World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #9 Security Watch

DUBAI, June 19 (Bernama) -- The Saudi king has warned of an impending "explosion" in the Middle East, saying that it will not only affect the region but will spread all over the world, the English daily Gulf News reports.

"The Middle East region suffers from the longest conflict in our contemporary history which is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's occupation of Arab lands," King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, said in an interview with the Spanish El Pas newspaper which was published simultaneously in Al Riyadh newspaper yesterday.

"At this point in time we are exerting efforts to solve this conflict, but we are witnessing an expansion of the crisis to include other countries like Iraq and Lebanon," he said.

"This makes the region replete with troubles that pose grave concerns for us. My fears are the fears of all reasonable men that the explosive situation will not be confined to the region but will extend to the whole world," he added.

The Saudi monarch yesterday began a five-nation trip that will take him to Spain, France, Poland, Egypt and Jordan.

King Abdullah also underlined the importance of solving the problem of Iran's nuclear programme peacefully in a way that guarantees all countries in the region to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in accordance with the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

I am on this guy now juicy stuff...Texas oilman David Chalmers
#### Hidden link on Hillary wont work###

UNScam Indictments - Who Is David Chalmers?
Via Glenn (who has more), the NY Times tells us about indictments in the UNScam case:

A Texas businessman, as well as a British and a Bulgarian citizen, have been indicted in New York for reportedly paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq as part of the United Nations oil-for-food program.

The Texan, David B. Chalmers, a principal of Bay Oil U.S.A. Inc., and an associate of the oil trading company, Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian and permanent American resident, were arrested this morning at their homes in Houston.

And who is David Chalmers?

Mr. Chalmers made the news last fall - the LA Times ran an Oct. 9 story, with an Oct 18 follow-up, about Americans and American companies named in a CIA report on Oil for Food. He was also subpoenaed by Hyde’s committee early this year.

Now, the LA Times first report and follow-up provide grist for right-wing conspiracists (Hmm, shouldn’t my hand be up?). Their Oct. 9 lead:

Three U.S. citizens, all of whom campaigned against Iraq sanctions, were among those who received special grants from a scandal-ridden oil program overseen by Saddam Hussein, according to congressional officials and a CIA report released this week.

From the Oct. 18 follow:

At least one of the men attempted to broker a peace deal between the U.S. and Iraq in a last-ditch effort to avoid war. Others waged campaigns to put an end to United Nations (news - web sites) sanctions against Iraq, portraying their efforts as humanitarian gestures to help the Iraqi people.

At the same time, all were donating to U.S. political campaigns. Since 1991, Wyatt and his wife, Lynn, for instance, have given more than $700,000 to federal campaign and political organizations, most to Democrats and most after Wyatt and his firm began to buy oil from Iraq in 1997, according to records maintained by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project.

It is worth noting that Mr. Chalmers was not named in this CIA report. However, his company, Bay Oil, was, and the LA Times tells us that “Chalmers was an ex-business associate of Wyatt’s, according to Platts, an oil-industry trade publication.”

Now we need to switch sides momentarily. Mr. Chalmers also made the news for his involvement in some oil for arms deals with Saddam back in the 1980s, when Saddam was the good (or at least, less bad) guy in his war with Iran. Fans of Bill Safire will remember his attempts to rouse our interest in illegal efforts by the US to arm Saddam (and let’s eagerly note the possible Hillary connection!).

Forbes had coverage last November 15; the Financial Times reprised this in April 2004 (and I got help from Stephen of the AcePilots).

A check of FEC donations showed David Chalmers of TX (and Bay Oil) giving inconsequential amounts - $1,000 to Dems, $300 to Reps. But I am not satisifed that I have cracked the code for PAC and corporate donations - my totals for the Wyatts (Oscar and Lynn) are several hundred thousand short of the $700,000 figure cited by the LA Times.

OK, there are lots of leads to follow - where, for example, is my link to the CIA report from last fall? I welcome some help on this.

