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Thread 11 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1159172/posts?page=1 |
Posted on 06/10/2004 2:28:29 PM PDT by JustPiper
Picture credit: TheCabal
"I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat"
U.S. Charges Australian Linked to al-Qaida
WASHINGTON - An Australian held at the Navy's prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will face a military tribunal for allegedly training and fighting alongside members of al-Qaida in Afghanistan (news - web sites), the Pentagon (news - web sites) announced Thursday.
We are the "Stotters" who make ourselves aware of the enemy who wishes to do us harm
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
Not sure but take a look at this - tensions are definitely increasing.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5428063
Iran Threatens to Rethink Cooperation with UN
Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:49 AM ET
By Louis Charbonneau and Mark Trevelyan
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran threatened to review its cooperation with the U.N. atomic watchdog as France, Britain and Germany refused to soften a resolution that sharply rebukes Tehran for sluggish cooperation with the U.N.
In a letter to the leaders of France, Britain and Germany, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami accused Europe's three big powers of working with Tehran's arch-foe Washington to pile pressure on the Islamic Republic, which the United States says is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
"Continuation of this behavior under the pressure of America will seriously harm mutual trust and Iran's cooperation with the international community on Iran's use of peaceful nuclear technology," Khatami warned in the letter to Europe's big three, extracts of which appeared in the Sharq newspaper.
"Continued unfriendly behavior and ignorance of undertakings, will push Iran to consider its different options."
Some Iranian hard-liners have suggested following North Korea in pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty rather than submitting to U.N. inspections. But Tehran has made no such official threat. Withdrawal could bring international isolation.
After a day of backroom talks on the text, the European trio circulated a revised draft resolution on Iran to members of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors that "deplores" Iran's inadequate cooperation with the IAEA, the U.N. body that polices treaties on the use of nuclear technology.
But one diplomat on the board described the changes to the original draft as "cosmetic" and the Iranians were not happy.
"This is not acceptable. It does not meet our expectations for substantial revisions, not at all," Hossein Mousavian, secretary of the foreign policy committee of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Reuters.
Diplomats said Washington had wanted the text even harsher, with a deadline for Iran to come clean about its atomic plans. That would keep pressure on Tehran and open the door to a future report to the U.N. Security Council and possible sanctions.
Two Bombs Found in Chechen School
Created: 14.06.2004 11:24 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:42 MSK
Police found and defused two homemade bombs planted in the basement of a school in the Chechen capital of Grozny, a Russian military official said Sunday.
Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for the anti-terrorist operation group in Chechnya, said that local residents had informed the police about an attack being planned in the school in Grozny’s Zavodskoy district, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Authorities searched the school and found a bomb disguised as a tape recorder, and a second device with a metal container, explosives and a timer, Shabalkin said. He said both devices were primed to detonate.
Meanwhile, an explosive device went off Saturday evening in Ingushetia, the region bordering Chechnya, as a convoy of Chechen Interior Ministry police passed by. No one was injured in the blast, ITAR-Tass reported.
Apologies if this was posted yesterday, but it's the first I heard of it in JG's post.
APS takes Palo Verde units offline
Arizona Public Service Co. took all three Palo Verde nuclear plant units offline following a "grid disturbance" on Monday morning, Reuters reported
"We had a grid disturbance. We have yet to determine the cause. It led to some short-lived customer outages and ultimately led to some units being shut down," APS spokeswoman Sheri Foote said.
The disturbance, which occurred around 7:40 a.m. Monday, initially resulted in the loss of service to around 30,000 customers of Phoenix-based APS, the largest subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp.
All threew units at the Palo Verde nuclear plant and 2 units at the Redhawk gas-fired plant were then shut down. The Palo Verde units can produce around 3,900 megawatts of electricity, enough power for almost 4 million homes.
The Redhawk units, which are run by a sister company, Pinnacle West Energy, can each produce about 530 MW. Both Redhawk units are now back in service, Foote told Reuters.
No estimate is yet available for when the Palo Verde units will return to service, she added.
Most of the impacted customers had service restored within 20 to 30 minutes.
The Palo Verde plant is located about 50 miles west of Phoenix.
The California Independent System Operator provided about 800 megawatts of emergency assistance immediately after the outage, ISO spokesman Gregg Fisherman said.
Electricity traders said there appeared to be a "large frequency disturbance" in the desert Southwest as trading in the day-ahead market was winding down.
