a 757 hit the Pentagon, McIntyre stated, “Having been there on September 11th, having seen the plane wreckage and photographed it myself personally, I can tell you that’s nonsense…Click here for sound clip I had a camera with me, I took pictures of some of the wreckage, some of the parts of the fuselage of …a part of the cockpit, until they told us we had to move back away from the scene…” However, McIntyre’s comments are in direct contradiction to his original report on 9/11...

Friday 19th May 2006: -

• GOOD GOP, BAD COP: UN panel tells America to end torture and close Guantanamo - A United Nations panel today made the strongest call yet on the United States to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and to disclose the locations of all of its rumoured secret prisons abroad. The committee said it was "deeply concerned" that detainees were being held at the prison camp in Cuba for protracted periods without proper legal safeguards or reliable judicial justification. The ten members of the UN Committee Against Torture also called upon President Bush to end the use of torture and cruel treatment in interrogation of detainees, citing sexual humiliation, mock drownings and the use of dogs to induce fear.

• DHS privacy office bashes RFID technology to track people - The Department of Homeland Security's Privacy Office has issued a draft report that strongly criticizes privacy and security risks of using radio frequency identification devices for human identification. The privacy office says the technology offers little performance benefit for identification purposes compared with other methods and could turn the government's identification system into a surveillance system. Several government agencies, including the Department of Defense, have had success in managing inventory, tracking blankets, food, and other essentials through the supply chain. RFID tags communicate information by radio waves through antennae on small computer chips attached to objects. A reader identifies the number on the tag, which in turn categories the object.

• Sopranos Star Says Bush Should Reinstate Draft - The boss of North Jersey would no doubt have a different view on how to prosecute the war in Iraq. So too, it turns out, does the man who plays him on “The Sopranos.” Speaking Monday night from the National Museum of American History for the Washington premiere of the HBO documentary “Baghdad ER,” James Gandolfini said President Bush should “reinstate the draft, send 500,000 troops and finish it.” “I’d go,” he told a Hill source. “I’m too old and fat, but I’d drive a truck.” “The American people haven’t had to sacrifice anything,” he added.

• IBM researcher slams UK ID card scheme - IBM researcher Michael Osborne, whose job is research into secure ID cards, slated the UK government's ID cards scheme on the grounds of cost, over-centralisation, and being the wrong tool for the job. Based in Big Blue's Zurich research labs, where the scanning tunnelling microscope was invented and won its inventors a Nobel Prize, Osborne said that the problem is neither the cards nor the fact that the scheme is intended to use biometric technology. The big issue is that the UK government, plans to set up a central database containing volumes of data about its citizens. Unlike other European governments, most of whom already use some form of ID card, the central database will allow connections between different identity contexts - such as driver, taxpayer, or healthcare recipient - which compromises security. Centrally-stored biometric data would be attractive to hackers, he said, adding that such data could be made anonymous but that the UK Government's plans do not include such an implementation.

• When Osama Bin Ladin Was Tim Osman - The two men headed to the Hilton Hotel in Sherman Oaks, California in the late Spring of 1986 were on their way to meet representatives of the mujahadeen, the Afghan fighters resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. One of the two, Ted Gunderson, had had a distinguished career in the FBI, serving as some sort of supervisor over Special Agents in the early 60s, as head of the Dallas field office from 1973-75, and as head of the Los Angeles field office from 1977-1979. He retired to become an investigator for, among others, well-known attorney F. Lee Bailey. And all along the way, Gunderson, whether or not actually a CIA contract agent, had been around to provide services to various CIA and National Security Council operations, as he was doing now.

• Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions - Baltimore City police arrested a Virginia couple over the weekend after they asked an officer for directions. WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions. "In jail for eight hours -- sleeping on a concrete floor next to a toilet," Kelly said. "It was a nightmare," Brook said. "I was in there thinking I was just dreaming and waiting to wake up."

• A New Tack for Airport Screening: Behave Yourself: Airport screeners plan to shift tactics, focusing less on scissors and more on passenger behavior - 'Here's how it works: Select TSA employees will be trained to identify suspicious individuals who raise red flags by exhibiting unusual or anxious behavior, which can be as simple as changes in mannerisms, excessive sweating on a cool day, or changes in the pitch of a person's voice. Racial or ethnic factors are not a criterion for singling out people, TSA officials say. Those who are identified as suspicious will be examined more thoroughly; for some, the agency will bring in local police to conduct face-to-face interviews and perhaps run the person's name against national criminal databases and determine whether any threat exists.'

Thursday 18th May 2006: -

• Biometric scans for nightclub access - In Touch, a British company, is testing its first install of a customer database system which will voluntarily register nightclub patrons as they're admitted. A fingerprint scan and a mugshot, along with all the necessary personal information, guarantee that partygoers in the Somerset town of Yeovil won't have to carry identification while they're clubbing. Any nightclub can make the initial registration as all Yeovil late night clubs are wired to access the same database. Walk from one club to the next, scan the index finger, and seeing no black marks on your record the doormen will gladly wave you in.

• Principal locks down high school: Some students send worried text messages during "drill" at Central High - When Central High School Principal Everett Isaacs announced a lockdown without explanation Wednesday morning, some concerned students began calling and text-messaging their parents to find out what was going on. What exactly happened at the school was hard to determine throughout the day as police, fire and school officials all offered sketchy — and sometimes contradictory — accounts of a bomb threat that was later determined to be unsubstantiated and a drug sweep authorities say turned up no narcotics.

• COLORADO WOMEN SUES LOCAL NEWSPAPER FOR AIDING IN THE 911 COVER-UP: by Jack Blood - Is it possible that for the last four plus years that we have been going about this thing all wrong? We have complained tirelessly about the establishment media cover-up of the facts, ALL the facts about September 11th 2001. We have waited for them to “see the light’ and come over to our side, or hoped that the right information, delivered by the right pen, or profile might open the door to long awaited coverage to debunk the Bush administration’s conspiracy theory about 19 Arab high-jackers armed with box cutters, took down four of the most highly defended buildings in the world. Now thanks to one brave woman in Durango Colorado we might be witnessing a full on epiphany cum reality, the stage is set.

• Egypt Cracks Down on Dissent - Egyptian human rights groups say about 360 people have been arrested over the past three weeks in what many are calling the biggest crackdown on political dissent in recent memory. Most of the arrests have taken place at protests in support of two fraud-busting judges who have become symbols of judicial independence and the push for political reform. Hundreds of demonstrators chanting slogans faced off last week against thousands of riot police and plainclothes State Security officers responding with fists and batons.

