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Today in History:
August 15, 2005 - Indonesia
Peace Agreement
Indonesia's government and Aceh rebels expected to sign a truce on 08/15/2005 to
bring peace to the province after a 30-year-conflict that has taken over 12,000 lives.

August 15, 1986 - Iraq, Turkey
Turkish Troops Raid Camps
Turkish troops raided Kurdish rebel camps in Iraq.

August 15, 1984 - Turkey
First PKK Attack On Government
August 15, 1984 is considered to be the first time that Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)
elements launched an attack against Turkish government installations.

August 15, 1975 - Bangladesh
Mujibur Rahman Assassinated
No information provided.

August 15, 1975 - Indonesia
FRETILIN Begins Insurgency
The Revolutionary Front for East Timor Independence (FRETILIN) began its insurgency
aimed at gaining independence for the Portuguese territory.

August 15, 1971 - Bahrain
Independence Day
No information provided.

August 15, 1964 - Colombia
ELN Begins Armed Struggle
The National Liberation Army (ELN) begins its armed struggle.

August 15, 1960 - Congo
Independence Day
Celebrates the overthrow of the Youlou regime.

August 15, 1947 - India
Independence Day
No information provided.

August 15, 1945 - Indonesia
Agreement On Irian Jaya
The Netherlands agreed to transfer administration of Irian Jaya to Indonesia.

August 15, 1945 - Korea (Republic of)
Independence Day
Also known as Liberation Day or Kwang Bok Jul.

August 15, 1945 - Netherlands
Agreement On Irian Jaya
The Netherlands agreed to transfer administration of Irian Jaya to Indonesia.

August 15, 1945 - North Korea
Liberation Day
Also known as Independence Day or Kwang Bok Jul.

August 15, (year ?) - Burundi
Assumption Day
No information provided.

August 15, (year ?) - Guadeloupe (French Antilles)
Assumption Day
No information provided.

August 15, (year ?) - Martinique (French Antilles)
Assumption Day
No information provided.

Upcoming Significant Events:
August 16, 1960 - Cyprus
Independence Day
No information provided.

August 17, 1988 - Pakistan
President Zia Dies In Air Crash
An airplane carrying President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. ambassador
Arnold Raphel crashed, killing everyone aboard.

August 17, 1945 - Indonesia
Independence Day
Indonesian leaders Soekarno and Mohammed Hatta, with the acquiescence of Japanese
occupation officials, proclaim the independence of Indonesia as World War II ends in the
Pacific.

August 17, 1960 - Gabon
Independence Day
No information provided.

August 18, 1987 - Sri Lanka
Grenade Attack On Parliament
One legislator was killed in a grenade attack on the Sri Lankan parliament.

August 18, 1991 - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Attempted Coup
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who was vacationing in the Crimea, was held
incommunicado while senior Soviet officials attempted to stage a coup. Gorbachev was
reinstated on August 22, 1991.

August 19, (year unknown) - Philippines
Manuel Quezon Day
Commemorates Manuel Quezon, the first President of the Commonwealth.

August 19, 1919 - Afghanistan
Independence Day
Commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on August 8, 1919 in which
Britain gave up control of Afhanistan's foreign policy. Celebrated by Afghans as
Independence Day.

August 19, 1945 - Vietnam
August Revolution
No information provided.

August 19, 1974 - Cyprus
U.S. Ambassador Murdered
U.S. Ambassador Roger Davies was killed by a sniper in Nicosia.

August 19, 1981 - Libya
U.S. Shoots Down Libyan Jets
U.S. aircraft shot down two Libyan fighters over the Gulf of Sidra.

August 19, 1986 - Afghanistan
Army Day
No information provided.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-afghan-gunmen-for-rent,0,1249061,print.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

Cash Said to Drive
Afghanistan's Militia

By DANIEL COONEY
Associated Press Writer

August 14, 2005, 4:32 PM EDT

ASADABAD, Afghanistan -- It doesn't take
much money to set up a militia force in
Afghanistan. A few dollars a day buys the
loyalty of impoverished villagers, and
weapons are cheap and available.

It's so easy that one Afghan province,
Kunar, near the eastern border with
Pakistan, has 10 illegally armed groups,
U.S. military officials say. Though each has
its own agenda, they are believed to share
a common aim: to disrupt or even stop
landmark legislative elections next month.

"I got them all: Taliban, al-Qaida, Hig,
foreign fighters, smugglers and other
criminals," said Lt. Col. Peter Munster, a
U.S. Army commander in Kunar. "They are
like the Mafia."