UPDATE: The NY Times delivers a David Chalmers profile with an interesting tidbit - Mr. Chalmers left Prescott Bush country (Connecticut) for Texas in 1993. They also mention a Forbes article, which may well be the one to which I linked. However, they overlooked, or buried, the Iraqgate connection - and they call this dirt?
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/04/unscam_indictme.html

Iran’s Guards: We’ll ‘punch’ US

Associated Press

Saturday, August 18, 2007

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said they would not bow to pressure
and threatened to “punch” the U.S., in their first response to
Washington’s plan to list them as a terrorist organization, newspapers reported
Saturday.

Local press in the Iranian capital of Tehran quoted Revolutionary
Guards leader Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi saying that he could understand
Washington’s ire toward the group because of their “leverage” against the
U.S.

“America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future,”
he was quoted as saying in the conservative daily Kayhan. “We will never
remain silent in the face of U.S. pressure and we will use our
leverage against them.”

There was no elaboration on what Safavi meant by the punch or the
organization’s “leverage.”

Washington has accused the Guards of supporting militias and insurgent
groups attacking U.S. forces in Iraq - charges Iran denies.

The fact that the remarks, made on Thursday in the central Iranian city
of Isfahan, appeared in local newspapers rather than the official
state news outlets suggest the comments are for domestic consumption.

Meanwhile, other Iranian officials continued to speak out against
Washington’s move to register the group as a terrorist organization, with a
government spokesman calling the claims “baseless,” on the Web site of
the state broadcasting company.

“The claims of the U.S. are baseless and have no takers around the
world,” he said Saturday, noting that “the U.S. has endangered the world
many times under the excuse of fighting against terrorism.”

On Tuesday, an unnamed official in the Bush administration said the
U.S. planned to list the Guards as terrorist group in order to squeeze
Iran.

The move was seen as an effort to pressure businesses the corps is
thought to control, from construction to oil sectors. It would be the first
time the U.S. would put a foreign government’s military agency on the
list, which includes the al-Qaida network and the militant groups Hamas
and Hezbollah.

Iranian armed forces spokesman Gen. Ali Reza Afshar hit out precisely
against this attempt to declare a state body terrorist in an editorial
Saturday in the country’s largest circulation newspaper, calling it
illegal.

“America’s long time hostility against the Guard is clear and
understandable, but this move against organization that is part of Iran’s armed
forces is illegal,” he wrote in the daily Hamshahri.

The estimated 200,000-strong Revolutionary Guards is an elite force
separate from Iran’s regular military and has its own ground, naval and
air units.

unknown url, from news group.

Granny this is so cool never seen it before. Search for people nand it gives a digram to all the people they are connected to in print....

NameBase proximity search

What am I looking at?
Most of the time, you are looking at a brute-force attempt to make the best of a very bad situation. With 100 names on the screen, we have:

4,950 unique pairs of names, which must each be scanned and placed in a page-overlap matrix.

A display that requires N - 1 dimensions (yes, that means 99 dimensions for 100 names) to accurately depict this matrix. Instead we have to use a computer monitor. Even with excellent bandwidth, these beasts are still one of the lowest-resolution devices in our culture.

An attempt to show what we wanted to do, by displaying density lines between names, as opposed to what the brute-force program came up with by placing the names on a grid after millions of calculations. Unfortunately, these density lines often add to the confusion. But they function as a corrective to the limitations imposed by our two-dimensional grid.
You don’t believe we need 99 dimensions for 100 names? Picture an example in which you have three points that you want to plot spatially, and they are all equally similar with respect to each other. Obviously, you end up with the points of an equilateral triangle. Now add a fourth point that also has the same number in the matrix
http://www.namebase.org/instruct.html

I put in Ludmil Dionissiev,...

http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06/26989?_DIONISSIEV_LUDMIL_

Check out Waytt..
http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?WYATT_OSCAR_S%20JR

To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57190

Saturday, August 18, 2007
PREMEDITATED MERGER
China to install sensors along NAFTA highway
Documents reveal NASCO plan to militarize I-35
Posted: August 18, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Radio sensing stations to track traffic and cargo up and down the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway corridor are being installed by Communist China, operating through a port operator subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and the North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc.

