|
Posted on 08/01/2007 10:32:19 PM PDT by nwctwx
|
BREAKING NEWS: Hostages Run From Rogers Park Bank (Chicago)
Police Suspect Others Still Being Held
CHICAGO — Chicago police are at the scene of a standoff with a man who has taken hostages in a North Side bank.
About a dozen people escaped the bank at about 10:30 a.m., but police said they believe there are others still inside. Sky5 captured images of people running from the building under police guard. It is unclear how those hostages got out.
Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said it isn’t clear yet how many people are involved.
NBC5’s Charlie Wojciechowski reported from the scene that the escapted hostages are being questioned by police at the nearby Chicago Math and Science Academy in the vacinity of Clark and Pratt streets, where police have set up a staging area.
According to police, the man is armed and wearing a bulletproof vest.(snip)
http://www.nbc5.com/news/14011962/detail.html
*Hubby nearby, he’s safe and locked down.
Nerve Gas Scare at U.N. Headquarters
United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York this morning, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
The federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m.
New York police and fire officials reported to the scene around 12:15 this afternoon.
A U.N. spokesperson said a statement would be issued shortly.
Authorities said the phosgene was believed to have been discovered in Iraq and manufactured prior to 1991.
Former U.N. weapons inspectors told ABCNews.com that vials of phosgene had also been used by inspectors in Iraq to help calibrate air sampling instruments.
The former inspectors said the remaining vials were supposed to have been destroyed.(snip)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/08/nerve-gas-scare.html
Thanks O for your pings...I am thousands behind...but once my children are back in school..I might be able to catch-up!!
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A U.N. spokeswoman says weapons inspectors who had been in Iraq have found a potentially hazardous chemical in their office at U.N. headquarters.
oops ... never mind. I see Velveeta had just posted it.
Missing Chinese Uranium Poses Serious Threat
China is missing some Uranium and they have no idea where it has gone.
Seventeen pounds of highly radioactive uranium was stolen in an attempt to resell the deadly element on the black market.
Four Chinese citizens have been charged with an attempt to sell enriched uranium between 2005 and 2007. The men were arrested in January after a potential buyer turned them in to the Chinese police.
However, the trial has been delayed because Chinese authorities have been unable to locate the missing uranium.
According to court records and information published in the Sydney Herald Post, all four defendants are suffering from radiation poisoning due to mishandling of the uranium. (snip)
http://www.newsmax.com/smith/uranium_china/2007/08/30/28557.html
Bookmark
Thanks Karl, I do appreciate the info.
Thanks for part 3 Cindy; interesting articles.
SNIP:
Prosecutors say they are still trying to determine what the men were doing, where they were headed.
“That’s the unusual part,” said Frank Hunt, a spokesman for the Solicitor’s Office. “They said they were going to North Carolina on the way to the beach. Well, that’s not the way to North Carolina.”
…The car had a Global Positioning System device, so investigators would have a record of all the men’s movements…Not to mention cell phone records.
Thanks Vel, that sure is weird.
______________________
Bomb threats force three evacuations
August 30, 2007
A bomb threat Wednesday afternoon sparked the evacuation of a Pasco County government building.
Now repeat that sentence two more times.
Three different bomb threats were reported within a 20-minute span to three county facilities in central and west Pasco - including the courthouse and 911 communications center. All were evacuated, searched and cleared. "It was a busy afternoon," said Pasco sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin.
Employees and residents started streaming outside about 1 p.m. to stand in a sweltering 95 degrees for more than an hour. It wasn't until about 2:30 p.m. when they started filing back into the David "Hap" Clark Jr. Building off U.S. 41 in Land O'Lakes and the West Pasco Judicial Center and the Emergency Operations Center in New Port Richey. Tobin said 911 service was not disrupted by the evacuations.
All three threats were made by male callers, the Sheriff's Office said. The agency doesn't think that the first threat, made to Land O'Lakes, is linked to the last two threats made to New Port Richey. But officials think the last two threats are linked.
