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Posted on 11/01/2005 6:57:01 PM PST by nwctwx
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536960/posts
Iran's former President says Iran won in the U.S.-led war on Iraq
Iran Focus ^ | 12/09/05 | Iran Focus
Posted on 12/09/2005 12:56:58 AM PST by freedom44
Tehran, Iran, Dec. 07 – Iran’s former president and strongman Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told an international trade management show that Iran had come out as the “winner” in the United States-led war on Iraq and Washington had ended up as the loser, the official state-run news agency reported on Wednesday.
Rafsanjani said that Washington had set its sights on Tehran, but it never “thought that the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan would be to Iran’s advantage and to its own loss”.
“All the recent events in the region, including the meddling by the West and America in Afghanistan and Iraq, were in the end to Iran’s advantage”, the powerful cleric who heads the State Expediency Council said.
“Our soil is such that it can use extra-territorial invasions in the farthest regions to our benefit”.
He said that Tehran could have benefited more from the war if its management had been more active in the scene. Nonetheless, he added, Iraq and Afghanistan would be good regional partners for Iran.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536935/posts
Israel expands war arsenal to deal with Iranian nuclear threat
AP ^ | Dec 8 2005 | Steven Gutkin
Posted on 12/08/2005 10:45:07 PM PST by jmc1969
Israel is expanding its military arsenal to deal with what it views as the greatest threat to its existence: a nuclear attack by Iran.
It has acquired dozens of warplanes with long-range fuel tanks to allow them to reach Iran and signed a deal with Germany for two submarines reportedly capable of firing nuclear missiles.
Such a mission would be far more complicated than the 1981 Israeli raid that destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor. It would require heavy precision bombs that can blast through underground bunkers, manned aircraft to bombard multiple targets and possibly ground commandos to make sure weapons materials are destroyed, experts say.
"It's not a target that you can find on the map, send two F15s and solve it," said Itamar Yaar, deputy head of Israel's National Security Council.
Both the United States and Israel refuse to say whether a strike plan is in the works.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
UPDATE...
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/251464_ecoterror09.html
Friday, December 9, 2005
"Ecoterror arrests may provide UW break
Six suspected of setting dual fires in Northwest in 2001"
By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "All of those arrested have ties to Eugene, Ore., which has been a center of environmental activism, ranging from mainstream to radical. Federal agents are running the investigation from the Eugene office of the FBI along with Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives agents."
Granny's note: On the talk shows for several days, there has been talk of riots in Los Angeles area, if the tookie guy is executed..........
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536945/posts
2nd day of violence breaks out at new L.A. high school
Daily Breeze ^ | 12/8/05 | From wire service reports
Posted on 12/08/2005 11:18:44 PM PST by BurbankKarl
Eighteen students were arrested today in the second consecutive day of fighting at South Area High School No. 1 in Los Angeles after two groups of students faced off and yelled challenges at each other, authorities said.
The student body at the school, informally known as Santee High School, is more than 90 percent Latino while most of the rest are black. School officials deny that race is an issue at the school south of downtown, which opened this year to deal with the overcrowding at Jefferson High School.
Sixteen students were arrested Wednesday and 10 were hospitalized after school police pepper sprayed them, Monica Carazo of the Los Angeles Unified School District said.
Wednesday's brawl began with a fight between two black girls during the lunch break.
One student said students who had attended Jefferson High School were bored and wanted to stir things up at the new school.
About 100 students and parents attended a meeting tonight at the school and discussed ways to stop the violence.
Subject: The Ira Bagman and Kim Jong Il's hot dollars bafsllc
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"The American case is that Garland and the others have been involved
in a multimillion-dollar counterfeiting operation, run by the
government of North Korea and encompassing more than a dozen countries
worldwide."
"Travelling as president of the Workers Party, he is said by the US to
have used the cover of his position in the party to organise the
purchase, transportation and resale of forged dollar bill notes on a
huge scale.