Hig refers to a militant network led by
renegade former premier Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, who is wanted by the United
States.

Munster said the militias "are against the elections. ...
They are coming in with money and throwing it around.
This is a poor area. People can be bought."

The Sept. 18 elections are Afghanistan's next key step
toward democracy after a quarter century of war and
subverting them would be a highly symbolic blow to the
U.S.-backed nation-building process that is slowly
marginalizing the Taliban and other extremist groups.

The amount being spent on recruiting new fighters and the
number of foreign militants coming into the region has
spiked in the lead-up to the vote, said Kirimat Tanhah, an
Afghan Special Forces commander in Kunar.

"This area is full of foreigners: Pakistanis, Chechens,
Arabs. Weapons caches have been hidden and the local
villagers are being paid to fight," he said, before a joint
operation with U.S. Marines into Korengal Valley, a militant
stronghold in remote mountains in Kunar.

The U.S. military in Afghanistan suffered its deadliest blow
in the valley on June 28, when militants killed three Navy
SEAL commandos in an ambush and shot down a special
forces helicopter with 16 troops on board who had gone to
rescue them.

The attacks came amid a major upsurge in fighting
nationwide that since March has left nearly 1,000 people
dead, more than half of them suspected militants -- some
of the bloodiest months since the Taliban's ouster by
U.S.-led forces in late 2001.

To counter the worsening violence and the threat of
attacks during the elections, the U.S. military has brought
in extra troops and gone on the offensive, launching major
operations in southern and eastern regions, where most of
the militants are based.

"We want to keep the bad guys off-balance in the lead-up
to the elections. We want to disrupt them," Lt. Col. Jim
Donnellan, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine
Regiment, said in an interview with The Associated Press
at a U.S. base in Asadabad, the main town in Kunar.

"We want to show villagers before the elections that there
is security, that they have nothing to fear," he added.

One such operation is the deployment of hundreds of
Marines and Afghan Special Forces into Korengal Valley to
flush out Taliban rebels suspected in the June 28 assaults.

The U.S. military and the Afghan government also have set
up local militia forces of their own. In Kunar, nearly 1,000
villagers have been recruited, trained and armed in the
past month to provide security. This force is in addition to
the police and Afghan army.

And the military has launched a string of reconstruction
projects for roads, schools and medical clinics, that employ
poor villagers so they won't become militants.

But persuading them to vote won't be easy.

Militants have distributed leaflets in some regions,
threatening to kill anyone who takes part in the election.
They've even tried to intimidate Afghan troops by tuning
into their radio frequencies and threatening to attack, said
Tanhah, the special forces commander.

"They accuse us of being bodyguards for the Americans,"
he said. "They say we are brothers and should join them.
But we radio back and tell them that we are fighting for our
country and that they are fighting for foreigners who want
our country ruined."

The militants have extensive resources in some areas,
including satellite phones and digital cameras, which they
use to record attacks and then post them on Web sites,
Tanhah said. Other communication methods are more
basic.

"The bad guys pay little kids to flash mirrors from hilltops
to warn them of approaching troops," Munster said. "Many
villagers are paid good money to work with the militants."

Tanhah said that while most of the militants claim to be
fighting for Islam, many are just in it for the money.

"Many foreign fighters are only here to be paid," he said.
"And the locals don't care who pays them, whether it be
the Taliban, al-Qaida or the U.S. military. They just want
to earn money."

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

onday, 15 August 2005, 11:13 GMT 12:13 UK

McDonald's bomber jailed for life

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4152942.stm

A court in Indonesia has sentenced a man to life in jail for the
bombing of a McDonald's restaurant in 2002, which left three people dead.

The man, Agung Abdul Hamid, was found guilty of financing and
co-ordinating the attack, which took place in Makassar, in South Sulawesi.

Prosecutors had asked Makassar's district court for the death penalty.

The bombing occurred on 5 December 2002, just weeks after the Bali
attacks that killed more than 200 people.

Chief judge Andi Haedar said Hamid was "legally and convincingly guilty
of planning or inciting other people to carry out an act of terrorism
that resulted in casualties and destruction of public facilities."

Prosecutors said he had paid other people to take part in the attacks,
and illegally possessed firearms and explosives.

Hamid insisted he was innocent, and said he would appeal the verdict.

"I reject the sentence because all these charges are false," he told
the Associated Press. "The trial is engineered, and full of American
intervention."