• 911 REVISITED: At 40 minutes, this free video presentation is a MUST SEE for all who might believe the "official Story" - The video contains technical analysis from: Prof. David Ray Griffin, Prof. Steven Jones, Engineer Jeff King, and many eyewitnesses from the MSM Media, Firefighters, WTC survivors etc... Also duplicitous statements from Larry Silverstein (lease holder of the WTC complex for just several weeks before 911, Lee Hamilton (911 cOMMISSION co chair) The more people that see this presentation, the more people will be calling for the heads of our "neo-con" coup affected U.S. Government!!! "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent" - Thomas Jefferson

• DNA database has 50,000 children - Fifty-thousand children in England and Wales have had their DNA added to a police database without being convicted, it has emerged. Earlier this year, the Home Office revealed the database contained DNA profiles of 27,000 under-18s arrested but released without charge or caution. It has now admitted DNA from a further 20,000 youngsters who have since turned 18 was taken in the same way. The Home Office says there is a "clear public benefit" to keeping samples.

Wednesday 17th May 2006: -

• BBC ATTACKS 9/11 TRUTH MOVEMENT WITH HYPERBOLE AND TEXTBOOK CYNICISM: Conspiracy theorists down but not out - The release of new video pictures of the Pentagon being attacked on 9/11 will not quell the endless claims in the world of conspiracy theorists that a missile or military aircraft hit the building instead. The theorists do not believe eyewitnesses, physical evidence, engineering studies or even the claims of Osama Bin Laden, so it is unlikely that they will be convinced by grainy video frames. The latest pictures are the missing frames from a series taken from two cameras at a filling station.   (COMMENTARY: Notice how the BBC article sticks to the weaker arguments such as Barbara Olson (being still alive), how they fail to explain what happened to the wings of Flight 77 after they failed to penetrate the 'strengthened' exterior of the Pentagon and how they refer to the 'independent' (yeah right) 9/11 'Kean' Commission for definitive answers.  Paul Reynolds at the BBC obviously doesn't think that you will check out the facts behind government sponsored terrorism, how there was a plan in the 60's to stage terror attacks on the American people, or how Boy-George Bush contemplated staging an attack on a fake UN plane as pretext to invade Saddam in 2003 .  No, you'll have a laugh over those stupid 'conspiracy theorists' and go back to watching Eastenders.  Don't fall for it... if you haven't done already, make a start checking out the backgrounds and visit out our 'Problem > Reaction > Solution' archive.)

• More teens abusing prescription drugs - Teens have long been experimenting with drug use, sometimes alcohol, sometimes marijuana or cocaine. But there's something else out there that's the talk among teens that parents may know little about. It's about using prescription drugs to get high. Teens call it "pharming." They use drugs found right in your home. And they're drugs that one in five teens now admits abusing with a full 40 percent believing they are much safer to experiment with than illegal drugs. Seventeen-year-old "Sam" of Maplewood knows what it's like to abuse prescription drugs. While she and her friends also abused alcohol, marijuana and meth, Sam says they felt less guilty using prescription drugs like Vicoden, Ritalin and Adderall. She says, "It felt like I wasn't doing anything wrong because it was ok. Like, the doctors prescribe it, so you think its ok. and it won't harm you. But it does."

• EU accused of complicity in CIA flights - CIA officials insist EU governments knew extraordinary renditions were being carried out in Europe. Reporting back on its fact finding mission to Washington, the European parliament’s CIA committee said US officials provided them with patchy and inconsistent information - but said they did agree on one thing. “The only point in common from the officials we spoke to was that it was not possible to organise extraordinary rendition such as this without the active complicity of European governments,” said Carlos Coelho MEP, chair of the temporary committee. “That is what we took away from Washington and this will guide us in our future work.” Last month the committee concluded that more than 1,000 CIA flights had transited the EU.

• Odd things about the UK government narrative of the 7/7 London Bombs - De Menezes, who was shot on a London tube train, was a dangerous terrorist? Eventually some brave journalists revealed that the UK government officials had lied. De Menezes was an innocent Brazilian. The UK government story about the 7/7 London bombs has kept on changing and still does not make sense. The UK government has produced a brief 'narrative' of the 7/7 London Bomb attacks. Originally we were led to believe that Shehzad Tanweer had met senior Islamic militants in Pakistan prior to 7/7, and that Mohammad Siddique Khan had visited Malaysia to meet al-Qaeda operatives. Now, the UK government 'narrative' states that 'there is no reliable intelligence or corroborative information to support (these claims)'

• Fayed claims Prince Philip is 'racist who orchestrated Diana's murder' - MOHAMED al-Fayed yesterday used a BBC radio interview to launch an extraordinary attack on the Duke of Edinburgh, branding him a racist who "grew up with Nazis" and who organised the murder of his son and Princess Diana because he could not tolerate the thought of their marriage. The Harrods owner also claimed a forthcoming official report into the 1997 Paris accident would confirm that Diana, 36 at the time of her death, was carrying Dodi Fayed's child. The outburst is the latest chapter in a nine-year battle waged by Mr Fayed against what he claims is a conspiracy organised by Britain's security services at the behest of the Royal Family.   (COMMENTARY: Fayed's job as 'conspiracy theorist' is to make as much noise about the assassination as possible, come across as an idiot and a liar... and via 'guilt by association' make the notion of a murdered Princess Diana a 'no-go' area. Al Fayed... the classic straw man. See our 'Diana Assassination' archive for more info).

• Reform Bill could spark the 'abolition of Parliament', says MP - The Government was accused of planning the "abolition of Parliament" with legislation giving Ministers sweeping powers to change the law. MPs and the media "took their eye off the ball" and failed to spot the threat to democracy, according to Midland MP Mark Fisher (Lab Stoke Central). He was speaking in a debate on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which has passed through Parliament with little fanfare. The Government says it will give Ministers new powers to tackle red tape. But opposition parties and critics on the Labour benches have warned it will give Ministers sweeping powers to amend legislation without proper Parliamentary scrutiny.

Tuesday 16th May 2006: -

• School puts CCTV cameras in loos - Queen's School in Wisbech has installed CCTV cameras in the toilets to keep an eye on pupils. The idea is to discourage them from skipping lessons by hiding out in the loos and to stop younger pupils feeling threatened by older children. The cameras can only see what's going on outside the cubicles, but just outside the loos there's an attendant watching out for any problems. And if there's any sign of trouble they go straight in to sort it out.

• Surveillance and its snowball effect: Imagine cars having secretly installed GPS devices to track drivers. It's not that far-fetched - Bush administration officials struggled today to defend themselves in the wake of new reports of government surveillance of ordinary Americans, while congressional leaders of both parties called for increased scrutiny of White House access to individuals' personal data. An article in today's edition of USA Today revealed that all domestic vehicles sold in this country in the last four years have been secretly equipped with electronic devices that enable their locations to be precisely and constantly monitored by the National Security Agency. The newspaper reported that the Big Three automakers - General Motors, Ford and Daimler-Chrysler - were approached by government officials shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks*, and agreed to install the GPS devices on all their vehicles.   (*Problem > Reaction > Solution...)