The idea is that RFID chips placed in containers where manufactured goods are shipped from China will be able to be tracked to the Mexican ports on the Pacific where the containers are unloaded onto Mexican trucks and trains for transportation on the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway to destinations within the United States.

NASCO, a trade association based in Dallas, Texas, has teamed with Lockheed Martin to use RFID tracking technology Lockheed Martin developed for the U.S. Department of Defense’s projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at U.S. military stations throughout the world.

(Story continues below)

China has a central position in applying the RFID technology on I-35, given Hutchinson Port Holdings’ 49 percent ownership of Savi Networks, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that will get the job of placing the sensors all up and down the NAFTA Superhighway.

Nathan Hansen, a Minnesota attorney, has archived on his blog a series of NASCO documents obtained under a Minnesota Data Practices Act.

Among these documents released by Hansen is a Letter of Intent between NASCO and Savi Networks which details how NASCO and Lockheed Martin intend to implement NAFTRACS.

The letter calls for Savi Networks to establish RFID sensors along the I-35 NAFTA trade corridor, with tracking designed to begin at Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas, and include “inland points of data capture” positioned at Laredo, San Antonio, Dallas, Kansas City, the Ambassador Bridge, and Winnipeg.

Data captured by the RFID sensors would be sent to a data collection center that NASCO has named “The Center of Excellence.”

The Center of Excellence data collection center will be integrated into Lockheed Martin’s militarized Global Transport Network Command and Control Center that is installed and operating at the Lockheed Martin Center for Innovation or “Lighthouse” facility in Suffolk, Virginia.

Lockheed Martin’s GTN was developed for the U.S. Department of Defense as an electronic system used to support supply shipments and defense logistics to U.S. armed forces deployed worldwide.

GTN is operated by the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

In releasing to the public the NASCO internal documents, Hansen characterized NASCO’s Total Domain Awareness as “an Orwellian nightmare,” commenting that, “At least Orwell’s tyrants had the dignity to be creative with the names of their various maniacal bureaucracies.”

continued.................

Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com
Increasing use in Cuba of scorpion toxin to fight cancer
Published on Saturday, August 18, 2007

LAS TUNAS, Cuba (ACN): Scorpion toxin is becoming increasingly popular in the treatment of cancer and other serious illnesses in Cuba.

Nearly 5,000 Cubans and 3,000 foreigners have benefited from that substance to date.

At the opening ceremony of a new scorpion farm in Las Tunas province, some 670 kilometers east of Havana, Jose Antonio Fraga, director of the Bio-Pharmaceutical Laboratories (LABIOFAM), said there are now scorpion farms in every Cuban province.

“We have the technology to make them reproduce in captivity and to obtain the toxin,” he said, adding that production must steadily increase to meet domestic demand and export demand once the product is patented.

Scorpion venom is a natural anti-inflammatory product and a painkiller that is harmless to the human body. It is highly anti-carcinogenic and effective in the treatment of tumors and ailments of the central nervous system, as well as those of the lungs, neck of the womb, prostate and pancreas.

Copyright© 2007 Caribbean Net News at www.caribbeannetnews.com All Rights Reserved
Licence is granted for free print and distribution.

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-3089—5-5—.html

Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com
100 children remain in hands of traffickers in Haiti, says IOM
Published on Saturday, August 18, 2007

GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP): Some 100 children in urgent need of medical help remained in the hands of traffickers in Haiti who were seeking to sell them for adoption, one week after 48 kids were rescued from the same place, an intergovernmental organization said Friday.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said initial estimates by Haitian authorities put the number of children still awaiting rescue at more than 40.

But “officials now believe there are about 100 children there in urgent need of medical assistance”, it said, adding that Haiti’s social well-being agency was in need of financing to rescue them.

The IOM said the 48 children rescued last week “were found in conditions of extreme neglect”.

“Most were suffering from malnutrition, severe diarrhea, dehydration, and skin diseases,” the Geneva-based organisation said. “Many parents had difficulties recognizing their children upon their return home.”