Hamid was arrested on the island of Java last October, after being on
the run from the Indonesian authorities for almost two years.

Police claim he has links to the regional militant group Jemaah
Islamiah, which has been blamed for several attacks in Indonesia, including
the Bali bombings.

Russia reports bird flu in 6th region ----------------------------------------- A bird flu outbreak in Russia appeared to be spreading westward on Monday [15 Aug 2005], after officials confirmed the virus had broken out in a 6th region since the epidemic struck the country in mid-July 2005. _____________________________________________________________ It was unclear whether the virus found in the Urals region of Chelyabinsk was the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed more than 50 people in Asia since 2003. It has been confirmed in a number of Siberian regions and neighboring Kazakhstan. _____________________________________________________________ Interfax news agency quoted Andrei Gasilov, vice-governor of Chelyabinsk, as saying the virus had killed 60 birds in the village of Oktyabrskoye on the Kazakh border since Saturday [13 Aug 2005]. _____________________________________________________________ Other Russian regions hit by the flu include Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Omsk, Kurgan and Altai. Chelyabinsk, which borders Kurgan on the east side of the Ural mountains dividing Europe and Asia, is the westernmost region to have been struck so far. The Emergencies Ministry in Moscow, contacted by Reuters, could not confirm the Chelyabinsk outbreak. _____________________________________________________________ Although no humans have yet been affected, there are fears the disease could spread to humans on the Eurasian landmass, possibly unleashing a global influenza pandemic. _____________________________________________________________ Interfax quoted Gasilov as saying domestic birds were being culled in the village to prevent the virus, which has killed more than 10 000 birds countrywide, from spreading further. _____________________________________________________________ Officials said wild birds, increasingly active in August as they prepare to migrate to warmer regions in Europe, Asia and America, were to blame. _____________________________________________________________ "Results of epizootic checks have shown that they (migrant birds) are the main source of infection," Ria-Novosti news agency quoted an official with the Novosibirsk state consumer rights watchdog as saying. -- ProMED-mail _____________________________________________________________ ****** [2] Date: Mon 15 Aug 2005 From: ProMED-mail Source: Reuters, 15 Aug 2005 [edited] _____________________________________________________________ Russian bird flu outbreak advances towards Europe ----------------------------------------------- Russia cordoned off roads and slaughtered hundreds of birds on Monday [15 Aug 2005] to contain the advance of a bird flu epidemic towards Western Europe. _____________________________________________________________ The outbreak, previously confined to 5 remote areas of Siberia, has now struck a major industrial region -- Chelyabinsk -- in the Ural mountains, which separate Asia from Europe. "All ill and infected birds are being slaughtered there," the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement. _____________________________________________________________ It was unclear whether the virus found in Chelyabinsk was the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed more than 50 people in Asia since 2003 and has hit Russia's Siberia as well as neighboring Kazakhstan and Mongolia since mid-July 2005. _____________________________________________________________ Carried by flocks of wild birds migrating from Siberia to warmer regions, the virus has been steadily moving westward through the regions of Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Omsk, Kurgan and Altai. Chelyabinsk, separated from European Russia by the Ural mountains, and technically still in Siberia, is the westernmost region to have been struck so far. It lies about 1000 km (600 miles) from the region where the 1st flu outbreak was reported. ______________________________________________________________ Although no humans have yet been affected, there are fears the disease could spread to humans on the Eurasian landmass, possibly unleashing a global influenza pandemic. _____________________________________________________________ Media reported that roads leading to the infected village of Oktyabrskoye in Chelyabinsk had been cordoned off to prevent the virus from spreading further. _____________________________________________________________ In other affected regions, police boosted road checks, and 400 domestic birds were culled in Chelyabinsk alone to block the virus that has killed more than 10 000 birds countrywide. _____________________________________________________________ There was no word on Monday [15 Aug 2005] on the situation in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, where bird flu has also been registered along their sprawling borders with Russian Siberia. [Byline: Maria Golovnina] -- ProMED-mail _____________________________________________________________ ****** [3] Date: Mon 15 Aug 2005 From: ProMED-mail Source: RIA Novosti, 15 Aug 2005 [edited] _____________________________________________________________ 2 large regions in Western Siberia hit hardest by bird flu ----------------------------------------------- 2 major regions in Western Siberia are conducting measures to localize bird flu, a regional official said on Monday [15 Aug 2005]. _____________________________________________________________ More than 18 000 head of poultry have been slaughtered in the Tyumen region, where bird flu was identified in 6 populated areas, an official from the local Emergency Situations Ministry said. He added that other measures were being taken to prevent the disease from spreading, such as quarantining affected farms and stopping unauthorized personnel from entering them. _____________________________________________________________ A local official in the Altai territory said 10 regions had been hit by the virus. However, he added that no new cases had been registered in 9 of the 14 affected villages. The official said migrating birds were thought to have spread the infection, and so the source would disappear when they left when cold weather arrived in fall. He said measures to eliminate the disease and prevent it from spreading were continuing in the territory. No cases of people falling ill with the virus have been registered. _____________________________________________________________ -- ProMED-mail [Russia's last follow-up report to the OIE on the HPAI outbreak there was sent on 5 Aug 2005, notifying of cases in 3 villages in Novosibirsk. A new update is due to assess the accuracy of the media news on the alleged spread of the virus westwards into 5 additional regions (oblasts). - Mod.AS]

