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VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- North Korea announced Thursday that it is preparing to restart the facility that produced its atomic bomb, clearly indicating that it plans to completely pull out of an international deal to end its nuclear program. North Korea told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was stopping the process of disabling its main nuclear site and barring international inspectors from the Yongbyon facility, the agency said. Pyongyang "informed IAEA inspectors that effective immediately access to facilities at Yongbyon would no longer be permitted," the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. North Korea "also stated that it has stopped...

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, Jan. 15, 2008 – Construction of a $92 million center for all Defense Department combat casualty care and trauma research missions began with a groundbreaking ceremony here Jan. 11. Dr. Basil Pruitt (center) laughs at a comment made by guest speaker, Maj. Gen. George Weightman, commander of U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, at the Jan. 11, 2008, groundbreaking ceremony for the Joint Center of Excellence for Battlefield Health and Trauma Research, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Photo by Elaine Wilson   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The 150,000-square-foot Joint Center of Excellence...

12/20/2007 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- For Iraqi police to succeed in securing their nation from the hands of insurgents, they need proper training and equipment, and they get help from American servicemembers at the 732nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron, Det. 6. In five days, Airmen from the unit built a classroom, mock checkpoint, covered live-fire range and living quarters with heat and air conditioning for up to 30 students. "We are providing Iraqi police with a great facility to live and train," said Tech. Sgt. Thundercloud Hirejeta, a Det. 6 electrician. "They will be very happy with the...

'Dirty' bomb fears over world's most insecure nuclear facility By Bojan Pancevski in Vienna (Filed: 17/09/2006) More than two tons of radioactive material stored in a rundown research facility in Serbia is an easy target for terrorists seeking to build a "dirty" bomb, according the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. Nuclear inspectors have branded the lightly-guarded store of highly enriched uranium, from a Communist-era reactor which closed 22 years ago, the world's most dangerous disused nuclear site – because of the potency of the material present, and because some is prone to leaking. Experts warn that the facility could be targeted...

DANBURY, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 10, 2006--Praxair Chemax Semiconductor Materials Co. Ltd., a joint venture between Praxair, Inc. (NYSE: PX - News) and China Petrochemical Development Corp., announced that it will double the transfill production of silane in their Toufen, Taiwan facility. The increase in capacity is the result of the growing demand for silane in the production of TFT-LCD (Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display) technology as well as at 300mm semiconductor wafer fabs in the region. "This expansion will allow us to meet the new requirements of our key customers and provide Praxair Chemax with the capability to maintain our leading...

Husseiniya fire fighters move into new facility Story and photo by Norris Jones Gulf Region Central District US Army Corps of Engineers The Husseiniya firemen are proud of their new equipment and the training which they have received. They are now able to battle fires and respond to emergencies better than ever before. Baghdad, Iraq -- Husseiniya city officials and fire fighters in north Baghdad Province hosted a ceremony recently marking the opening of a new $1.1 million, three-story fire station that will benefit the city’s 450,000 residents. The 925-square meter concrete structure features five bays; three for ladder...

Fresh evidence has emerged that Iran is working on a secret military project to develop nuclear weapons that has not been declared to United Nations inspectors responsible for monitoring Iran's nuclear programme. Experts working for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna are pressing the Iranians to make a full disclosure about a network of laboratories they have set up at a secret military base outside Teheran. The project is codenamed Zirzamin 27, and its purpose is to enable the Iranians to undertake uranium enrichment to military standard. Zirzamin means "basement" in Farsi, which suggests the laboratories are located...

Afghan Police Open Tactical Training Facility The facility allows Afghan National Police cadets to train to respond to domestic violence, apprehension of an insurgent, a hostage situation or when contraband is expected in the home. By Combined Security Transition Command–Afghanistan ABUL, Afghanistan, April 21, 2006 — The Afghan National Police took a major step toward advance training with the opening of the Brummet Tactical Training House at the Central Training Center April 18. This opening reflects the progress being made by the Afghan National Police.During a ribbon cutting ceremony, Afghan Brig. Gen. Khadadad Aga, Central Training Center commander, inaugurated...