According to the IOM, the 48 children from the impoverished Grande Anse region had been “given away” by their parents to traffickers who had promised to help them and taken to an adoption centre in Port-au-Prince.

“One government official revealed that during an unannounced visit made a few days before the rescue, the children were hidden in the basement, frightened and filthy,” the IOM said. “Neighbours have confirmed that they often heard children crying.”

In a statement to a local radio station, one of the presumed traffickers said that when the imminent rescue of the children was announced, those working at the creche restricted the amount of food and other basic care normally given to the children, the IOM said.

Ten of the children remain hospitalised.

The IOM was seeking financing for Haitian authorities both for rescue efforts and assistance to child victims of trafficking. Money must also be spent to raise awareness about human trafficking in impoverished areas of Haiti, it said.

According to the IOM, families in areas such as Jeremie, a poor and isolated district in the southwest, are unable to provide needs for their children, including food, health care and education.

“If urgent sensitisation measures are not carried out in the region, there is a risk that destitute parents will continue to give their children away and these ruthless traffickers will continue to thrive in Haiti’s more destitute areas,” Geslet Bordes, manager of IOM’s child trafficking programme in Haiti, said in a statement.

An IOM official explained at the time of last week’s rescue that parents approached a local non-governmental organisation for help after they found out their children were being kept at the centre.

With the help of other NGOs, the parents filed a complaint against the owner of the centre in 2006 and campaigned for the return of their children, the official said.

“IOM is also providing financial support for the immediate medical and psychological care of the children as well as reintegration assistance for both the children and their parents,” the organisation said.

IOM has assisted with the return and re-integration of 121 children victims of trafficking in Haiti since 2005 with financing from the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Copyright© 2007 Caribbean Net News at www.caribbeannetnews.com All Rights Reserved
Licence is granted for free print and distribution.

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-3070—2-2—.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pilot-jailed-for-undeclared-cash/2007/08/17/1186857749600.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Pilot jailed for undeclared cash

Jennifer Cooke
August 17, 2007 - 3:53PM

A Vietnam Airlines pilot took millions of dollars in cash out of Australia while involved in a money laundering operation allegedly linked to more than $93 million in drug trafficking proceeds sent offshore.

In the Sydney District Court today Van Dang Tran was sentenced to four years and six months’ jail for the illegal, undeclared removal of $6.499 million in his crew luggage on 18 occasions between July 2005 and June 4 last year.

Judge Stephen Norrish accepted that Tran had been motivated by “altruism” and had wanted to raise $50,000 for a building project in his childhood village outside Hanoi which had not recovered from the effects of what is known there as the “American War” more than 30 years ago.

Tran pleaded guilty to one charge under the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act of dealing with more than $1 million where there was a risk that the money would become an instrument of crime and was reckless that there was a risk that it would become an instrument of crime.

The court was told that electronic and physical surveillance involving a principal of the money laundering scheme in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray revealed that Vietnam Airlines flight crew members had allegedly moved large amounts of cash out of Australia to Vietnam.

Dang, whom the judge noted had refused to name any other airline crew member who may allegedly have been involved, was used regularly.

The former Soviet-trained fighter pilot who reached the rank of wing commander in the Vietnam Air Force before training in Australia for his commerical pilot’s licence, had been put in touch with the alleged money laundering principals by a money lender in Vietnam.

For a commission of between 0.5 per cent and 0.8 per cent of the amount of cash taken out of Australia without the requisite international currency declaration for amounts above $10,000, Judge Norrish calculated Tran made between $32,000 and $50,000 in commission.

Dang’s “contrition” by his plea, expressed regret and general attitude earned him a discounted sentence which the judge had delayed handing down until today pending an appeal decision that provided an appropriate sentence range in a case tried under the same law.

While Dang’s conviction in relation to the 18 separate cash movements was among the worst offences of its type, Judge Norrish noted that unlike two brothers who ran a money exchange business in Sussex Street, Sydney that was used as a legitimate “front” for money laundering, the pilot was not a principal in the enterprise.