The caller who made the first threat warned that an "explosive device" was in the Clark building. It was made to the cell phone of an unidentified woman taking classes there.
The call was made about 2 a.m. Wednesday. But she didn't get the message until the afternoon, when she reported it to firefighters. Pasco Fire Rescue's administrative offices are in the building. The evacuation started at 1:02 p.m. It was 1:09 p.m. when another threat was called in, this time to the Emergency Operations Center in the West Pasco Government Complex off Little Road.
The operations center houses the county's 911 communications center for Pasco Fire Rescue and the Sheriff's Office. It was unknown if the threat was received via 911 or another phone line. The operations center was ordered evacuated - somehow accidentally triggering an evacuation of the West Pasco Judicial Center.
Thirteen minutes into that evacuation, a third bomb threat was called in to the communications center. What building did that caller threaten? The West Pasco Judicial Center. So the evacuation there continued.
Deputies and firefighters sealed off the courthouse parking lot and kept bystanders across the street. Government and Citizen Drives were also shut down, keeping traffic out of the entire complex. Bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in. Standing outside in the heat was no fun, said defense attorney Keith Hammond. For some it could have been worse. "The elderly were having trouble standing ...," he said, "and I was concerned about the infants being overheated."
Even when officials finally let everyone back inside the courthouse, they had to wait for employees to get in first. Then there was a long line outside waiting to go back through the metal detectors inside. "It was a long two hours in the August heat," Hammond said. "It made me think, what did they do in the old days in courthouses before air conditioning?" The investigation into the threats is ongoing.
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/30/Pasco/Bomb_threats_force_th.shtml
Front Range Community College's Westminster campus is closed today after a bomb threat yesterday. The campus at 3645 W. 112th Ave. was shut down "as an exercise of caution," the college's Web site said.
A Westminster dispatcher said police were called to inspect the campus late yesterday. The closure includes College Hill Library and the Children's Place child-care center.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5686072,00.html
TSA Worried About 'Things That Look Normal'
August 30, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The seventh floor of Transportation Security Administration headquarters is quiet when we walk in, but behind the calm, a storm is brewing. It's a massive, ominous problem spanning 3.7 million square miles, 9,500 miles of coastline and 2,500 miles of land border with Canada --a government warning that a terror attack may be about to happen somewhere in the U.S. before summer's end.
This warning has put TSA Administrator Kip Hawley in a difficult position. "Staying ahead of the threat and if you look at an environment where the threat picture says there are people interested in doing an attack, but you don't have the specifics on the who, what, where, when and how; what do you do about it?" Hawley says. "How do you put in places security measures that respond to threats that are out there, but you don't know exactly how it's going to come?"
For Hawley, this time period can't be business as usual. He says looking for things out of the ordinary isn't good enough. "We have to pay attention to things that look normal --and that's the hard part."
As a result, TSA's Visible Intermodal Protection and Response teams - or VIPER - and Behavior Detection teams have been put on alert. They patrol Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, Los Angeles rail lines; ferries in Washington state; bus stations in Houston; and mass transit systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore and more. The VIPER teams usually are made up of two air marshals, one TSA bomb-sniffing-canine team, one or two transportation security inspectors and a local law enforcement officer. It's one of the best tools Hawley's got to go looking for a needle in a haystack.
Excerpted
RE: My comment in post #2013. I was in error; not all incidents have been in St.Pete. The previous ones were in Jacksonville, FL. My apologies.
On August 26, Islamist websites posted an item titled "How to Join Al-Qaeda." It is not clear when the item was written; it was produced by the website Al-Thabitoun 'Ala Al-'Ahd, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Egypt and is currently inactive.
The item calls on every Muslim to regard jihad as a personal duty and to take initiative to establish a jihad cell without waiting for recognition from Al-Qaeda. It goes on to elaborate on how to form and run the cell, how to raise funds, and how to select a target, "for example, assassinating the American ambassador," which, it states, "takes no more than a gun and a bullet."
