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Posted on 03/12/2004 8:23:06 PM PST by thecabal
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This week's deadly train bombings in Spain will not lead to a rise in the U.S. color-coded terror threat alert system, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said Friday.
"Based on the current intelligence, we have no specific indicators that terrorist groups are considering such an attack in the U.S. in the near term," said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents attacked a U.S. military patrol west of Baghdad early Wednesday and an ensuing fight left three civilians dead and two U.S. soldiers injured, the U.S. military and Iraqi hospital officials said.
In a speech in central Baghdad marking the last 100 days of the occupation, meanwhile, top U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said Iraq is "on the path to full democracy" and has made significant economic progress since Saddam Hussein was toppled nearly a year ago.
The fighting came a day after assailants shot at a van carrying police recruits south of Baghdad, killing nine, while gunmen killed two policemen in the north. On Wednesday, the police chief of a nearby district was shot and killed. The slayings are the latest to target police and other Iraqis who work with the U.S.-led occupation.
Associated Press Television News footage of the aftermath of the fighting in the town of Fallujah, 32 miles west of Baghdad, showed two civilian cars burned, bloodstains on the ground and bullet holes in walls, as well as two wounded Iraqis being taken into a hospital.
"American troops came under attack while they were patrolling in the main street," Fallujah resident Ahmed Ali said.
The U.S. military said two "coalition personnel" were injured. They were flown from Fallujah to a combat hospital after attackers detonated a roadside bomb and raked their vehicle with gunfire, a U.S. official said.
Three civilians died and three others were wounded, said Muthana al-Jumeili, a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital. Fallujah is a hotbed of insurgent activity.
On the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, three civilians — a 3-year-old boy, his grandmother and a male relative — were killed when an explosion destroyed the car they were riding in, according to relatives. Six other people were injured in the blast, which relatives said was caused by a mine.
Also before dawn Wednesday, attackers fired a rocket that hit the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad, where foreign contractors and journalists stay. The rocket hit a sixth-floor ledge and the lobby was strewn with glass.
U.S. officials said there were no casualties. American soldiers protect the Sheraton, which is ringed by a concrete blast wall.
Another rocket was fired into the headquarters of the coalition in Baghdad early Wednesday, wounding a contractor, a senior U.S. official said without elaborating.
In the southern province of Babil, the police chief of Jalf al-Sakhr district, Maj. Yassin Ghdayeb, was shot and killed while on his way to work, local police officials said on condition of anonymity.
Tuesday's roadside attack on police recruits in the south took place between Musayeb and Hillah when a car pulled in front of the minibus and assailants sprayed it with small arms fire, police in Hillah said.
A U.S. military official confirmed that nine people died and two were wounded. Iraqi police said one wounded trainee survived.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, gunmen in a car killed two policemen and wounded two others, police Capt. Abdul-Salam Zangana said.
Iraq's main oil pipeline leading to the Gulf ruptured late Tuesday, spilling large amounts of oil that later caught fire, officials said. Abed Ali Fhadil, the mayor of the southern town Faw, near where the spillage occurred, said the break was believed to be due to poor maintenance. Rebels have repeatedly attacked oil pipelines in Iraq.
In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, Iraqi police fired shots to disperse a violent protest against Israel's assassination of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City.
Iraqi police fired in the air after protesters burned two police cars and two hand grenades were thrown at the governor's office, witnesses said. Television footage showed U.S. soldiers remaining behind at the building, protected by concrete blast barriers, as police with assault rifles moved down the street to disperse the crowd. At least two police and three protesters were wounded.
Muslim clerics in Ramadi, where support for the anti-U.S. insurgency is strong, had urged followers to protest Yassin's slaying.
In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents fired mortar rounds at a barracks housing soldiers of the U.S.-trained Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, killing two civilians and injuring six, the U.S. military said.
In his speech to Iraqi leaders and other delegates in Baghdad's Green Zone, the heavily protected area housing the coalition headquarters, Bremer listed accomplishments achieved since Saddam's fall.
He said 200,000 Iraqis are serving in security positions; Iraq has more electricity than it did before the war; more than 2,500 schools have been "rehabilitated;" and more than 3 million children under age 5 had been vaccinated against polio and other diseases.
"The economy is picking up steam," he said. "Unemployment is half what it was at liberation and possibly even lower."