Abdul Azees Mohamed Ansari and his brother Hajamaideen Mohamed Ansari were sentenced to four years’ jail with a non-parole period of two years and nine months in the District Court late last year for their involvement in a conspiracy to launder more than $2 million they later learned was the proceeds of international drug dealing.

Last week the Court of Criminal Appeal upheld a Crown appeal against their manifestly inadequate sentences. The Ansari brothers are now served increased sentences of seven years ith non-parole periods of five years and five months.

Judge Norrish said he was satisfied that Dang, the youngest of 11 siblings who now lives in Ho Chi Minh City, was primarily motivated by “the altruistic purpose” of helping those less fortunate with some infrastructure in his old North Vietnamese village.

“I have no doubt that his current situation is a personally disastrous situation of great shame and I have no doubt that if he had his time over again he would not be involved in this affair.”

He sentenced Dang to four years and six months’ jail with a non-parole period of two years and six months.

On release, for which he will be eligible in December next year, he will be deported to Vietnam.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Terror-suspect-jailed-for-gang-shootout/2007/08/17/1186857757863.html#

Terror suspect jailed for gang shootout

August 17, 2007 - 5:19PM

An Australian man who claims he was beaten and tortured with electric shocks in a Lebanese prison camp has been jailed for nine years over a Sydney gang shootout.

But NSW District Court Judge Stephen Norrish rejected Saleh Jamal’s claims he was tortured with the consent of Australian authorities.

Jamal, 33, fled to the Middle East on a false passport while on bail in 2004 for an unrelated offence.

He was taken into custody and tried by a Lebanese military court for passport and terrorism-related offences.

Jamal was jailed for five years, but had his sentence reduced and the terror conviction quashed on appeal.

He was in Lebanese custody when Australian authorities requested his extradition, which was consented to last September.

Whilst in Lebanese custody, Jamal claimed he was subjected to various torture methods as part of his interrogation.

“He described in considerable detail electric shock torture ... being given the sensation of drowning; being tied to a metal pole like a chicken on a rotisserie and turned or held upside down; being struck on the body and the feet and head,” Judge Norrish told the court.

“I found the prisoner’s account spontaneous and genuine.”

Judge Norrish noted Jamal’s claims that he continued to suffer post-traumatic stress and severe anxiety, as well as continued physical pain as a result of his torture.

However, the judge was not persuaded his treatment had the “connivance and approval of the Australian authorities”.

“It may be that Australian officials at some stage became aware of his plight, but that’s as high as one can take it,” he said.

He also remarked on the irony that a man with such a violent background had been subjected to such extensive violence.

In backdating his five-and-a-half year non-parole period to March 2004, Judge Norrish took into account the year Jamal spent in custody before he fled Australia, as well as 18 months of his Lebanese jail time.

Jamal will be eligible for parole in September 2009.

A bearded Jamal, wearing traditional Muslim dress, stood to thank Judge Norrish before being led to the cells.

“I ask God to give you a peaceful long life. Thank you very much,” he said.

Judge Norrish said Jamal’s fervent adherence to Islam may provide some confidence in his rehabilitation prospects.

He also noted Jamal had expressed interest in enrolling in university to study “politics, counter-terrorism, information technology and chemistry”.

“I would not recommend a pursuit of chemistry,” Judge Norrish remarked.

A jury in February convicted Jamal and triple murderer Michael Kanaan of shooting a man in the feet and legs during a 1998 gang shootout at Greenacre, in Sydney’s south-west.

Jamal and Kanaan were members of “DK’s Boys”, an organised crime outfit headed by Danny Karam.

Kanaan is serving a life sentence for the ambush assassination of Karam, also in 1998, as well as two other life sentences for murder, a shootout with police and other crimes.

He was last month sentenced to ten years for the Greenacre shooting.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/call-for-jailed-us-man-to-go/2007/08/18/1186857836752.html

Call for jailed US man to go

Heath Gilmore
August 19, 2007

A FORMER US Army employee wanted for murder in California is proving to be a hard man to kick out of Australia’s jails.