These are no ordinary banknotes. They are among the best forgeries in
the world, a fact that causes the American authorities huge anxiety.
Called " superdollars," they are of such exceptionally high quality
that they often deceive banks and experts."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article331764.ece
The Ira Bagman and Kim Jong Il's hot dollars
Sean Garland is legendary in Ireland for his violent republican past.
But was he also a frontman for a counterfeiting scheme run by the
communist regime of North Korea? America wants to extradite the
Workers Party chief claiming he smuggled millions of dollars in fake
$100 bills
David McKittrick reports
Published: 08 December 2005
It is a tale of codenames and counterfeiting, of the United States
secret service, Russia and North Korea, of international political and
criminal conspiracy and intrigue, of millions of dollars in illicit
currency.
Kim Jong Il, the paranoid leader of the hermit state of North Korea,
has a key role in it. Former IRA and ex-KGB operatives also have
parts, along with the Russian mafia and underworld criminals in
England and Ireland. Five-star hotels in Moscow feature in it: so too
may Guantanamo Bay.
And it all centres on an Irish pensioner, who claims America is
persecuting him because of his political beliefs and wants to put him
in Guantanamo. But this is no ordinary pensioner. This is Sean
Garland, legendary in Ireland for his republican and revolutionary
life. At one time he tried to shoot the British out of Ireland;
recently, his primary struggle has been against capitalism.
Reverential republican lore has it that he risked his life when,
himself wounded by British bullets, he carried away a dying comrade
following an abortive IRA attack on a security base in Northern Ireland.
Today, he is president of the left-wing Workers Party. He acknowledges
his violent IRA past  he could hardly deny it, since it is the stuff
of commemorative ballads  but says he is now involved only in
political activity.
The latest act in his incident-packed career came last week when he
jumped bail in Belfast, where he had been arrested. He has appeared in
court several times on a US extradition warrant, but he has now fled
south to his home. He is vociferously campaigning to remain in the
Irish Republic, but the US Attorney General's Office has said it will
issue a fresh extradition warrant. It is also seeking to have six
other men  one of them reputedly a former KGB man  brought to the US.
The American case is that Garland and the others have been involved in
a multimillion-dollar counterfeiting operation, run by the government
of North Korea and encompassing more than a dozen countries worldwide.
The long and detailed indictment alleges that Garland  "aka The Man
with the Hat" Â has used trips to Pyongyang, the capital of North
Korea, Russia and other countries for criminal purposes. The American
assertion is supported by police in Moscow.
Travelling as president of the Workers Party, he is said by the US to
have used the cover of his position in the party to organise the
purchase, transportation and resale of forged dollar bill notes on a
huge scale.
These are no ordinary banknotes. They are among the best forgeries in
the world, a fact that causes the American authorities huge anxiety.
Called " superdollars," they are of such exceptionally high quality
that they often deceive banks and experts.
Superdollars so worried the US that in 1996 it brought in a series of
new security measures, redesigning the $100 bill by changing the
central portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Other intricate new safeguards
included an enhanced embedded security thread, a security watermark,
changed microprinting and the use of an optically variable ink.
To Washington's dismay, however, it took the North Koreans just a few
years to come up with a sophisticated forgery based on the changed
note, so that a new type of superdollar began to turn up. The US does
not go so far as to say that North Korea is intent on undermining its
entire economy. But it regards the operation as an unwanted instance
of free enterprise that is undermining confidence in the dollar.
Garland played an important part in a network, the US claims, which
included criminals based inBirmingham, gangsters in places including
Moscow and Latvia, and Irish republicans linked to the small and
secretive Official IRA, generally known as "the stickies".
The network, according to the US, criss-crossed Europe, operating in
places such as Belarus, Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and
Germany. It is said to refer to the forged notes as "jackets" and
"paperwork" . A key connection was in Moscow, where Garland reportedly
went to the North Korean embassy to collect bogus money. This had been
brought out of North Korea, it was said, in diplomatic bags.