APS has a 29.1 percent interest in the plant runs it on behalf of the ownership consortium. Other part owners are Salt River Project (17.5 percent), Edison International's Southern California Edison Co. (15.8 percent); El Paso Electric Co. (15.8 percent), PNM Resources Inc.'s Public Service Co. of New Mexico (10.2 percent); Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9 percent); and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (5.7 percent).
http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2004/06/14/daily9.html
re- the calves.
As these incidents involving innocent animal life mount (the elk, the dolphins, the birds, the calves etc.) - where is PETA? Why aren't they outraged at the suffering of these innocents- and dedicated to finding the perpetrators?
It's hard to say. I think they're testing us.
Very troubling. I don't think Israel is going to sit by while Iran quibbles about wording....
I guess yesterday was not the first incident at Palo Verde.....
One of the three power generating units at Arizona's Palo Verde nuclear power plant has shut down.
Officials say the problem is a control system malfunction that will take about a week to fix.
Palo Verde's operator has purchased a block of electricity from Idaho to cover any power shortfall.
Palo Verde supplies power to about 4 million customers in Arizona and other Western states.
Officials say there was no release of radioactive material as a result Tuesday's malfunction.
However, it's the fourth unexpected unit shutdown at Palo Verde this year and the other three did involve small radiation leaks.
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=1929939&nav=HMO5Nmdh
From your post:
>>Electricity traders said there appeared to be a "large frequency disturbance" in the desert Southwest as trading in the day-ahead market was winding down. <<
What would constitute a large frequency disturbance? Or rather, what is this?
When we go to Phoenix we take the 8 to a smaller highway in AZ and then head up to Phoenix (can't think of the highway number right off). You can see the plumes of steam from Palo Verde most of the way up this highway. I didn't have any idea what it was the first time I saw it and thought it was either a tornado or huge whirlwinds. I was educated pretty quickly : )
This is very puzzling.
Just watch! Now the AQs will do everything they can to hit the Saudi Oil. This is escalating very quickly.
Supposedly, we had a power outage here in Phoneix yesterday for about an hour that took the Palo Verde offline for a while. I immediately thought of this thread.
HomelandsecurityUS.com has that private "intel news". I never signed up, and pretty much stopped looking at the site, preferring Jill's.
However, yesterday, they posted an "intel alert" and ASKED that it be distributed- as long as they were credited and it was made clear that it was not a government report.
The intel alert also listed threats to flights in Japan and the EU based upon pictures their researchers have seen on the arabic sites.
The intel alert noted the power plant incident- and had more detail. There was concern because this plant was mentioned on the Arabic forums- for about a year or so. Also, the control room seemed to have experienced some type of unusual problem.
Authorities dealing with possible terrorism were involved in assessing the situation.
Iran threatens UN watchdog
By Siavosh Ghazi in Tehran
June 16, 2004
IRAN reacted to fresh pressure from the UN nuclear watchdog today by threatening to reconsider its cooperation with inspectors trying to verify suspicions the Islamic republic is secretly developing atomic weapons.
As diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna mulled a tough European-drafted resolution that criticises Iran's failure to fully come clean, top regime officials here said they would not tolerate what they saw as a US-Israeli plot.
The new conservative speaker of parliament, Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, warned the assembly may not ratify Iran's signature of the additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allowing tougher UN inspections.
"The three European countries are demanding parliament adopt the protocol, but I say to France, Germany and Britain not to tell the Iranian parliament what to do," he told deputies.
"The Iranian parliament does not take orders from foreigners, because these orders do not reflect the interests of the Iranian people. If we consider it to be in the interests of the Iranian people we will adopt it, if not we will not," he said.
He also warned the Europeans not to "fall into the trap of the Zionists", a reference to Iran's oft-mentioned enemies in Israel and the United States.
And according to press reports, President Mohammad Khatami has also told Britain, France and Germany in writing to ease the pressure, or risk pushing Iran to consider "other alternatives".
Mr Khatami also reportedly accused the so-called Euro-3 of aligning themselves with Iran's arch-enemy, the United States.
According to the Tehran Times newspaper, Mr Khatami wrote that "Iran will not forego its inalienable right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes", and that "if such confrontational behaviour continues ... Iran will contemplate other alternatives."
It was not clear what Mr Khatami, a reformist, meant by "other alternatives", although some hardliners in the regime have been calling for Iran to respond to the pressure by pulling out of the NPT altogether.