• FLASHBACK TO FOUR YEARS AGO: BBC In pictures: Pentagon crash - "A sequence of five newly-released pictures shows the moment a hijacked American Airlines plane slammed into the Pentagon on 11 September, 2001. The photos, taken by a surveillance camera, show the date of 12 September and the time of 1737, even though the crash took place the day before at 0937 local time".

• People urged to renew passports to stall ID - Campaingers against identity cards will today urge people to renew their passports this month, to avoid the deadline for having their details entered in the government database. Green MSPs are among those who will lodge applications this morning, even though their renewal dates are years off. ID cards are not to be compulsory, at least until 2013, but anyone applying for a passport after May 31 will automatically get one, with personal details entered in the national identity register. According to Geraint Bevan of the NO2ID campaign, they are "calling on people to renew their passports this month to avoid compulsory registration and buy 10 more years of freedom from invasion of privacy".

• COMMENTARY: Invading our privacy to save our freedom? - When the government stomps on the Bill of Rights in the name of the war on terrorism, we wonder if the terrorists won. A NEW IDIOM entered the American language after Sept. 11. To choose not to travel by airplane after seeing reruns of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center would mean the terrorists had won. To have second thoughts about going to Manhattan because to do so would mean having to use a vulnerable bridge or tunnel would mean the terrorists had won. To worry about poison gas in the subway would mean the terrorists had won. New Jersey's acting governor at the time, Donald DiFrancesco, even hinted that the very emotion of fear was troublesome. He called for vigilance and resolve, and said: "If we allow ourselves to become captivated by fear, we will let the terrorists win the war." So when the government stomps on the Bill of Rights in the name of the war on terrorism, have the terrorists won?

• Nuclear is back on agenda: Blair - Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to give his strongest signal yet that he backs the building of a new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK. The prime minister will tell the CBI later on Tuesday that the issue is "back on the agenda with a vengeance". He will say Britain faces the prospect of being largely reliant on foreign gas imports for its future energy needs. In a set-piece speech, he will say it would be a dereliction of duty if he failed to take long-term decisions.

Monday 15th May 2006: -

• Why NORAD Interceptors Couldn't Catch Those 911 Boeings - One of the most sacred beliefs about the four jumbo jets hijacked on September 11th, 2001, was that terrified passengers tried to communicate with those safe on the earth. The recent movie, "Flight 93," elevates this belief to a sacrament. In order to verify that cell phones would have functioned, a test would have had to be performed in 2001, from a Boeing 757-767, moving erratically through the sky, often at low elevation. To my recollection, none were ever performed by any researcher, and certainly no reporter in the mainstream media. Because NORAD fighter pilots never VISUALLY verified what happened aboard those four Boeings on 9-11, we will never know what occurred in the most crucial part of the plane, the cockpit. Instead we have been given play-by-play cell phone accounts of what occurred. Some of the accounts remain perplexing to say the least.

• Venezuelan Chavez feted by left in Britain but no talks with Blair - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has described British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a 'main ally of Hitler' because of his support for the Iraq war, has nonetheless been given a 'hero's welcome' by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, a number of celebrities and left-wing Labour politicians. On the second day of his private visit to London, Chavez was Monday having lunch with Livingstone, who believes that the radical President is 'the best news out of Latin America in many years.' While Chavez will go nowhere near Downing Street, the seat of the British Labour government, a number of prominent left-wing Labour MPs are expected to join him for lunch.

• US to renew full ties with Libya - The US is to renew full diplomatic relations with Libya after deciding to remove it from its list of countries that support terrorism. The US has not had normal relations with Libya since 1980, and blamed it for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. It lifted many economic sanctions and restored some ties in 2004 after Libya renounced weapons of mass destruction. The US secretary of state said Libya had since shown a "continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism".

• Scale of child sex abuse highlighted: ONE in five children on Northern Ireland's Child Protection Register has been sexually abused - Shocking statistics released by the NSPCC today indicate the alarming scale of sex abuse against young people in Ulster and the rest of the UK. Children in the UK report rape more than any other type of sexual harm. ChildLine received 8,637 calls on its 24-hour helpline for children and young people, run by the NSPCC, about sexual abuse in the UK. Just over half of these calls (51 per cent) were about rape.

• PRIVACY? WHAT PRIVACY?: Cameras, cards and all sorts of data-gathering techniques can follow almost your every move - If you take the "L" to work and use one of the CTA's new smart cards to pay, there is a computer log of your travels. If you cross a busy Chicago intersection, a camera may snap your picture and send the digitized image to a database. If you use Google's free e-mail service, the contents of your personal messages are scanned for keywords to generate ads related to what you wrote to friends or family. We live in a digital fishbowl, an overlooked aspect of the fiery debate that erupted last week with the reports that the National Security Agency is collecting information on America's telephone calls.

• Pupils may face citizenship lessons - British culture and traditions could become a compulsory element of the secondary school syllabus in a bid to better integrate Muslims into society. Higher education minister Bill Rammell will urge that a better understanding of British values is crucial following the July 7 terror attacks on London last year. In a speech at South Bank University he will announce a six-month review to study how pupils can be given a stronger sense of British identity through citizenship classes, which would cover issues such as free speech, democracy, the contributions of different communities to the country and Britain's importance to world culture.

• Postnatal depression care 'poor' - New mothers with postnatal depression experience poor care and are usually given pills when they should have therapy, a mental health charity says. Mind's snapshot survey of 148 women in England found one in 10 had to wait over a year for treatment. And four-fifths of those admitted to psychiatric wards were separated from their babies.

Sunday 14th May 2006: -

• Bush Aide Defends Eavesdropping on Phone Calls - President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, insisted today that a newly disclosed government effort to compile data on millions of telephone calls in search of terrorist-linked calling patterns was a legal and "narrowly designed program" that did not involve listening to individual calls. "The president has been very clear that we are to pursue our intelligence programs within the law," Mr. Hadley said, even as he declined to confirm details of the telephone surveillance program operated by the National Security Agency, which were reported Thursday by USA Today.

• Experts suggest expanding DNA database: Adding relatives could point to suspects, they say - Searching through databases for the DNA fingerprints of criminals has become a routine part of police work, leading to such dramatic "cold hits" as the arrest last month of a suspect in a 3-decades-old murder case in San Francisco. Now, some experts are proposing that the cops consider extending the search to close relatives of crime suspects whose names don't come up in a DNA database search.

