Replies

GLOBAL JIHAD
Dispute over al-Qaida's 'terrorist navy'
At international conference, U.S., India insist bin Laden using ships

Posted: February 19, 2004

Israeli, Indian and U.S. officials clashed at a recent intelligence conference over whether Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network has a navy.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37190

Putin aide: Russia losing war on terror

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Russia is losing its war against economic crime and terrorism, a top aide to President Vladimir Putin has said.

"Peace is not yet with us. Terrorist activity is taking on the character of open defiance of the state and society," Viktor Ivanov, deputy chief of Putin's presidential staff in the Kremlin, told a conference at the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow last Thursday, according to a report in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper monitored by the BBC.

http://interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/02180000aaa00e5c.upi&Sys=siteia&Fid=WORLDNEW&Type=News&Filter=World%20News

OPINION:

I read the weekly piracy report and often check various trucking news sources. Whether AQ has a navy seems to be a low point of contention, at least to me.

It seems that AQ and other jihadis, have shown an interest in attempting to access transportation sources for their evil intentions. AQ (at least according to media articles and other online investigative reports; has shown an interest in planes, trucks, ships, and trains. That said, in foreign coutries, incidents in the past are documented where bombs have been placed on parked bicycles, donkeys have been used to launch missiles, and cars, small trucks, and ambulances have been used for suicide-HOMICIDE bombings.

Bottom line, "navy" or no navy; our enemies hate us and what lengths they will go to in their attempt to destroy America and Americans is the more important point.

SUSPICIOUS WHITE POWDER CLOSES PASSPORT OFFICE IN DC
CBS Marketwire | DocCincy
Posted on 02/19/2004 3:23:07 PM CST by DocCincy

SUSPICIOUS WHITE POWDER CLOSES PASSPORT OFFICE IN DC

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1081413/posts

Breaking News Alert
WASHINGTON (AP) State Department urges Americans to leave Haiti.

Breaking News Alert
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) President Jean-Bertrand Aristide says "ready to give my life" to defend Haiti, indicates he is not prepared to give up power

Breaking News Alert
WASHINGTON (AP) Pentagon says U.S. military sending small military team to assess security situation in Haiti.

ANTHRAX, CATTLE GRAVESITES - RUSSIA (URALS)

105 anthrax-infected cattle graveyards have been located by Ural regional authorities

Ural public prosecutors have discovered 105 cattle graveyards that contain anthrax spores. According to a chief deputy Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, Yuriy Zolotov, altogether in the Ural federal region there are about 1100 neglected graveyards.

A cattle graveyard in Tobolsk needs special attention. It is located on the banks of the Irtish river, and if flooding occurs, there is a high risk of the river becoming infected with anthrax. Today the Irtish river is separated from the Tobolsk graveyard by 50 meters, a
distance that is shortening every year.

According to Deputy Prosecutor Zolotov, today this dangerous site is under security control, and serious work has begun to repair the banks of the Irtish.

I turned to my friend and the anthrax expert on Russia, Beniyamin Cherkasskiy, who generously replied as follows.

From: Beniyamin L. Cherkasskiy

I would like to provide some comments about the message you sent me regarding anthrax in the Ural region. Firstly I would like to point out that the Ural Federal region is approximately 1.8 million square km in area, with a human
population of about 12.5 million. The region consists of Kurgan, Sverdlovsk, Tumen, Chelyabinsk, Yamalo-Nenetskaya, and Hanti-Mansiyskaya national districts.

The entire region (north to south) has a history of anthrax, and therefore the discovery of numerous anthrax sites should not come as a surprise (in Russia, places with any history of anthrax are permanently labelled as 'anthrax sites'). I personally know the location of 2086 such sites in the Ural region. At 4 of these sites,
cases of animals being infected with anthrax were recorded between 1991 and 2000. In reality, the number of cattle gravesites is much higher, as there may be several such gravesites at any one of these anthrax sites. However, it is hard to say that there are positively identified anthrax spores in these gravesites -- as there have never
been such investigations into these sites.

The Tobolski gravesite is peculiar, but not because it is on the banks of the Irtish river. I am familiar with many such gravesites on the banks of various rivers and even at the bottom of artificial water reservoirs. However, my field studies show that such gravesites do not pose any serious epidemiological concern. The Tobolski gravesite is the result of activity at a nearby factory involved in
the production of veterinary prophylactic drugs, including vaccines against anthrax. Unfortunately despite sealing off the toxic waste storage facility with concrete, which provides isolation from the surrounding environment, the factory does not have any resources for the radical disinfection of the waste.