ate: Sat 13 Aug 2005 From: ProMED-mail Source: NY Newsday [edited] ______________________________________________________________ Listeria case found in the Capital region --------------------------------------------- A sometimes fatal strain of _Listeria_ has turned up in the Capital region, and state investigators are looking for links to 3 cases found in July 2005 in the Syracuse area. Schenectady County health officials confirmed the single case on Fri 12 Aug 2005. _____________________________________________________________ "It looks like it's coming from the same source," said Kathy Sen, supervising community health nurse at the Schenectady County Health Department. Sen said the unidentified patient is thought to have been hospitalized with the illness in July 2005 before recovering. Health officials would not provide details about the patient, citing federal confidentiality rules. _____________________________________________________________ State health officials say the cases in Onondaga and Schenectady counties are the only ones they know of. They are looking for a food item, restaurant or other common denominator among the 4 victims. _____________________________________________________________ Listeriosis can be fatal, but severe symptoms are unusual in healthy adults and children. The disease most often affects pregnant women, newborns or people with weakened immune systems. _____________________________________________________________ In 1998, 16 people died in a multistate outbreak of listeriosis linked to contaminated hot dogs and deli meats, including a 75-year-old Liverpool woman. -- ProMED-mail _____________________________________________________________ [Elsevier on-line reference: Methods for the isolation and identification of Listeria spp. and Listeria monocytogenes: a review. FEMS Microbiology Reviews, ] _____________________________________________________________ [It has become clear in the past few years that sporadic cases of listeriosis are almost always part of a larger food-borne cluster. When small numbers of cases are recognized, the source of the cluster can be more difficult to find. - Mod.LL]

Is this report the reason Sakra is said to be under mental treatment?
granny
~~~~~~~

l-Qaeda activist promises sensations at Turkey trial

15:45 | 15/ 08/ 2005

http://en.rian.ru/world/20050815/41157831.html

ANKARA, August 15 (RIA Novosti) - The leader of al-Qaeda's cell in
Turkey has promised some sensational details about the international
terrorist organization's structure and activities at his trial in Turkey.

Syrian-born radical Luia Sakra made this statement when he was being
questioned by security officers in Istanbul, the Zaman (Time) newspaper
wrote on Monday.

The newspaper said referring to a security officer that al-Qaeda's
structure was more like that of a security service than a terrorist
organization.

The Syrian, whom the Turkish authorities suspect was among those behind
the November 2003 terrorist attacks on Istanbul that killed 61 and
injured over 600 people, was arrested in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey,
last week. Simultaneously, a total of 16 people were arrested in the
country who are believed to have plotted, under Sakra's command, to blow
up a cruise liner in Antalya with Israeli tourists on board.

The suspects had prepared about a ton of explosives for the attack.

An Istanbul court ruled Sakra should be taken into custody. He was
charged with being involved in terrorist activity and being a member of an
illegal organization. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.

Sakra said al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was not in complete control
of the organization, as some of its groups perpetrate terrorist attacks
at their own discretion but on the organization's behalf. Sakra said
the second bomb attack on London had been one such "unauthorized" act.

Sakra said he had sent dozens of people to carry out terrorist attacks
in the United States, Britain, Egypt, Syria, and Algeria.

He also confessed he had fought against U.S. troops in Falluja, Iraq,
along with Abu Musab al-Zargaw, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Sakra said they had held 10 Americans in Falluja whom he had killed
"with his own hands."

He said al-Zargaw was hiding in northern Iraq.