• MI5 INFILTRATED BY AL-QAEDA (or is it the other way around?) - TERRORISTS from al-Qaeda have infiltrated Britain's security services, the Sunday Mirror can reveal. Bosses at M15 believe they unwittingly recruited the Muslim extremists after the July 7 suicide bombings in London last year which killed 52 people. They were signed up as part of a drive to find more Muslims and Arabic speakers to work as spies to help prevent future attacks by Osama bin Laden fantatics. Spymasters found some of the agents in Britain's universities and colleges and persuaded them to pass on information about suspected terrorists. But a senior ministerial source has told the Sunday Mirror: "The truth is that it has now been discovered that some of those people have strong links with al-Qaeda.

• More Uranium Reportedly Found in Iran - The U.N. atomic agency found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country's defense ministry, diplomats said Friday, adding to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities aimed at making nuclear arms. The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads.

• Legality of Bush counterterrorism efforts in question - President Bush has made broad use of his executive powers: authorizing warrantless wiretaps, collecting telephone records on millions of Americans, holding suspected terrorists overseas without legal protections. His administration even is considering using the military to patrol the U.S. border. Congress is on notice from the president that he will not enforce parts of legislation he believes interfere with his constitutional authority. The Boston Globe reported he has made this assertion 750 times since he became president. After signing a bill into law, Bush files "signing statements" — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law, the Globe reported. The statements are recorded in the Federal Register. The president says he is acting to safeguard the country, but Democrats and some Republicans, along with human-rights activists and legal scholars, suggest Bush has gone too far in stretching presidential powers.

• Drinking Tap Water Increases The Risk Of Bladder Cancer - According to a new study, drinking tap water increases the risk of bladder cancer. The tap water is said to be so polluted that if one drink too much of it may be a risky factor for developing the cancer. The study, published in the April 15 issue of International Journal of Cancer, found high intake of tap water or tap water based drinks each day increased the risk of bladder cancer in men, reports foodconsumer.org.

Saturday 13th May 2006: -

• Drug maker, FDA issue antidepressant warning: GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil may increase the risk of suicide in young adults - The antidepressant Paxil may raise the risk of suicidal behavior in young adults, GlaxoSmithKline and the Food and Drug Administration warned Friday in a letter to doctors. The warning was accompanied by changes to the labeling of both Paxil and Paxil CR, a controlled-release version of the drug, also called paroxetine. A recent analysis of clinical-trial data on nearly 15,000 patients treated with both Paxil and placebos revealed a higher frequency of suicidal behavior in young adults treated with the drug, according to the letter.

• Sunday 14 May 2006, 12 noon: gathering in solidarity with Brian Haw - After the Home Office won its appeal on 8 May, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA) does now apply to Brian. Although Brian is still in Parliament Square, the police now have his protest in their control along with everyone elses! PEOPLE WILL GATHER ON PARLIAMENT SQUARE ON SUNDAY 14 MAY AT 12 NOON - TO SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH BRIAN AND TO CELEBRATE HIS ACHIEVEMENT OF SPEAKING OUT 24/7 FOR NEARLY 5 YEARS.

• Is the Phone Company Violating Your Privacy?: Cooperation between U.S. telecom firms and the National Security Agency in the war on terror raised a firestorm on Capitol Hill this week - ON THURSDAY, USA Today reported that three telecom companies -- AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. -- have been providing the spy agency with records of billions of phone calls made by U.S. citizens inside the U.S. Qwest Communications International Inc. is the only one of the major landline phone companies that refused to cooperate.

• Bush Motorcade Aims Assault Rifles At Protesters In Florida - Eyewitnesses are reporting that during Bush's recent visit to Florida, protesters were shocked to see security goons and secret service aiming assault rifles at them hanging out of the window of the passing motorcade. Should we be surprised that ordinary bill of rights exercising Americans are treated like terrorists in light of the latest revelations on the NSA spying program?

• For Laura's sake, we must have answers - A man whose sister was killed in the July 7 terror attacks has demanded a public inquiry after reports revealed there was an intelligence failure. Cardiff council press officer Rob Webb refused to blame the security services for his sister Laura's death despite the two reports showing a lack of resources had led MI5 to dismiss lead bomber Mohammed Siddique Khan as a 'peripheral' figure. But the 39-year-old said the authorities must fully investigate to prevent another terrorist attack like the Underground and bus bombs that killed 52, including his sister Laura, 29, at Edgware Road.

• Controversial Experimental Weather Modification Bill in US Congress - U.S. Senate Bill 517 and U.S. House Bill 2995, a bill that would allow experimental weather modification by artificial methods and implement a national weather modification policy, does not include agriculture or public oversight, is on the “fast track” to be passed in 2006. This bill is designed to implement experimental weather modification. The appointed Board of Directors established by this bill does not include any agricultural, water, EPA, or public representatives, and has no provisions for Congressional, State, County, or public oversight of their actions or expenditures.

• Army Acts to Curb Abuses of Injured Recruits - The Army has shaken up a program to heal recruits injured in basic training after soldiers and their parents said troops hurt at Fort Sill were punished with physical abuse and medical neglect. The program, which treated more than 1,100 injured soldiers last year at five posts, normally returns three-fourths of its patients to active duty, according to Army statistics. But at Fort Sill, recruits said, injuries were often subject to derision, ignored or improperly treated. Two soldiers in the program have died since 2004, one or possibly both of accidental overdoses of prescription drugs. The latest death, in March, remains under investigation, the Army said.

Friday 12th May 2006: -

• Spy charges pit security against privacy - In a country where privacy is an almost sacred right, this latest scandal after a newspaper report suggested the US government is running a surveillance programme has explosive potential because it reaches into the home of every American. President Bush has defended the secret wiretapping of al-Qaeda suspects and their associates without court warrants, but these latest revelations suggests tens of millions of innocent Americans are being caught up in the surveillance net.

• Plans To Microchip Every Newborn In U.S. And Europe Underway, According To Former Chief Medical Officer Of Finland: Technology exists to create a totalitarian New World Order and sinister plans to use it on innocent public being covered up by U.S. policy makers - Are you ready for a total elimination of privacy and a robotizing of mankind, as well as an invasion of every thought going through your head? Are you prepared to live in a world in which every newborn baby is micro-chipped? And finally are you ready to have your every move tracked, recorded and placed in Big Brother's data bank?

• Death with dignity, or a licence to kill? - The House of Lords is set for a showdown today over a Bill which would allow doctors to help patients in unbearable pain to die. Lord Joffe explains why he believes his Bill is needed, while GP Mark Houghton fears we are on the slippery slope to euthanasia.

• EU lawmaker says U.S. pressured media on torture - A member of the European Parliament said on Thursday that the White House has pressured journalists not to name certain European countries in their reports about CIA detention practices on the continent. Claudio Fava of Italy, charged with writing a European Parliament committee report on possible secret CIA prisons and detainee transfers in Europe, did not identify the journalists, newspapers or television networks he said had been pressured.