I hope that my comments have helped you better understand the anthrax situation in the Ural region.

Beniyamin Cherkasskiy
D/WHO CC of Zoonoses
Central Research Institute of Epidemiology
Moscow, Russia

Beniyamin has been converting the multitude of anthrax site reports into a single register for the whole country, so he knows what he is talking about. While such places are commonly regarded as risk sites, the reality is more of uncertainty and ignorance. While some sites will have viable spores in significant numbers, what determines this state of affairs and its probability are totally unknown. Logically it must depend on soil type -- anthrax persists in regions with alkaline soils with high calcium content and is absent from acid soil regions -- but also
presumably on whether necropsies were done on the affected carcasses before burial, and strain genotype group.

Decomposition in unopened carcasses will rapidly kill the vegetative cells as the pH falls. Burning and then burial of the ashes results in essentially zero risk. And even with sites that have spores, repeated sampling over the
years has shown some sites becoming 'apathogenic' from plasmid loss. Examination of such sites is needed, if only to rule out those that present no risk. I would not be surprised if the majority are harmless.

Breaking News from NewsMax.com

Russia Says Weapon Renders 'Missile Defense Useless'

MOSCOW – Russia has successfully tested a hypersonic weapon capable of penetrating any prospective missile shield, a senior general said Thursday.

The prototype weapon proved it could maneuver so quickly as to make "any missile defense useless," Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, said at a news conference.

He said that the prototype of a new hypersonic vehicle had proved its ability to maneuver while in orbit, thereby making it able to to dodge an enemy's missile shield.

"The flying vehicle changed both the altitude and direction of its flight," Baluyevsky said. "During the experiment conducted yesterday, we proved that it's possible to develop weapons that would make any missile defense useless."

Baluyevsky's comment followed a statement by President Vladimir Putin, who said Wednesday after attending rocket launches from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia that experiments conducted during the military maneuvers had proven that Russia could build strategic weapons unrivaled in the world.

Uh Huh

Putin said that the development of weapons was not directed against the United States. Baluyevsky, reaffirming the statement, said the experiment shouldn't be seen as Russia's response to U.S. plans for missile defense.

"The experiment conducted by us must not be interpreted as a warning to the Americans not to build their missile defense because we designed this thing," Baluyevsky told The Associated Press.

He said that Russia had no intention of immediately deploying new weapons based on the experimental vehicle. "We have demonstrated our capability, but we have no intention of building this craft tomorrow," he said.

Baluyevsky said that Russia had informed the United States about its intention to conduct the experiment and said that U.S. officials issued no objections.

He said that the new vehicle had "ceased to exist" after the experiment, presumably burning up in the atmosphere.

Baluyevsky refused to comment on what kind of engine the vehicle had, how long its flight lasted and how exactly it maneuvered. He said that it had been designed by several Russian companies, but refused to name them.

As part of the massive military maneuvers described as the largest in more than two decades, the military launched a Molniya-M booster rocket with a Kosmos military satellite from the northern Plesetsk launch pad and two ballistic missiles: a Topol from Plesetsk and an RS-18 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Baluyevsky refused to say which of the rockets had carried the vehicle into the orbit.

BS Alert!

Ricin test results questioned

Investigators seeking the source of ricin found in a Senate building are raising the possibility that the positive test may have been caused by paper byproducts, not the deadly poison, NBC News has learned.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4143594/

I cannot 'again' believe how liberal Sun Times is covering this, kudos two days in a row!

Train with toxic load derails, killing hundreds in Iran

February 19, 2004

BY ALI AKBAR DAREINI ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEYSHABUR, Iran -- Negligence or brake failure likely caused a 51-car train to roll out of a switchyard and eventually reach a speed of more than 90 mph before it derailed, caught fire and exploded, killing at least 320 people and injuring hundreds more, a top Iranian official said Thursday.

An iron wedge used on Iranian trains to secure the wheels of the lead car was broken, and it was unclear if brakes on individual cars were working, said Hassan Rasouli, governor of Iran's northeastern Khorasan province. Workers at the yard also may have been at fault, he said.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-iran19.html

And we think we are worried!

Cambodians eating rats for fear of bird flu

February 19, 2004

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Fear of catching bird flu from eating chicken has prompted some people in northwest Cambodia to resort to eating rats, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Rats have been fetching good prices in Battambang province during the last two weeks, according to Rasmei Kampuchea, or the Light of Cambodia.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-cam19.html