The pattern of the outfit's alleged activities has already been
fleshed out by an investigation by the BBC Northern Ireland television
programme Spotlight.
Korean defectors confirmed that the production of superdollars was a
government operation. "We bought the best of everything, the best
equipment and the best ink," said one. "We also had the very best
people, people who had real expertise and knowledge in the field. When
government officials or diplomats travelled to south-east Asia they
distributed the counterfeit notes, mixed in with the real ones at a
ratio of about 50-50."
In Moscow, General Vladimir Uskov of the Russian interior ministry
police has confirmed that Garland and others have been under
surveillance by special services. "Information we received showed that
he was involved in the supply of counterfeit dollars," the general said.
"We registered his contacts with the North Korean embassy. He visited
the embassy several times. Our information was that people working
there may have been involved in the transportation of counterfeit
dollars." One of Garland's most intriguing alleged associates was
David Levin, an Armenian-born Russian citizen who once worked with the
KGB and later moved to England, while keeping contact with the Moscow
mafia.
The American indictment describes him as "aka David Batikovich
Batikian, aka Gediminas Gotautas, aka Russian Dave". Investigators
believe that through Russian contacts he arranged passports and visas
for some of those involved.
In recent years Levin has had a particular run of bad luck, for in
2002 he was jailed for nine years in Britain at Worcester Crown Court
for conspiring to import superdollars. Last year, the Court of Appeal
in London rejected his appeal against a confiscation order for
£789,000 after hearing he had made more than £1m from superdollars.
Levin, who was found to own a range of property in Birmingham and
London, has to pay the money within two years or face an extra four
years behind bars.
Two of the other men sought by the US were also jailed along with him.
One of them, Terence Silcock, was given six years after admitting
conspiring to distribute the fake notes. Described by police as a
lifelong professional criminal in the Birmingham area, he was said to
have personally dealt with more than $4m worth of forged notes.
Garland, who was not charged with Levin and the two Englishmen, freely
acknowledges on his own website that his past contains much violence.
He is one of the last of the flinty old IRA generation that waged a
failed campaign in the 1950s. Originally a traditionalist, he joined
the internal IRA faction which by the 1960s subscribed to Marxism and
Stalinism. Known as a man of iron ideology and self-belief, even the
fall of the Berlin wall did not deflect him from his commitment to
Communism.
Few believe that anything in his colourful career has been motivated
by personal gain, regarding him as one of the keepers of the Communist
flame. Although in Moscow staff at the five-star Metropol hotel say he
regularly stayed there, his decades-long reputation for devotion to
his causes means no one thinks he was indulging in luxury for its own
sake.
In the 1950s he joined the IRA, who then instructed him to infiltrate
the British Army to procure arms. He carried out his mission
successfully, the IRA seizing guns from an Army barracks with his
inside help.
In his own words, he was "actively involved in organising and
participating in a number of major operations from 1955-56". The most
famous of these was when he led an IRA squad that attacked a police
station in County Fermanagh where two IRA militiamen, Sean South and
Fergal O'Hanlon, were shot dead. A republican song acclaims, "Another
martyr for old Ireland, Sean South from Garryowen". Garland was
seriously wounded in the incident. In the years that followed, he was
imprisoned on various occasions in both parts of Ireland for IRA
activities.
When the organisation split into traditional and Marxist factions in
the late 1960s he opposed the "narrow nationalism" of the
Provisionals, and pursued a left-wing political path as one of the
leaders of what was known as the Official IRA. That faction announced
a ceasefire in 1972, but for years remained intermittently involved in
violence. In particular, it was embroiled in a series of often lethal
feuds with the mainstream IRA and other republican splinter groups.
There were many killings, especially during the 1970s, as the Official
IRA suffered fatalities and killed opponents. The feuds were made all
the more vicious by the fact that many of those involved were former
colleagues who knew each other well.