4/10/2006 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- What do a bank manager, a school nurse and a Seattle Symphony chorus member have in common? They’re all reservists, they all volunteered to serve at Balad Air Base, Iraq, and they all work at the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility, part of the 332nd Expeditionary Aerospace Medicine Squadron here. The CASF staff, all reservists plus one active-duty member, serve several functions. Patients from the Air Force Theater Hospital here are prepared, both clinically and administratively, for flights, and they care for them until their departure from Balad. The CASF staff also is...

3/29/2006 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- Thirty-five tons of apples, oranges, bananas and plums, 1,600 gallons of milk, 16 tons of grilled chicken breasts and 39,040 candy bars. The list of food consumed here in one month goes on and on. “It’s an amazing operation,” said Lt. Col. Kevin Schields, 379th Expeditionary Services Squadron commander, referring to the largest food service operation in the region. “No matter how you slice and dice it, the 379th feeds more people than any other base in the theater.” On any given day, the food service flight serves 14,000 meals at the Manhattan, Independence...

The driver of a pickup truck that ran a checkpoint at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on Tuesday headed back to his native Mexico in an ambulance Thursday and may never be prosecuted, Tucson police said. The driver, an illegal entrant, was taken from University Medical Center to a medical facility in Sonora, said Sgt. Mark Robinson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman. Police had no choice but to let him go, Robinson said, because their investigation isn't finished and no criminal charges have been filed against the man. "There are times when people leave the jurisdiction before we can make a...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Army News Service, Feb. 28, 2006) -- A new multicultural center with wireless Internet in 150 classrooms opened last week at Lincoln Middle School in Washington, D.C., thanks to assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers. Since 1998, the Corps of Engineers has been assisting the District of Columbia with efforts to renovate and modernize schools. Early in 1998, faced with a critical facilities situation and the likelihood that schools would not open on time, DC Public Schools came to the Corps for assistance. Under a memorandum of agreement signed in April 1998, the Corps can provide engineering,...

Saudis 'foil oil facility attack' Saudi security forces have foiled an apparent suicide car bomb attack on a major oil production facility in the eastern town of Abqaiq. At least two cars carrying explosives were fired on at the plant, Saudi officials have said. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the attack is the first direct assault on Saudi oil production. The al-Qaeda network on the Arabian Peninsula has long called for attacks on Saudi oil installations. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said output at the facility, which handles about two-thirds of the country's oil production, was unaffected by the...

CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq (Feb. 16, 2006) -- After months of delays, construction has begun on Camp Taqaddum’s new medical facility, with the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 22 stepping up to the task. The unit, a part of the 30th Naval Construction Regiment, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, has faced difficulties in getting the project underway and is working hard to see that the medical facility begins taking form. The biggest difficulty the unit has faced as it has sought to begin construction has been getting its hands on quality materials, said Lt. Jay E. Lowack, officer-in-charge of the project and Charlie...

KUT, Iraq, Dec. 9, 2005 – With its 9,800-foot runway, one of Saddam Hussein's premier air bases was in Kut, Iraq, near the Tigris River midway between Baghdad and Kuwait. Today, the coalition defense team has commandeered the base's strategic position. The U.S. Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence contracted with ECC International a year ago to build an Iraqi police cadet academy at Kut. With Iraq's training needs critical to the U.S. mission's eventual completion, the site has morphed into a triple training facility. Recruits for the Department of Border Enforcement have now begun training at Kut, as have...

ABOARD USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (NNS) -- Aircraft assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8 stationed aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) continued to provide support to coalition troops on the ground in Iraq Oct. 19. F-14 Tomcats from Fighter Squadron (VF) 31 conducted precision strikes on a known Improvised Explosive Device (IED) production facility northeast of Baghdad. The fighter jets joined a handful of other Roosevelt-based aircraft this week that have conducted strikes in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom while protecting coalition ground troops. IEDs have been one of the biggest threats to coalition ground forces since the beginning of...