• Charlie Sheen smeared by false accusations - Charlie Sheen has reportedly denied accusations hurled from a jailed escort agency owner that he enjoyed sex-capades with two call girls. Reuters reports that "Jason Itzler -- who is incarcerated on Riker's Island, N.Y., on prostitution and money-laundering charges -- alleges the star hired two of the sexiest girls from his New York Confidential escort service and dressed them as cheerleaders."   (COMMENTARY: We only provide this link to outline that the 'Hollywood-Star' who recently spoke out on 9/11 has been smeared across the media on all sorts of charges, obviously because the guilt by association technique will do damage to the celebrity obsessed public's perception of his credibility.)

• U.S. HAS MASSIVE OIL RESERVES: SHALE REMAINS UNTAPPED AFTER DECADES OF FAILURE - There is an estimated 2 trillion barrels of oil buried beneath parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Geologists, petroleum companies and the federal government have known about these massive deposits for nearly a century. The trouble has always been: how do you get at it? It is believed that the shale deposits in the Green River region of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are holding the equivalent of approximately 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. Called “oil shale” or “shale oil,” according to scientists and petroleum companies, much of it cannot be recovered with current technology due to the costly processing involved and the depth of the deposits buried beneath the Rocky Mountains.

• 'Better CCTV needed' for ID match - Sharper CCTV images are needed so shots of suspected criminals can be matched to the proposed identity card database, a Home Office minister has said. Baroness Scotland told the Lords poor quality CCTV currently runs the risk of innocent people being wrongly arrested. "Digital pictures... will enable us, particularly when ID cards come in, to identify those who are responsible for very serious crime," she added. The Home Office stress safeguards will cover police use of the ID database.

Thursday 11th May 2006: -

• Resources 'may have stopped 7/7' - If more resources had been in place sooner the chances of preventing the July 7 attacks on London could have increased, an official report has concluded. The report by the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee also said: "More needs to be done to improve the way that the Security Service and Special Branches come together in a combined and coherent way to tackle the 'home-grown' threat." The chances of preventing the July 7 attacks might have been greater had different investigative decisions been made by the Security Service, the report said. The committee also recommended a more transparent threat level and alert system and warned that there would be an "inevitable" rise in intrusive activity by security services in the face of the terror threat.   (COMMENTARY: In other words - we need a more powerful and centralised system of fighting terror.  And of course these are 'home-grown' terrorists... which by the way might just include anyone who sees fit to protest against the terrible things that those in power are doing to the world.  This is like one big protection racket, "Give us £500 a week or 'someone' will smash up your bar... it won't be us that would do it... we are simply offering you 'protection' from the evil doers... so play along nicely like the naive fools that we take you for"... yeah right!  See our '7/7 London Bombing' archive for more info)

• US rejects Guantanamo calls - The US said it did not want to release prisoners from Guantanamo Bay only for them to commit acts of terrorism. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack insisted that "at some time in the future we would like nothing better" than to close the camp. He said dangerous people were still being detained there, and the administration did not want to release them only to see them resume attacks on US and other personnel. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said: "The dangerous detainees at Guantanamo include terrorist trainers, bomb makers and would-be suicide bombers, many who have vowed to return to the fight."   (COMMENTARY: Of course they have you daft bugger!  You've just spent years - in many cases - torturing these guys without trial, bloody hell I'd probably want irrational retribution if someone did that to me.  This is where your 'home-grown' terrorism factor largely comes from... and who benefits from this?)

• World leaders suspect the Bush administration of involvement in the 911 attacks - The first skeptics to question what role the Bush administration played in the 9-11 terrorist attacks were a few cabinet ministers in the governments of America's NATO allies. They included German Science and Technology Minister Andreas Von Bulow and British Environment Minister Michael Meacher. They were joined by Belgian European Parliament Member Paul Lannoye. However, in recent months the former cabinet ministers have been joined in their skepticism about the "official" version of the 911 events by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. In March, Chavez said Venezuela will open an official investigation into the 9-11 attacks. Now, Chavez has been joined by Ahmedinejad, who in a recent letter to President George W. Bush, asked, "Why have the various aspects of the [9-11] attacks been kept secret?" Ahmedinejad indicated that the attacks could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the U.S. "security services."

• CIA Nominee Hayden Hints at changing the Law to Allow Eavesdropping - CIA director-nominee Michael Hayden has told at least one Democratic senator that he may be open to changing the law that governs eavesdropping on U.S. soil to allow the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance. President Bush and other senior officials have said they don't believe that changes in law are needed to empower the National Security Agency to eavesdrop – without court approval – on communications between people in the U.S. and overseas when terrorism is suspected.

• STORMING THE GATES OF DECEPTION - Frustration mounts by millions of Americans who have done the hard research and even those who haven't had access to factual historical documents on the income tax and the privately owned "Federal" Reserve, but realize things are worsening by the day. Why? Because members of Congress continue to refuse to address the core mechanisms destroying this republic and instead, appear determined to continue down the path of America's destruction. The progressive, massive federal income tax is destroying any hopes the average American has of putting a few dollars into a savings account for retirement. The privately owned "Federal" Reserve continues to plunder the people's treasury with the total cooperation of a corrupt and largely ignorant Congress.

• The RFID Hacking Underground: They can steal your smartcard, lift your passport, jack your car, even clone the chip in your arm. And you won't feel a thing - ...RFID chips are everywhere - companies and labs use them as access keys, Prius owners use them to start their cars, and retail giants like Wal-Mart have deployed them as inventory tracking devices. Drug manufacturers like Pfizer rely on chips to track pharmaceuticals. The tags are also about to get a lot more personal: Next-gen US passports and credit cards will contain RFIDs, and the medical industry is exploring the use of implantable chips to manage patients. According to the RFID market analysis firm IDTechEx, the push for digital inventory tracking and personal ID systems will expand the current annual market for RFIDs from $2.7 billion to as much as $26 billion by 2016.

• Mushroom Cloud Blast in Nevada Delayed - A non-nuclear explosion expected to generate a mushroom cloud over the Nevada desert will be postponed at least three weeks, while a federal court reviews plans for the blast, test officials said Tuesday. "The planned Divine Strake experiment will not be conducted earlier than June 23," said Cheri Abdelnour, spokeswoman for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir, Va. The blast was originally scheduled for June 2.

Wednesday 10th May 2006: -

• Attorney general calls for Guantánamo to close - The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, said today that Guantánamo Bay had become a "symbol of injustice" and called for the US base to be closed. In the strongest criticism of the camp yet by a senior British official, Lord Goldsmith told a conference on global security in central London that the continued existence of the detention centre was "unacceptable". "It is time, in my view, that it should close," he said. "I believe it would also help to remove what has become a symbol to many, right or wrong, of injustice.