Today, the Official IRA shuns publicity, but rumours occasionally crop
up that members are involved in robberies, forgery activities and in
running drinking clubs. In one 1975 incident, Garland was almost
killed in a feud when he was reputedly shot by rival republicans.
Undeterred, he has over the years remained active in the Workers
Party, which he heads and dominates.
The party clings to the hope that Protestants and Catholics in
Northern Ireland will unite to overthrow the capitalist system. This
has not worked, attracting no appreciable Protestant support while
holding diminishing appeal for Catholics. The Workers Party once held
a number of seats in the Irish parliament, but its strength has been
greatly reduced. It contests elections, but it receives less than 1
per cent of the vote on either side of the border.
Its approach is marked domestically by opposition to Sinn Fein and
traditional republicanism, and abroad by its links with surviving
Communist and Socialist elements. The party is an implacable opponent
of US foreign policy which, it asserts, "has inflicted great
suffering, repression and untold deaths". Garland says this is why the
US is after him.
He denies any current involvement in the Official IRA and has denied "
any involvement in any criminal activity" and knowledge of
superdollars. He did not answer bail, he says, because extradition
arrangements between the US and the UK mean there is no possibility of
his being able to face allegations "in an open and fair court".
He argues that coverage of the affair has been "sensationalised".
Garland's return to the Republic points to a lengthy extradition
process. The long-running affair of the dodgy superdollars seems set
to run for a long time yet.
This shows a worry for New Years Eve......
granny
"France warned of more flare-ups rooted in urban insecurity"
France warned of more flare-ups rooted in urban insecurity Jon Henley in Paris
Thursday December 8, 2005 The Guardian
French intelligence warned yesterday that the urban unrest that saw more than
3,000 youths, mainly from immigrant communities, arrested and nearly 10,000 cars
go up in flames could arise again at the slightest provocation.
In a report leaked to the French press, the agency Renseignements Généraux,
the intelligence service for the police, said the violence, which hit 274 French
towns and housing estates, was neither organised nor manipulated but amounted to
"urban insurrection".
The report warns that "any new chance event (the death of a youth) will spark a
new outbreak of generalised violence". Even the festivities of New Year's Eve
"risk being particularly sensitive" this year.
The unrest began on October 27 after the accidental electrocution of two boys
apparently hiding from the police at an electricity sub-station in
Clichy-sous-Bois, Paris. Other poor, heavily immigrant suburbs around the
capital erupted, followed by cities countrywide.
The report, extracts of which were published in yesterday's Parisien, puts the
total damage at more than €250m (£170m).
The agency said it had found no evidence that radical Islamists inspired the
unrest. The rioters' main motivation was "their social condition, excluded from
French society". Some suburbs had become "veritable urban ghettos of an ethnic
nature". France, meanwhile, was more concerned with the rise of Islamic
radicalism and religious terror, and had neglected the suburbs' "complex
problems". The difficulties included extreme social segregation, above-average
unemployment and a strong sense of insecurity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1661734,00.html
clear brisk morning with 3 inches of new snow here in Waukesha
"All of those arrested have ties to Eugene, Ore., which has been a center of environmental activism, ranging from mainstream to radical."
Just FYI- some old research:
Portland, Oregon- hub of terror? Some Surprising Connections-
various FR links | 05-09-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1132469/posts
Fake Ontario licences alarm U.S.
McGuinty fears U.S. will go ahead with strict passport rules Ontario eyes new security features after major fraud revealed
Dec. 8, 2005. 04:31 AM RICHARD BRENNAN AND ROBERT BENZIE QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
Ontario is planning new security features on drivers' licences, and better control over how they're issued, amid U.S. concerns that 56,000 licence plates, permits and other transportation documents have been lost or stolen.
Premier Dalton McGuinty acknowledged yesterday that changes are crucial, after Auditor General Jim McCarter revealed the provincial Ministry of Transportation has lost track of thousands of "high-risk" documents.