The following are excerpts from the item:
"You feel that you want to carry a weapon, fight, and kill the occupiers, and that it is our duty to call for jihad as much as to call for prayer... All that is required is a firm personal decision to fulfill this obligation, and participation in jihad and the resistance...
"Do you really have to meet Osama bin Laden in person in order to become a jihad fighter? Do you have to be recognized by Al-Qaeda as one of its members to become a jihad fighter? If Al-Qaeda commanders should be killed, would the jihad be eliminated? What would you do if Al-Qaeda did not exist today? How is Osama bin Laden different from you? - [yet] he managed to establish the world jihad organization. Who provided training to Osama bin Laden and Abdallah 'Azzam when they went to Afghanistan to become the first Arab jihad fighters?
"The answers to these questions are the following: I don't have to meet Osama bin Laden to become a jihad fighter. Moreover, there is no need to meet even one jihad fighter to become one. Neither do I need recognition from Al-Qaeda...
"As the first step, imagine that Al-Qaeda does not exist and that you are interested [in waging] jihad - what would you do in this case?... If you know any young people - whether one, two, or more - in your area, mosque, or university who are as dedicated and enthusiastic about jihad as you are, come to an understanding with them, and together form a cell whose objective is to help Islam and only Islam...
"At first, your cell should have no more than five members, all absolutely trustworthy... The cell must have a commander and a shura council... The commander must clearly realize that he is Osama bin Laden to the cell members...
"Each cell should have a source of funding... When you have several members, you will [surely] find the funds for your cell... Then you should buy weapons, make plans, brainstorm, plot your plans, monitor your enemy's important objectives, and study its moves. Set a goal; for example, assassinating the American ambassador - is it so difficult? Is it [indeed] difficult for someone who has already crushed America in her home?
"What is the difference between you and the hero of the New York attack, Muhammad Atta, who planned an action which even today shakes the world every time it is mentioned? Assassinating the ambassador takes no more than a gun and a bullet. One could disguise oneself as a peddler in order to tail [the target], which shouldn't cost a lot of money...
"The cells must maintain contact among themselves, but by no means in a direct or conventional way. The contact must be spiritual: What will unite you is the love of Islam and the motto "There is no God but Allah." Even if the contact between [your] cell and the rest is indirect, it will be close... You must meet once a month... You must not meet in the same place twice... Personal meetings with a small number of people [must take place] once a week...
"From the moment the cell is established, its members must be divided - into secret members, members who do not [act] openly and are not wanted by the authorities, and members who are wanted (who have been arrested in the past or on whom the intelligence apparatuses have a file)... The secret members must perform intelligence tasks, collect information, raise funds, recruit [new members], and assist in [actual operations]. Those who act in the open must perform the primary military operations, such as assassinations, firing at enemy facilities, etc.
"You must be aware that you have brothers everywhere, and that they are expecting the actions of you and your friends even if they don't know you in person or by name...
"Every jihad cell is a microcosm of the world jihad organization."
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD170207
Thanks very much for the ping and post #2016. Ping. Ping.
Thanks milford421.
Watching the economic situation and unusual incidents is a good thing and I appreciate all of you who are.
You’re very welcome PGalt.
Following this trial reminds me of 9/10 all over again.
The lame-stream media just doesn’t seem too interested in this trail —they should be as this is living history.
Thank you callmejoe.
So interesting.
From your post...
“Iraqi Kurdish media are reporting that the Iranian military is massing at the main border crossing into northern Iraq, possibly for an incursion against PEJAK. Clashes between PEJAK and the Iranians have been increasing steadily, and Iraqi Kurdish officials say that about 40 Iranian soldiers were killed on Saturday.
Whether or not the Iranians attack, the timing of the buildup is ominous. . .”
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.