• Bird Flu Movie Sparks Panic Calls And Enquiries - After watching the ABC movie ‘Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America' last night, telephone helplines from all over the USA have been receiving calls from anxious viewers. At Medical News Today we have received 112 emails from people in the USA with questions ranging from ‘How could other countries be so selfish as to withhold vaccines?' to ‘I woke up with a temperature and a cough this morning, do you think I may have caught the bird flu?' As the movie was pure fiction, not a documentary, and bird flu has not yet arrived in the USA, it baffles me how people can be angry at other countries or wonder whether they are infected.    (RELATED: See our 'Propaganda in Entertainment' section)

• Could MI5 have stopped the London bombings? - Tomorrow sees the publication of two major official inquiries into the 7 July suicide bombing attacks in London in which 52 people were killed, along with four terrorists. One, by the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, will examine whether there was a failure of intelligence, while a "narrative" by a senior civil servant instructed by the Home Office will give a "factual breakdown" of the events leading up to the attacks. Both reports will be stripped of material deemed to be operationally sensitive or likely to compromise security. Other material will be excluded for legal reasons. The net result is an incomplete account that will do little to stifle calls for a full public inquiry.

• Evidence against terror suspect extracted by torture, hearing told - Lawyers fighting the deportation of the radical Islamist preacher and terror suspect Abu Qatada claimed yesterday that part of the government's national security case against him was based on evidence extracted by torture. Mr Qatada is fighting an attempt to send him back to Jordan, where he has been sentenced in his absence to life imprisonment for involvement in terrorist attacks dating back to 1998. Home Office lawyers told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) that it would be "extraordinary" if Jordan did not comply with diplomatic assurances in a memorandum of understanding that he would not face torture or ill-treatment on his return. Ian Burnett QC, for the home secretary, said there was no real risk that Jordan's "disciplined and accountable" security services would breach the agreement.

• Haw will defy courts over peace protest - Peace protester Brian Haw was defiant last night after a court ruled he must end his long-running vigil outside Parliament. The carpenter, from Redditch, Worcestershire, insisted he would not budge from the Westminster roundabout which has been his home for the past five years. He planned to take his fight to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.    (RELATED: See our section - 'Brian Haw's Parliament Square Protest')

• AMERICAN SCHOLARS SYMPOSIUM: 9/11 & The Neo-Con Agenda - In June 2006 researchers, scholars, journalists, media personalites, and average folks will come together from all over the USA to gather in Los Angeles to invite the rest of the world to examine the facts of 9/11. Through powerful & insightful presentations from prominent guest speakers & riveting documentary screenings we will examine the Neo-Con Agenda and 9/11 as the pretext for the brutal on-going war in Iraq as well as the establishment's future plans. Go to americanscholarssymposium.org now for more info!

• West nuclear concern a "big lie": Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Western nations on Wednesday of hypocrisy and said their expressions of concern over nuclear programmes were a "big lie". "I'll tell you, they are not concerned with nuclear programmes ... They are themselves engaged in nuclear activities and they are expanding day by day. They test new brands of weapons of mass destruction every day," he told a news conference during a visit to fellow Muslin nation Indonesia. "Big powers pretend (they) are concerned, but it's a big lie," he said.

• Officer suspended over use of Taser - An officer who used a Taser disabling weapon against a woman in Redmond last summer was suspended for one week without pay after an internal investigation. The suspension was imposed on Lt. Charles Gorman in November, said Jim Haney, Redmond city attorney. The woman, Leila Fuchs, sued the city Friday, claiming excessive use of force.

• CBS News misstated controversy over warrantless domestic surveillance - Summary: CBS Evening News correspondent Jim Axelrod, reporting on CIA-director nominee Gen. Michael V. Hayden's forthcoming Senate nomination hearings, noted that "[t]he White House believes it wins any time there's a debate on electronic eavesdropping of terrorists and would welcome the grand stage for Hayden to defend" the Bush administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program. However, the debate over the surveillance program is not a question of whether the government can conduct "electronic eavesdropping of terrorists," but rather whether the government can conduct warrantless surveillance of residents of the United States in apparent violation of federal statute.

• CAR PARTS DESTROYED: Car parts that could hold clues to Diana's death lost for ever - CLUES that could hold the key to Princess Diana's car death have been destroyed. They include the right front wing and right front door of the car she was in when it crashed in Paris - said to have been hit seconds before by a mystery Fiat Uno. The door was reduced to twisted scrap in a fire in a secure attic storeroom in the Palais de Justice in Paris in 1999. Its loss with other evidence from the French investigation was kept quiet by French authorities. The car wing was destroyed - possibly crushed - on the orders of a judge in June 2003 after criminal proceedings against nine photographers were ended by France's highest court. The decision was again not made public.    (RELATED: See our popular 'Diana Assassination' archive)

Tuesday 09th May 2006: -

WE'RE BACK! - Sorry for the lack of up-dates for these past few days.  Our work towards giving you the latest news shall now resume as normal.

• Electronic smog: The curse of the mobile phone age: around your home there are countless gadgets whose electrical fields, scientists now warn, are linked to depression, miscarriage and cancer - Invisible "smog", created by the electricity that powers our civilisation, is giving children cancer, causing miscarriages and suicides and making some people allergic to modern life, new scientific evidence reveals. The evidence - which is being taken seriously by national and international bodies and authorities - suggests that almost everyone is being exposed to a new form of pollution with countless sources in daily use in every home.

• Murdoch To Host Fundraiser For Hillary Clinton - Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, has agreed to host a political fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s re-election campaign. The decision underlines an incongruous thawing of relations between Murdoch and Hillary, who in 1998 coined the phrase “vast rightwing conspiracy” to denounce critics of her husband, such as Fox News, the conservative cable channel owned by Murdoch’s News Corporation. Murdoch’s New York Post tabloid savaged Hillary Clinton’s initial aspirations to become a U.S. senator for New York but now Murdoch will host the fundraiser, due to be held by July, on behalf of News Corp.

• Da Vinci disclaimer 'not needed' - The Da Vinci Code director Ron Howard has rejected calls for his film to carry a disclaimer making clear it is a work of fiction, according to a report. "It's not theology or history," he told the Los Angeles Times. "Spy thrillers don't start off with disclaimers." His remarks have drawn criticism from Roman Catholic group Opus Dei. "A disclaimer could have been a way to show [Sony Pictures] wants to be fair and respectful in its treatment of Christians," its US spokesman said. Based on Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code claims Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, which was covered up by the Catholic Church.

• Contraceptive may be depression linked - A contraceptive commonly used to treat acne is being investigated by British authorities for possibly causing depression. Dianette came under study when more than 100 women said they suffered depression after the drug was prescribed for them, The Times of London reported Monday.