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq, Oct. 21, 2005 – Take a design engineer, a project manager and a construction company. Drop them into Iraq's mountainous north and hand them a "mission, impossible": Turn a relic of an old military fort into an internment facility ready to receive 1,000 detainees within eight weeks. That's the task that faced the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence and contractor ECC International. "We and our contract partner were up to the challenge," said Tom Russell, AFCEE's director of worldwide installation support. The team got the order to proceed in August, but the challenge began months earlier, when...

ELLINGTON FIELD, Texas -- The Texas Air National Guard stood up Task Force Compassion here to provide Hurricane Rita evacuees medical support and to evacuate non-critical patients from overburdened local hospitals. Task force Airmen and Soldiers began setting up a 10-bed medical treatment facility overnight in Ellington’s abandoned base exchange and opened for business Sept. 26. The treatment facility has 47 medics from the 147th Medical Group here, the 149th MG at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, the 136th MG at Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth and the Army National Guard Support Medical Battalion in San Antonio. “If...

Ambassador Greg Schulte:The U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency says there is plenty of evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon. In an interview with VOA, Gregory Schulte said Iran is entitled to nuclear technology, but not for military purposes. Ambassador Schulte has been in Vienna only a few weeks but has already experienced a special IAEA board meeting and is preparing for the next U.N. report on Iran's nuclear program. IAEA experts now say investigations confirm Iran's story that traces of weapons grade uranium were imported on contaminated equipment from Pakistan and not domestically produced. So does...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 8, 2005 — The recent grand opening of the Afghan National Army’s Darulaman Garrison troop medical clinic marked the completion of the Afghan National Army’s 201st Corps’ third new soldier healthcare facility. The other 201st Corps clinics, located at the Pol-e-Charkhi Garrison and the Kabul Military Training Center, were completed in August 2004 and February 2005, respectively. The opening of the new clinics is a clear indication of the Afghan National Army’s movement toward well-managed, resourced healthcare for its soldiers. As the Afghan National Army continues to grow toward a final end-strength of 70,000 troops, the need...

Army Regulation 15-6: Final Report Investigation into FBI Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Detention Facility EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Detention and interrogation operations at Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) cover a three-year period and over 24,000 interrogations. This AR 15-6 investigation found only three interrogation acts in violation of interrogation techniques authorized by Army Field Manual 34-52 and DoD guidance. The AR 15-6 also found that the Commander of JTF-GTMO failed to monitor the interrogation of one high value detainee in late 2002. The AR 15-6 found that the interrogation of this same high value detainee resulted in degrading...

It is perhaps not as widely known as it ought to be—in light of the hyperventilating criticism of our alleged treatment of detainees at the U.S. military’s detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba—that there has never been a single death recorded at the center known by the military as “GTMO” (pronounced gitmo). It is perhaps also not as widely known that many of the detainees at GTMO do not complain of their treatment. In fact, many detainees report that conditions at GTMO are better than those they suffered fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq prior to their being captured:...

or all the grief America is suffering over Guantanamo Bay, U.S. soldiers there might as well have flushed 1,001 Korans down 1,001 toilets — live on Al-Jazeera TV. Newsweek's May 15 retraction of its false and deadly Koran-in-the-can story has worked as well as a severed brake line in slowing calls by Democrats (and some wobbly Republicans) to padlock the terrorist detention facility. Illinois's Dick Durbin, the U.S. Senate's No. 2 Democrat, infamously compared Gitmo to the Soviet Gulag, Nazi concentration camps, and the Khmer Rouge's killing fields, despite the base's paucity of firing squads, gas chambers, or neatly stacked...

One simple, do-it-yourself method of examining American politics is determining what, at any given moment, liberals are screeching about. This works mainly because, as opposed to solution-minded conservatives, liberals are always screeching about something. As of this writing -- and this may change very rapidly, I realize -- they’re worried about the treatment of terrorists in Cuba. They’re not worried about the Communists in Cuba, mind you; terrorists who favor collectivism have never really concerned liberals. Amnesty International may call Gitmo a “gulag,” but, historically, liberals haven’t been able to find much to say when it comes to actual gulags...