Lawrence Rivera, who was on the US’s “most wanted” list, has used almost every avenue of the legal system to remain in Australia, five years after he was arrested in country NSW.

The Federal Government agreed to extradite him to California to face a possible death sentence.

Rivera, 35, has been accused of strangling Kristina Garcia, 26, whose body was found in the Mojave Desert near the Fort Irwin army base in May 2002. Ms Garcia, a co-worker, allegedly refused to go on a second date with him.

Rivera allegedly fled to Australia before her body was discovered.

He was arrested in September 2002 in Orange, where he was working as a door-to-door art salesman. Local detectives found him after receiving information that he had been pursuing a romance with an Australian woman on the internet.

Rivera is seeking a review of his incarceration by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Rivera alleges he has been subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment during his Australian custody.

Last week NSW Justice Minister John Hatzistergos wrote to federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to ask for a review of the extradition, originally granted in December 2002, and take whatever action was needed to extradite Rivera from Silverwater jail in Sydney’s west.

Mr Hatzistergos said NSW taxpayers were footing the bill for his court expenses as well as the cost of keeping him jailed. “We estimate it has cost approximately $315,000 to keep Mr Rivera in jail in NSW,” Mr Hatzistergos said.

“In addition, the average costs of a civil case in NSW is $2700 for 2005-06. So you could also say the costs of Mr Rivera’s claims to NSW taxpayers for court expenses could amount to tens of thousands of dollars.

“I am very concerned with the course this has been taking. Mr Rivera has now been in custody for five years and is yet to be extradited on a serious charge.”

Rivera has taken various actions through the Supreme Court, Federal Court and the High Court to appeal against his extradition.

He has also initiated civil court proceedings against a number of state, federal and overseas organisations and individuals, including prison officers and the University of NSW, for alleged human rights breaches.
Source: The Sun-Herald

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH17Ak01.html

Aug 17, 2007

Missing US arms probe goes global
By David Isenberg

WASHINGTON - The issue of missing US weapons in Iraq is getting, as Alice said in Wonderland, curiouser and curiouser. What started out as a mere report documenting improper bookkeeping procedures for assault rifles and pistols given by the Pentagon to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005 is turning into an international scandal.

It started on July 31, when the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report “Stabilizing Iraq: DOD [Department

of Defense] Cannot Ensure That US-Funded Equipment Has Reached Iraqi Security Forces”. A classified version of the report will be submitted to Congress next month.

The report found that since 2003, the United States has provided about US$19.2 billion to develop Iraqi security forces. As part of that effort, components of the Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I), are responsible for implementing the US program to train and equip Iraqi forces. The report found that as of July, the DOD and MNF-I had not specified which DOD accountability procedures, if any, apply to the train-and-equip program for Iraq.

As Congress funded the train-and-equip program for Iraq outside traditional security assistance programs, the Pentagon had a large degree of flexibility in managing the program. Normally, the traditional security assistance programs are operated by the State Department. Since the funding did not go through traditional security assistance programs, the DOD accountability requirements normally applicable to these programs did not apply. Thus the DOD and MNF-I cannot fully account for Iraqi forces’ receipt of US-funded equipment.

As a result, the GAO found a discrepancy of at least 190,000 weapons between data reported by the former commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I) and the property books. The GAO report indicates that US military officials do not know what happened to 30% of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year.

The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. According to that report, 13,180 Glock automatic pistols, worth as much as $46 million on the black market, were unaccounted for. The more recent GAO study puts the total figure for missing pistols closer to 80,000. In addition, the report found that US officials in Iraq could not account for 751 M1F assault rifles and 99 MP5 machine-guns.

It seems a virtual certainty that many of the Glocks have been diverted to the black market. An article in the current issue of Newsweek magazine quotes a senior Turkish security official, who said his government estimates that some 20,000 US-bought Glock pistols have been brought from Iraq into his country over the past three years.

The GAO reached the estimate of 190,000 missing arms - 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols - by comparing the property records of the MNSTC-I against records US General David Petraeus maintained of the arms and equipment he had ordered, after he was brought in in June 2004 to build up Iraqi security forces.