The premier said he was especially concerned because McCarter's exposé comes amid mounting pressure from the United States to force Canadians and Americans to show passports at border crossings instead of their drivers' licences.
"If the U.S. proceeds to make it mandatory that Canadians produce a passport at the border, or that Americans have to produce a passport at the border, that is going to hurt our economy and it's going to hurt their economy," he said.
But Joanna Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington, said the fact that thousands of lost or stolen documents are circulating in Ontario will only bolster calls for tighter border security.
That's one reason Washington is pushing a new law that would require travellers to and from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean and Panama to have a passport "or other secure, accepted document" to enter the U.S. after Jan. 1, 2008, she said.
McGuinty, who will meet next week with the Great Lakes Governors Council in Milwaukee, said he has discussed the passport issue with New York's George Pataki. "Governor Pataki is very sensitive to this issue and we've talked about working together so that we might ensure that we have an alternate secure document like a driver's licence," he said. "(New York has) moved to a licence with some kind of holographic detail, which is more secure, and he's encouraging us to take a look at that," McGuinty said.
The premier said he and Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar have yet to determine what measures should be taken to prevent counterfeiting or other fraudulent activities.
McGuinty later told the Legislature the government, in the new year, will be asking companies to submit proposals for licences with enhanced security features, "including micro-printing and holographic symbolism."
"Those are the kinds of commitments that we are making to ensure that our drivers' licences are as secure as they can possibly be," he said.
Robert Bothwell, a professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in U.S.-Canadian relations, agrees that serious problems with the licensing system only devalue the Ontario driver's licence, especially when it's offered as identification at the U.S. border.
"Every serious security breach of that kind is a problem," he said.
Bothwell noted "a certain amount of skepticism" about the quality of Canadian documents "because they are documents of preference for criminals or what have you."
"This is the kind of thing that pushes towards some kind of national identity document," Bothwell said.
McGuinty admitted his government has not done a good job of tracing the 56,000 licence plates, permit stickers, trip permits and temporary drivers' licences — 49,000 of them reported missing, and the others stolen.
"There's been some slippage in a number of areas. There's no doubt about that," he said.
"We've made some progress and we'll continue to work hard to make some more," he said, noting that two privately run licensing facilities, in Elmira and Windsor, have been shut down. A third office at an undisclosed location is "under very serious investigation."
"We've got some documents that have gone missing. The issue is one of inadequate oversight. We will continue to bring stronger oversight to bear," McGuinty said. "We will tighten that up and continue to argue that what we should have is a secure licence as an alternative for a passport at the border."
Sure it can happen. Doesn't even require a loss to islamofascism. All we need is for a LIBERAL to be President. Or WORSE for Hillary to become the Prez.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic le_Type1 &c=Article&cid=1133910614507&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call _pagepath=News/News&pubid=968163964505 Al Qaeda suspect back in T.O.
Dec. 7, 2005. 04:06 AM MICHELLE SHEPHARD STAFF REPORTER
Abdullah Khadr, who Western intelligence services allege ran an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, has been released from custody in Pakistan and returned to Toronto, a free man.
The Toronto Star has learned the 24-year-old Canadian, whose brother is the only Canadian held in the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was accompanied by Canadian officials on a flight to Toronto's Pearson International Airport last Friday.
Khadr is the eldest of Ahmed Said Khadr's four sons. The senior Khadr, an accused terrorist financier, was killed in a 2003 shootout with Pakistani forces.
Abdullah Khadr was questioned at the airport by RCMP investigators, then dropped off at his grandparents' home in Scarborough and told he was a "free man," according to his relatives and lawyer.
Court documents show that Khadr and his sister Zaynab are under investigation by the RCMP for terrorism-related offences. But Khadr has not been charged criminally in Canada.