BANGKOK, Thailand - Call it the Case of the Missing Cobras — all 82 of them. The deadly snakes were apparently stolen from a Red Cross facility, and police fear they were destined for the stew pot. The King Cobras had been kept with other poisonous snakes at the Red Cross' compound in downtown Bangkok, where they are milked for their poison to be used as serum for snakebite medicine. Workers discovered that 62 snakes went missing in January. After 20 more were gone on Feb. 2, Red Cross veterinarian Montri Chiewbamrungkiet filed a complaint with police. Authorities said they...

Senator John Kerry is once again making claims that he cannot substantiate. He charges that President Bush’s “misjudgments” led to the disappearance of 380 tons of explosives from the Iraqi al-Qaqaa facility, and that these explosives have been used against U.S. troops -- even though there is no proof for such accusations. While the Kerry campaign has already released a television ad making such allegations, they simultaneously have backed off from the same charges. Senator Kerry’s TV ad states: The obligation of a Commander in Chief is to keep our country safe. In Iraq, George Bush has overextended our troops...

'It was just total panic' Woman seeks $10 million in storage facility ordeal 09/27/03 By GARY McELROY Staff Reporter A woman who survived being stuck in a storage unit for 63 days told jurors Friday of cold, hunger, thirst and despair as her civil suit continued in Mobile County Circuit Court. Wanda Hudson, 44, is suing Parkway Storage, located on Dauphin Island Parkway. She is asking $10 million, claiming negligence on the company's part. From Our Advertiser For a few minutes Friday, it looked as though attorney Mallory Mantiply's case against the company would self-destruct when Hudson, out of the...

WEBSTER, N.Y. - Two people were shot, one fatally, Tuesday morning in an apparent robbery of the credit union at a sprawling Xerox complex, authorities said. Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said one victim died and the second was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital with a shoulder injury. He said it appeared to be a robbery that went bad. No arrests had been made as of midday, more than two hours after the shooting. Authorities did not say whether the two people who were shot were credit union customers or employees. Bill McKee, spokesman for the sprawling Xerox complex, confirmed...

A Planned Parenthood affiliate agreed today to settle a lawsuit brought by three pro-life activists barred from a library the agency ran as part of a public system. The abortion provider has agreed to pay damages in the suit. "This is a severe blow to Planned Parenthood's efforts to infiltrate public libraries," said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel of the Liberty Legal Institute, the organization representing the women. "This should send a message to every level of government, if you team up with Planned Parenthood to push just its viewpoint, a lawsuit is sure to follow." As WorldNetDaily reported, Planned Parenthood...

Even as war rages in Iraq, federal agents have begun to unlock the secrets of an unlicensed, unregistered Islamic charity in upstate New York that allegedly pumped millions of dollars into Baghdad. Flouting U.S. economic sanctions, the group shipped cash out of Syracuse, laundered it in banks in Jordan and then illegally funneled it into Iraq, according to an unsealed federal indictment. Operating under the name Help the Needy, the organization described itself as a tax-exempt nonprofit that provided food and humanitarian assistance to the "starving children and suffering Muslims of Iraq." But it lacked charitable status, misrepresented itself in...

<p>SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) - It was a scene from a 1940s prison movie. Heavily barred cells stretched five tiers up, footsteps clanged on metal stairs as officers marched condemned men to their cells, a steady trickle of water from a makeshift shower splashed down to the concrete floor.</p>

ANNAPOLIS (AP) - A lobbyist whose fraud conviction prompted lawmakers to make a tougher ethics law has been released from federal custody, and he has taken steps to work again at the Maryland State House. Gerard E. Evans, 46, filed papers Friday with the state ethics commission to represent a handful of high-profile clients. They include Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos and the Baltimore and Prince George's County chapters of the state's largest police union. [SNIP] Evans built his $1 million lobbying franchise largely on the strength of his ties to Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Prince...