The gaps between the two records are enormous. Petraeus reported that about 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 pieces of body armor and 140,000 helmets were issued to Iraqi security forces from June 2004 through September 2005. But the property books contained records for 75,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80,000 pieces of body armor and 25,000 helmets.

[snipped]

When the US government needed to fly four planeloads of seized weapons from Bosnia to Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in August 2004, it used Aerocom. But Aerocom is tied to Bout’s aviation empire. The problem is that the planes apparently never arrived. US officials admitted they had no record of the flights landing in Baghdad.

Why the US government would have used Bout-controlled Aerocom - which had already been linked to supplying arms to Liberia when it was ruled by Charles Taylor and to drug traffickers in Belize - is a mystery in and of itself, considering that by 2004 Bout was very well known to the US government as a global gun-runner whom they wanted to put out of business.

The latest development occurred this week when it was reported that that Italian anti-Mafia investigators had uncovered an alleged shipment of 105,000 rifles of which the US military command in Iraq was unaware. The Italian team, in an investigation code-named Operation Parabellum, stopped the $40 million sale and made four arrests. The consignment appears to have been ordered by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The US high command in Baghdad admitted it had no knowledge of any such order, even though the ministry is supposed to inform the US before purchasing arms.

[snipped]

Hanford fire nearly contained at 67,000 acres (w/video, photos)

Published Saturday, August 18th, 2007

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

The worst was over Friday night on the fire that spread across the Rattlesnake Mountain area of the Hanford Reach National Monument and devastated much of the monument’s Arid Lands Ecology Reserve.

Firefighters had bulldozed lines around the entire fire, but not before it blackened 67,000 acres, or 104 square miles, according to size estimates updated Friday evening. Much of the vegetation and animal habitat on the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve was destroyed, with only the southeast portion of the reserve near Highway 240 untouched.

No smoke was showing by 7 p.m. and the Central Washington Area Incident Management Team, brought in to oversee firefighting efforts, considered the blaze 80 percent contained. The fire, which started Thursday afternoon, was expected to be fully contained today.

The cause of the fire was under investigation Friday, but it was suspected to be started by human activity near Wautoma Road, which is four miles west of the Hanford Reach National Monument near Highway 241.

The fire, driven by strong winds burned east onto the monument and then jumped Highway 240 onto the Hanford nuclear reservation about 4 p.m. Thursday. Firefighters were able to hold it at the fence line of the 200 West Area, which includes underground tanks holding millions of gallons of high-level radioactive waste from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Air monitoring continued Friday with no airborne radiation from the fire detected.

Firefighters were comparing Thursdays’s blaze to the fast-moving 24 Command Fire of 2000 that swept across 163,000 acres, including most of the Arid Land Ecology Reserve. The reserve stretches along Highway 240 from Highway 24 about five miles south of the Columbia River almost to the Horn Rapids Dam on the Yakima River.

However, firefighters were able to hold the Wautoma Command Fire to less than half the acreage of the 2000 fire in a well-coordinated effort, said Greg Hughes, U.S. Fish and Wildlife project leader for the Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

“They did a fantastic job to catch it in the conditions we had,” Hughes said. The weather was hot, windy and dry.

The ecological damage was severe, but no one was injured, no structures were lost and no radiological areas of the nuclear reservation burned.

Wide gravel fire breaks around areas with radioactive materials helped firefighters contain the fire on the nuclear reservation. The only casualties known Friday were three wooden power poles that Benton County Public Utility District replaced.

As soon as the fire was contained in central Hanford Thursday night, firefighting resources were moved back to the monument, Hughes said.

Back fires were set along Rattlesnake Ridge as firefighters worked their way north to contain the fire near the boundary of the monument, protecting Benton City and nearby private property. Firefighters also used bulldozers to dig fire lines, trying to follow roads that are little more than two tracks in the dirt and an old disk line from the 2000 fires to minimize disturbance on the reserve.

At 11 p.m. Thursday the fire could be seen throughout the Tri-Cities, showing up as a ribbon of twinkling red dots outlining the rugged ridge of the mountain in the dark.