Friday 05th May 2006: -

• Public will "pay twice" for ID cards: You'll have to shell out again if you break the biometric chip... - The public will be forced to fork out for a costly replacement if the biometric chip in their future passport or ID card breaks down, the government has admitted. In response to a written parliamentary question about footing the bill for damaged chips, Home Office minister Andy Burnham said that in many cases passport holders or ID card holders will have to pay.

• Australians Obtaining Organs From Executed Prisoners - Australians are going to China for organ transplants knowing the organs are from executed prisoners and the numbers are likely to increase according to transplant surgeons in Australia. Dr Scott Campbell from the renal unit of Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, told The Epoch Times he personally knew of half a dozen patients who had been to China for kidney transplants but added that: "There is bound to be significantly more than that if you look at all the patients that have been seen by different people around the country." When asked if those patients were aware that the organs would be coming from executed prisoners in China, Dr Campbell replied: "I am fairly confident that they were aware."

• Biometric bouncer: A Russian biometric data-controlled turnstile can allow or deny access based on a rapid 3D infrared scan of users’ faces - The security system, developed by specialists of the Scientific Production Association’s Information branch, was awarded the Best Innovation title at the 12th International Guarding, Security and Fire Protection Exhibition in Moscow. In one and a half seconds, the turnstile can create and analyse a scanned image and take a decision to allow or to prohibit entrance. The device looks like a traditional “three-fingered” turnstile as used in public transport stations and sports arenas, but equipped with a small screen. A series of parallel infrared rays are aimed at a person’s face as they approach. An infrared camera records the unique way the light bends around the face and transmits the image to a PC. The PC then builds a precise 3D image from the contours, identifies it by comparing with a database and opens or closes the turnstile. It can simultaneously perform additional tasks, for example recording an employee’s arrival or departure time.

• John Pilger detects the Salvador Option - The American public is being prepared. If the attack on Iran does come, there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no truth, writes John Pilger - The lifts in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the US invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress.

• McGovern Almost Ejected For Confronting Rumsfeld WMD "Lies": "This is America," former CIA analyst says as security tries to drag him away - Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern confronted Donald Rumsfeld on why he lied about weapons of mass destruction in a speech Thursday and was almost ejected from the conference room by security after Rumsfeld again deceptively claimed he never said Iraq had WMD.

Thursday 04th May 2006: -

• Big Brother Should Not Hold the TV Remote - There was a time, the rumor went, when mothers, fathers and children argued nightly over who got to hold the remote. But in 2006, what was once a domestic battle had been taken outside the walls of American living rooms. Where it went, did not matter; all that mattered was that someone else was watching, and deciding. In this Orwellian reality, a small, but influential, contingent thinks the government should police what's on your TV. This group, which includes the Parents Television Council, takes every opportunity to call hit shows "smut" and "sewage." That, of course, is a matter of taste. But when the PTC manipulates the FCC complaint process and then blasts networks for appealing the fines in Federal Court, their prescription turns out to be a matter of ideology.

• Government amends law change bill - The government is to back down over a bill which would have given ministers the power to alter legislation without the approval of Parliament. The amendments are in response to criticism by MPs from all parties and from civil liberties groups. They claimed the regulatory reform bill would enable ministers to re-write a range of laws.  Cabinet Office Minister Jim Murphy said the changes meant the law could only be used to cut unnecessary red tape. The regulatory reform bill gives ministers a fast-track procedure to repeal, amend or replace laws without the need to go through lengthy Parliamentary procedures.

• £75 fine for dropping a Wotsit - A woman has been fined £75 for throwing a Cheesey Wotsit out of her car window. Hilary Buckland, 46, was seen throwing the crisp into the road by a council official driving behind her. Officials traced her number plate and she was sent the fixed penalty fine and warned she could face court if she did not pay up. Mrs Buckland, a mother of five and grandmother of six, from Luton, was carrying her three nephews and her niece in her Vauxhall Cavalier when she was spotted flicking the Wotsit out of the window.

• Big Brother: Burma still one of the worst abusers of press freedom – Press Watchdogs - International press watchdogs, New York-based Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ) and Paris-based Reporteurs Sans Frontiers (RSF) said the Burma’s military government is one of the worst abusers of press freedom in the world, and called for the release of detained journalists and an end to draconian censorship. In a report issued on 3 May to mark World Press Freedom Day, the CPJ studied press freedom conditions in dozen of countries around the world to assess the access people have to independent information and the methods leaders use to stifle the news. It ranked Burma one of the Most Censored Countries alongside Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea and Libya. The report claimed that Burmese citizens risk arrest for listening to the BBC in public and the ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) stifled coverage of the effects of the tsunami that hit the country in December 2004, and tries to keep everything under control by imposing relentless advance censorship.

Wednesday 03rd May 2006: -

• A 100 YEARS OF SODA POP PROFITS CONTRIBUTES TO THE PANDEMIC OF DIABETES - “In the search of wealth, we destroy our health”. Women who drink more than one can of sugar-filled soda a day might be increasing their chances of developing diabetes along with gaining weight. A study showed that women who drank the minimum of one soda each day could increase their likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes by 85 percent over the women who drank less than one can a day.

• UK soldiers 'beat Iraqi looters' - Four UK soldiers accused of forcing an Iraqi teenager into a river to his death had earlier attacked his fellow looters, a court has heard. Aiad Salim Hanon, one of four looters stopped by the soldiers in May 2003, told a court martial in Colchester, Essex, he was punched repeatedly. Mr Hanon said they were then forced into the Shatt al-Basra canal, where Ahmed Jabber Kareem, 15, drowned. Three Irish Guards and one former Coldstream Guard deny manslaughter.

• Hollywood star Robbins blasts US media ignorance of 'high crimes' in Iraq - Acclaimed American actor/director Tim Robbins blasted the US government's policy on terrorism -- and the US media's failure to examine it critically -- at a news conference in Athens promoting his stage version of George Orwell's "1984". "We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanours of the president of the United States," the star of Hollywood hits including "Mystic River" and "The Player" told reporters. "Clinton lied about a blowjob, and got impeached by the media and Congress," Robbins said. "(Bush) got us into (the Iraq) war based on lies that he knew were lies. ... His war has recruited more Al-Qaeda members than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed for ... yet no one in the media is calling for impeachment," he said.

Tuesday 02nd May 2006: -

• School board OKs weapon searches - Middle and high school students in District 186 are now subject to periodic weapon searches, after the Springfield School Board adopted a policy Monday night granting the superintendent the authority to schedule them as needed. City police proposed a random weapon-search program after gun-related incidents led to lockdowns at Lanphier and Southeast high schools in January. The police department has received a federal grant to cover the cost of the metal-detector wands and overtime pay required to do the searches.