Mr Khatami's office was not immediately available for comment.
Although the draft - expected to be debated later in the week - has been toned down, a top member of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Sayed Hossein Mussavian, said the text was still unacceptable.
"The changes to the draft resolution are insufficient and are not acceptable to Iran," he told the student news agency ISNA.
Iran asserts that it is only seeking to generate nuclear power to meet future energy needs, and contends that it has completely abided by its commitments to the NPT and has cooperated with the IAEA.
Iran's compliance with a string of IAEA demands was brokered last October by the three European states, who pledged that Iran could eventually hope to receive technological assistance if it managed to quash suspicions over its nuclear activities.
But EU diplomats appear to be running out of patience as key questions over Iran's activities - notably surrounding the discovery of highly-enriched uranium that is possibly bomb-grade - continue to go unanswered.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in Vienna on Monday that Iran's cooperation had so far been "less than satisfactory" and that the clerical regime needed to be "proactive and fully transparent".
Iran signed the additional protocol in December 2004, but the text still has to be ratified by parliament, the Majlis, which fell into the hands of religious right-wingers in February after most reformist candidates were barred from contesting the polls.
Even though the text has not yet been approved, Iran has nonetheless pledged to submit to the tougher and surprise IAEA inspections it prescribes. But a rejection of the text by the Majlis would spell a return to the only limited probe exacted by the NPT.
Mr Hadad-Adel complained the draft resolution put forward by Britain, France and Germany was effectively aimed at forcing Iran to abandon all of its progress in the nuclear field, and said this was "against our interests".
"As the senior Iranian officials have said on a number of occasions, Iran does not have the intention of using nuclear technology for non-peaceful means," he stressed.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9860227%255E1702,00.html
How about that new airborne laser defense designed to shoot down missiles? I dont know how far along in development it is. It takes up the whole aircraft it is in. I've seen it profiled on one of those discovery channel shows (man I love those).
I would love to Photoshop Komrade Klinton, but I can't even keep up with the thread right now, things are hectic. Hopefully once things settle down again, I can put the headdress on the dog and do something wicked to the Klinton pic.
This fellow, CliffMickelson- always posts interesting tidbits. Here is what he had to say, earlier today:
HUGE NAVY DEPLOYMENT TO TEST EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLAN?
Posted By: CliffMickelson
Date: Tuesday, 15 June 2004, 3:40 a.m.
The article below is a snip from the San Diego Tribune.
It was published on June 3, 2004. There is little doubt in my mind that it is, for the most part, based on a press release prepared in advance by the Navy.
Readers should decide for themselves if this is all there is to the story or not.
Personally, I don't buy it.
It is a convenient alibi and may contain truth, as most double agendas do.
But...something doesn't add up. There is another reason to be burning all this manpower, fuel and hardware.
What is the purpose of test running such a gargantuan deployment anyway? ....Expecting a reason, perhaps?
What could THAT be? Where is the "enemy" that would require such a deployment?
The Bolivian Navy isn't represented!
Perhaps it's them?
Oh! That's right! I forgot! Bolivia is landlocked!
Hmmmm...
As such...
My primary question would be....Why are the French, the British, the Russians, the Spanish and practically every other navy worth their salt, currently standing out to sea?
What urgency (real or otherwise) is there that would mandate the deployment of most of the navies of the world on the same dates?
And what is up with the curious sudden increase in military air traffic?
Last night, the skies over the Pacific Northwest looked like the Santa Monica Freeway at rush hour!
Now THAT is an emergency response test to beat them all, eh? -CliffMickelson *** (begin snip) By James W. Crawley Seven aircraft carriers – more than half the nation's flattops – along with several dozen escort ships and about 40,000 sailors will be at sea starting this week for the first demonstration of the Navy's emergency deployment plan.
Known as Summer Pulse 04, the exercise includes two carrier strike groups with San Diego ties: the Stennis flotilla, which deployed from North Island Naval Air Station last week on a regular deployment, and the Navy's newest carrier, the Ronald Reagan, which is heading for its new home port in San Diego.
The seven carriers – virtually every aircraft carrier that can sail – will be at sea during all or part of the exercise, which ends in August. Besides the local warships, the George Washington, Kitty Hawk, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Enterprise strike groups will participate. Most of the carriers will be escorted by four to six smaller ships. (end snip)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040603-frp.htm (from rumormillnews reading room.)
Reposted - I apologize for the first attempt.
bookmark....off to work
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