Bremer also cited the signing of an interim constitution as a key step toward the June 30 handover of power to Iraqis.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council said the council will investigate alleged corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program.
Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, said the council will hire international legal and auditing firms as well as specialized Iraqi firms to conduct the probe.
On Monday, the United Nations said Secretary-General Kofi Annan would give the Security Council details about a planned independent commission to investigate claims of corruption in the program.
Diplomats, officials and companies from around the world allegedly collected millions of dollars in illegal profits from the program, which allowed Iraq to sell some of its oil to pay for food while under economic sanctions. The program ended in November.
Supreme Court to Consider Pledge's 'Under God' Phrase
Wed Mar 24, 8:17 AM ET
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court considers on Wednesday whether the words "under God" must be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance during its recitation in public schools, an important case on church-state separation.
The high court will question what role religion can play in public life during an hour of arguments in a case that already has sparked a political uproar and generated widespread interest.
The high court will examine whether a public school district policy requiring teachers to lead willing students in reciting the pledge amounts to an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.
The words "under God" were added to the pledge as part of a 1954 law adopted by Congress in an effort to distinguish America's religious values and heritage from those of communism, which is atheistic.
Millions of students every day "pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Atheist Michael Newdow, an emergency room doctor from California who has a law degree and is acting as his own attorney, will argue the case.
"I think that I'll be prepared," said Newdow, who has held 11 practice sessions. Newdow predicted he will win in striking "under God" from the Pledge by an 8-0 decision.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the government's chief advocate before the Supreme Court, will defend the phrase "under God" as constitutional.
PATRIOTIC OR RELIGIOUS?
In written arguments, Olson said, "The pledge is not a prayer or other type of overt religious exercise, and its reference to 'one nation under God' is not sacred text."
"Like singing the National Anthem or memorizing the Gettysburg Address, reciting the pledge is a patriotic, not a religious exercise," he said.
The third lawyer arguing will be Terence Cassidy, an attorney from Sacramento who represents the local California school district.
Before the justices determine the constitutional issues, they first must decide whether Newdow even has the legal right to bring the challenge to the school district's policy.
Newdow filed the lawsuit because he objected to his daughter's saying the daily ritual at her school in the city of Elk Grove near Sacramento in Northern California.
Because Newdow does not have legal custody of the girl on school days, when the pledge is recited, Olson argued the complaint should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.
Newdow said he only gets custody of his nine-year-old daughter every second weekend and she will not be in the courtroom.
"Of course I wanted to bring her," he said. "You don't believe it would be an opportunity to see your father argue before the Supreme Court of the United States in an historic case that will last forever?"
Another problem is the court could deadlock by a 4-4 vote as Justice Antonin Scalia has removed himself from the case. Scalia earlier made critical comments about a U.S. appeals court ruling that declared the pledge unconstitutional.
A 4-4 vote would uphold the appeals court ruling, but would not set a national precedent.
The court's decision is due by the end of June.
Some people like to monitor volcanoes by constantly monitoring gases that come out of fumaroles. Most active volcanoes have fumaroles where volcanic gases escape to the surface. It is relatively easy to monitor the temperatures of these gases, and an anomalous increase in temperature might be a sign that magma has moved closer to the surface. Monitoring the composition of the gases is more difficult to do, and changes in the composition are way more difficult to interpret. Many times just visual changes to fumarole areas are indications of impending activity. If the area of active degasing gets larger, if the plants nearby die suddenly, if the color of any lakes or ponds nearby changes...Many volcanoes have summit lakes through which heat and gases rise to the surface and escape. Many of these lakes have strange colors due to all the dissolved minerals in them, and many of the colored ones change color, pH, temperature, etc. These too, are signs of change below but are often difficult to interpret.
The site also notes increased seismic activity and buldging at an increasing rate are signs of impending eruption.
By PAM EASTON, Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON - The Coast Guard was searching the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday for a missing helicopter with 10 people aboard.
The helicopter last had radio contact on Tuesday night when it was about 90 miles south of Galveston. It was heading to an oil exploratory ship in the gulf, Discoverer Spirit.
"We are hoping that something went wrong and they maybe landed on a different platform," Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Adam Wine said. "We are hoping for the best."