Fire continued to burn Friday morning in the canyons in the center of the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve on its western edge, including Snively Canyon. It contains the foundations of a pioneer farm house and the farmer’s grain that still grows voluntarily on hillsides along a spring.

In areas with heavy vegetation, the fire may continue to smolder for days. But it had little fuel left Friday night in most of the burned areas of the reserve.

After the 2000 fire Fish and Wildlife had planted 1 million sage brush in pockets across the reserve, and they had grown to 12 to 18 inches high, Hughes said. All were believed destroyed in the fire. And the reserve’s hundreds of elk will have to move elsewhere to find food.

A combined federal and state Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation Team was expected at the monument Friday night to assess fire damage and make recommendations to stabilize and rehabilitate burned areas. The fire Thursday was the third this summer on the monument and there also was fire damage last month on the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, which is part of the same complex.

About 170 firefighters were at the blaze Thursday night. That grew to about 200 personnel as the regional incident management team arrived about noon Friday and about 300 by 9:30 p.m. It set up a base camp at the HAMMER training center north of Richland to relieve weary commanders and crews who had fought the fire since shortly after noon Thursday.

Resources included 41 engines and nine bulldozers, said Roland Emetaz, information officer for the Central Washington Area Incident Management Team. Five air tankers and a helicopter also were assigned to the fire at times.

“Credit for the success goes to the local firefighters,” Emetaz said. “They strengthened containment, did the burnouts.”

They included firefighters from the Hanford Fire District, Fish and Wildlife, Richland, Kennewick and the counties of Benton, Franklin, Walla Walla and Grant.

Firefighters from Grant County arrived at the fire about 10:30 p.m., said Capt. Alan Hansen of Grant County Fire District 13, as he waited at HAMMER to see if he’d be sent back to the fire Friday night. On the drive down, they could see the fire as they crested the hill near Othello.

He and other Grant County firefighters spent Thursday night upwind of the backburn on the top of the ridge, using water tenders to support other crews.

“It was very windy,” he said. After working through the night, they’d spent the day sleeping on the grass at a winery on Highway 24, they said.

Local firefighters were beginning to be released from the fire Friday evening, as crews rolled in from across the state. The parking lot had rigs from Clark, Stevens, Cowlitz, Douglas and Chelan counties and Seattle Public Utilities, Washougal and Grand Coulee. A crew from Grants Pass, Ore., was setting up tents on the grass at HAMMER to get some sleep before they went out to the fire.

Highway 240 was closed from near the Vernita Bridge south to Highway 225 Thursday but was reopened about 1 a.m. Friday.

When a semi-truck hauling hay caught fire near 10 miles southeast of Mattawa about 4 p.m. Thursday, firefighters remained with it for about five hours to ensure it didn’t spread to the monument. The truck was at Road L and Road 29 when it caught fire.

As a precaution, work was canceled Friday for most Hanford employees who work north of the Wye Barricade.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/9230375p-9146142c.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1882982/posts

Five Men Indicted In Connection With Identity Theft Ring
NY1 ^ | August 16, 2007 | Staff

Posted on 08/18/2007 4:26:56 AM PDT by csvset

The Manhattan district attorney indicted five men Thursday for allegedly being part of an identity theft ring that stole more than a million dollars from wealthy citizens.

Prosecutors say the ring leader was Igor Klopov, 24, from Russia.

Klopov’s accused of targeting people’s home equity line of credit accounts. He was arrested in New York in May when he came to pick up $7 million in gold from an undercover investigator.

He allegedly picked his victims from the Forbes 400 list and used his home computer to get property records and mortgage information off the Internet.

“There is a great deal of sensitive information readily accessible by cyber criminals on the Internet and individuals and financial institutions need to be extremely careful to know who they are dealing with,” said Manhattan Chief Assistant District Attorney Jim Kindler.

Four other members of the ring were also arrested Thursday in Michigan, Florida, Texas and Kentucky. Prosecutors say they were plotting to steal another $10 million and could spend up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.