• ADHD Drugs Can Stunt Growth - A new review of past studies on the effect that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs have on children's growth concludes that the drugs do, in fact, suppress growth to some degree. While the effect found was statistically significant, one of the study's authors, Dr. Omar Khwaja, an instructor in neurology at Children's Hospital Boston, said the average growth suppression for a 10-year-old boy was probably about three-quarters of an inch in height and a little more than two pounds in weight.

• Gulf veterans at greater risk of mental disorders, study reveals - VETERANS of the first Gulf War of 1991 are three times more likely to suffer depression and drug addiction than other servicemen, according to a new study published today by some of the world's most respected psychiatrists. The Royal College of Psychiatrists today unveils its examination of the mental consequences of service in the 1991 conflict – and the results reinforce the claims of veterans who say their lives have been destroyed by depression, anxiety and drug dependence in the wake of the campaign. The findings have been welcomed by the National Gulf War Veterans Families Association, based in Hull, which has been leading the fight for recognition of Gulf War Syndrome for many years.

• China's Cruelty: West's official silence on organ harvest appalling - Last year's movie, The Island, was more than just an attractive thriller starring Scarlett Johansson and Ewen McGregor. It was a challenging look at the future of genetic ethics. In the film, set in the near future, famous and powerful people pay a company to create a clone of themselves, to be kept in case they ever need an organ transplant. The story centres around two of those clones -- one a clone of a supermodel, the other a clone of a famous designer -- who break out of their prison. What a dystopian future -- a place where there are two castes of humans, where clones exist as nothing more than spare parts for their masters. Well, that may or may not be the future in North America, where The Island is set, but it is the shocking present in Communist China.

• Police red card street football - Football-loving children in a Blackpool street have been warned to stop their kickabouts or face fines of £50. Letters have been sent out to homes in the Bloomfield area of the town, near Blackpool Football Club, warning that playing football in the street is illegal.

• Drug therapy caused some scary side effects - Erin Evans is one parent who wishes she had never heard of anti-psychotics. As a military couple, she and her husband, Joe, moved around frequently. Their son, Rex, 13, was babied a lot. His mother now feels that he was not ready for school when he reached kindergarten age. He had trouble focusing in the classroom and was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder at age 6. He started on an ADHD medicine and began hallucinating about worms and bugs in his food.

• Parents thrilled as fares ID card scheme is axed - PARENTS were celebrating this week after Reading Buses agreed to suspend introduction of its controversial ID cards for youngsters... thanks to The Chronicle. The company agreed to do a u-turn after The Chronicle highlighted parents' opposition to the £5 READI-id card. From May 29, youngsters aged 11-19 in full-time education would have been forced to buy a card before travelling on Reading Buses for a child fare.

• Police to act on vote fraud fears - Police officers could keep watch at polling stations in the West Midlands amid fears about vote rigging. West Midlands Police say they are considering the move after requests from city councillors. They also say they have uncovered 190 potentially illegal votes in one inner city ward. Birmingham's council polls were marred by fraud in 2004. An elections judge said the evidence he heard would "disgrace a banana republic".

• German Government Blasted for Facilitating Massive Prostitution at World Cup in Berlin: Mega brothels being constucted for additional 40,000 women to be added to 400,000 prostitutes already in country - The woes of legalized prostitution in Germany are about to be felt by the world. With the World Cup soccer tournament to be held in Berlin beginning June 9, an estimated three million fans are expected to flood the city. The German government and local governments are preparing for an increase in sex-traffic and the resulting tax revenues by aiding the construction of huge brothels. A four-story brothel, the largest in Germany, opened late last year a short distance from one of the main venues of the World Cup.

Monday 01st May 2006: -

• US 'allowed Zarqawi to escape' - The United States deliberately passed up repeated opportunities to kill the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before the March 2003 US-led invasion of that country. The claim, by former US spy Mike Scheuer, was made in an interview to be shown on ABC TV's Four Corners tonight. Zarqawi is often described as a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, whose supporters masterminded the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

• Smarter Spam Could Mimic Friends' Mail - The next generation of spam and phishing e-mails could fool both software filters and the most cautious people, Canadian researchers said Sunday, by mimicking the way friends and real companies write messages. John Aycock, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Calgary, and his student, Nathan Friess, presented a paper Sunday at a security conference in Hamburg, Germany that outlined how junk mailers and phishers, even spyware criminals, could create slicker spam.

• Who benefits from ID card? - INFORMATION is power. Our democracy is based on a very fine balance between the rights of the powerless citizens and the rights of the powerful state/government. This balance in the past has been based on the limited tools and methods the state had to gather, store, access and analyse data about the citizens, as well as on legislative protective measures. In an information-based society equipped with electronic national databases, the state can monitor, analyse and predict the citizens' activities, (shopping, sporting, cultural, travel) as well as map out their circle of friends/contacts, read their emails, record their financial situations and health conditions.

• Britain 'needs compulsory voting' - Britons should be forced to vote in elections, a think-tank has said. The Institute for Public Policy Research's report suggests those who do not vote should be fined to combat low turnout at the polls. The research comes just days before local elections in England, where turnout is expected to be low.  (COMMENTARY: Bear in mind, you can always 'spoil' your vote.  I have been doing this for the past ten years as a protest against the 'heads I win... tails you lose' voting scam.  It is far better than simply not voting at all, which makes it look like you can't be arsed or don't give a damn who gets in.)

• Fingerprint scanners call time on yobs in Britain's Wild West - ...Revellers in the Somerset town of Yeovil, often seen as Britain's answer to the Wild West on a Friday and Saturday night, were this weekend getting to grips with a unique scheme which is more science fiction than Wild West. Customers entering the town's six main late-night drinking and dancing joints were being asked to register their personal details, have their photograph taken and submit to a biometric finger scan. The idea is to weed out troublemakers. The details of anyone getting into a fight or causing a nuisance will be entered on to a computer. The next time the customer goes to a club involved in the scheme the details will be flagged up by the finger scanner at the entrance and the customer can be turned away.

• Employers prefer workers from new EU states to 'lazy' Britons - Migrants workers from the new European Union states are filling jobs that indigenous UK workers are not prepared to do, but for much lower wages, new research shows today. Three quarters of employers said they believed European enlargement two years ago had been good for business, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said. A survey of 1,000 migrants and employers by the social policy research and development charity, found employers used highly qualified migrant workers for low-skilled and low-waged work. The findings will be seen as confirming the view of the Bank of England that immigration keeps down wage inflation by relieving labour shortages.

• CIA tightens limits on former employees' ability to speak out - The CIA has imposed new and tighter restrictions on the books, articles, and opinion pieces published by former employees who are still contractors with the intelligence agency. According to several former CIA officials affected by the new policy, the rules are intended to suppress criticism of the Bush administration and of the CIA. The officials say the restrictions amount to an unprecedented political "appropriateness" test at odds with earlier CIA policies on outside publishing.

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