No signs of the helicopter were found overnight. There were no reports of bad weather, Wine said.
Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for Transocean Inc., an offshore drilling company, said his company owns the drill ship the helicopter was traveling to, but none of the company's employees were aboard the helicopter.
"We are concerned," he said.
The helicopter is owned by Alaska-based Era Aviation.
Mona Morris, who works for the company in Lake Charles, La., where its Gulf Coast Helicopter Services are based, said the company had no further information Wednesday morning but would issue a statement when more was known.
The twin-engine helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76A, can hold up to 12 passengers and is described on company's Web site as a reliable helicopter that can fly at night and in bad weather.
Era Aviation's employees are trained on sophisticated flight simulators and are taught water survival skills, according to the Web site.
Now, wouldn't that be something?
Wed Mar 24, 8:42 AM ET
By DOUG SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS - Since 1936, a lone federal worker has sat in a tower along the Mississippi River, scanning the water with binoculars and radioing ship captains on whether to proceed or stop their vessels.
Not for long. The radioman will be gone by the end of the year, replaced by a new computerized system that will track and send messages to all large vessels on the lower Mississippi.
The system will be in place at all major U.S. seaports in 2005 — part of a security overhaul at the nation's ports, where officials fear a terrorist attack could cause economic and environmental disasters.
"Seaports have vulnerabilities that are far more difficult to address than airports," said Kim Petersen, executive director of the Maritime Security Council, adviser to the State Department on maritime anti-terrorism. "You have ports that have literally tens of thousands of miles of coastline that provide the possibility for access by criminals and terrorists."
Since Sept. 11, 2001, every foreign vessel over 300 tons has been forced to notify the Coast Guard four days before arriving at a U.S. port. The ship must provide a cargo list, its last five ports of call, destination in the United States and name, nationality and passport or identity number of every crew member.
The FBI, Coast Guard and other agencies say they've transformed their seaport patrols, restrictions and safety measures. Coast Guard officers around the country board any ship — sometimes dropping from helicopters — if they learn a member of its crew has suspicious paperwork.
New Orleans will be one of the country's first ports to institute a new system of monitoring all large commercial vessels. By January, commercial ships 65 feet or longer, except fishing boats, will be blocked from entering the port unless they're equipped with electronic boxes that automatically transmit data about the vessels to the Coast Guard.
All large oil tankers, cruise ships and large tug and tow boats on the river's lower 280 miles will show up as blips on computer screens in a downtown New Orleans office tower. With a mouse click, Coast Guard workers will be able to examine detailed information on each ship: where it came from, where the captain is headed and what's being hauled.
"We'll be able to track him from the moment he enters our coverage area for the entire time he's in that area. We'll be able to do a much better job," said Lt. Cmdr. Mark V. Kasper, who oversees vessel traffic on the lower Mississippi.
By 2005, the system will be mandatory for all large commercial vessels entering the ports of New Orleans, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City, San Francisco and Houston. The installation will cost about $10,000 per ship.
The Coast Guard boards ships with sketchy paperwork, unusual cargo or any connection to countries deemed suspicious. Other agencies involved in security around the New Orleans port include Customs, the Louisiana National Guard and local police.
Special Agent Robert A. Burkes of the FBI's New Orleans said his agents board a vessel about once a month, when the Coast Guard or another agency has concerns that a ship, cargo or crew member could indicate a link to terrorism.
"We end up interviewing people if anything about the ship, the shipping line, the ownership or the people on board raise any maritime agency's suspicions," said Burkes, who oversees anti-terrorism efforts in south Louisiana.
Huge tankers and barges aren't the only threat: The biggest maritime terrorist act against the United States was an explosion that killed 17 U.S. sailors aboard the USS Cole in 2000. The suicide bombers used a small boat in the attack.
On the lower Mississippi, potential terror targets include the levee — which prevents flooding in New Orleans — and the massive cruise ships that can carry up to 3,000 passengers.
Experts say such an attack could just as easily occur in U.S. waters.
Al-Qaida "has an array of goals, all of which could potentially be met by an attack against a ship or a seaport in the United States," Petersen said.
___
On the Net:
Maritime Security Council: http://www.maritimesecurity.org/
Port of New Orleans: http://www.portno.com/
And WCG they're rock throwing would be ineffective due to the distance between there and here. LOL.
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