Two days after he returned, RCMP investigators visited him again and questioned him at a local doughnut shop.
The revelation of Khadr's return raises a series of questions about who precisely was holding him in Pakistan and why he was quietly released.
"How did he get flown into the country? Who was holding him? Why has his family been told nothing?" Khadr's Edmonton-based lawyer Dennis Edney asked yesterday.
U.S. officials told the Star yesterday they may seek to have charges laid against Khadr, then have him extradited to the U.S. to face trial.
Continued with more info at the link)
Maybe it's the cry wolf test. Several fake runs and then when the real sweet odor appears no one will pay attention.
Abu Qatada, one of the best-known radical Islamic preachers, made an unprecedented televised appeal from prison yesterday for the release of the anti-war activist Norman Kember.
Mr Kember, 74, is being held hostage in Iraq and is threatened with execution.
Abu Qatada Appeal: Abu Qatada awaits extradition -
Abu Qatada, who is accused of providing vital "inspiration" for the September 11 hijackers, is said to have volunteered to intercede on behalf of Mr Kember and three other Christian activists captured on Nov 26 by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness.
Speaking in Arabic at Full Sutton prison, near York, the preacher said: "I, your brother Abu Qatada,... beseech my brothers in the Swords of Righteousness in Iraq, who are imprisoning the four Christian peace activists, to release them in accordance with the fundamental principle of mercy of our faith.
"Our prophet said mercy should be shown unless there is a reason in Sharia [Islamic law] that prevents it."
Taking a leaf out of the militants' favourite tactic of sending recorded videos to Arabic satellite television channels, Abu Qatada's lawyers were due to hand his plea to al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.
In a similar move, Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, recorded an appeal for Iraqi kidnappers to release a German archaeologist and her Iraqi driver.
The hostages from the Christian Peacemaker Team captured with Mr Kember, are the Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and an American, Tom Fox, 54.
(There are several more links and more info at the site)
That sounds really good MamaD. Do you have deer around there? My problem is they eat everything here. I've heard fabric softener sheets are somewhat of a deterrent.
And good riddance too. There shouldn't be any MAY about it!!
Seven with terror links arrested in Spain
12/9/2005, 8:29 a.m. ET
The Associated Press
MADRID, Spain (AP) — Police have arrested at least seven people suspected of financing and giving logistical support to an Islamic extremist group with links to al-Qaida, officials said Friday.
Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said police who made the arrests late Thursday and early Friday in the Costa del Sol region had turned up no evidence that the detainees were planning an imminent attack in Spain.
Alonso said the detainees were suspected of aiding an Algeria-based Islamic extremist organization, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat.
Police made the arrests in apartments in the cities of Malaga, Marbella and Torremolinos and continued to carry out searches Friday morning, news reports said.
The nationalities of the detainees were not immediately released.
On Nov. 23, Spanish police arrested 11 Algerians suspected of providing financing and logistical support to the same Algerian group, which is also known as GSPC. The arrests were in the eastern cities of Alicante and Murcia and in Granada in the south.
A week later, a judge charged four of the suspects with belonging to a terror cell but released the other seven on the condition that they surrender their passports and check in with the court weekly.
Suspected Islamic extremists claiming allegiance to al-Qaida detonated 10 bombs on Madrid commuter trains in March 2004, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,500. They said they acted on al-Qaida's behalf in revenge for the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq.
The soldiers had been sent by a conservative government that was voted out of office in elections three days after the Madrid attacks, losing to Socialists who opposed the Iraq war and quickly brought the 1,300 troops home.
A total of 26 people have been jailed in the case on provisional charges that include terrorism and mass murder. Dozens more have been jailed and released but are still considered suspects.
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/war/index.ssf?/base/international-16/113413435836360.xml&storylist=njterror
It will be interesting, to see how long Sami sits in jail waiting?????
LOOK AT GOLD!!!!!!!!
up $10.80 to $530.00. I think this is recessionary signs.
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