Posted on 06/19/2007 4:43:36 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Saudi King Says Middle East Crisis Will Affect The World
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.
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=268361
(Excerpt) Read more at bernama.com ...
July 23, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News
(Afghanistan) Two NATO troops, 60 Taliban killed in Afghanistan (updated)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070723/wl_asia_afp/afghanistanunrest_070723171259
(Afghanistan) 6 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070723/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan;_ylt=Ar6oONMolg77HoewS6v83iys0NUE
(Afghanistan) Taliban extends hostage deadline
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/23/afghan.hostages.reut/index.html
Pakistani forces kill 35 militants in Waziristan (updated)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/23/pakistan.unrest.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest
(Pakistan) Red Mosque to reopen for Friday prayers
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0WTTkss5aRGlzUBuA_QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHZkMjZyBHBvcwMxBHNlYwNzcg—/SIG=12pn1ekk1/EXP=1185298092/**http%3a//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070723/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_red_mosque_1
Iraqi Qaeda group denies “fictitious leader” claim - Islamic State of Iraq denies U.S. claim about
“Omar al-Baghdadi”
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23911328.htm
(Iraq) Safety of Top Iraq Cleric Questioned - Ayatollah al-Sistani’s close aide killed in Najaf
compound
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3403367&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
(Iraq) Five killed in minivan suicide bombing
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22117905-38201,00.html
(Israel) IDF discovers explosive device near Gaza fence
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184766043181&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Israel inches closer to talks with Abbas on core issues
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0WTTkk.5qRGuGEANR3QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHZkMjZyBHBvcwMxBHNlYwNzcg—/SIG=14bej32d6/EXP=1185298366/**http%3a//www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2007/07/23/israel_inches_closer_to_talks_with_abbas_on_core_issues
Palestinian gunmen storm Fatah offices in Gaza
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23445298.htm
Hezbollah says didn’t confirm Israeli captives alive
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2335561220070723?rpc=401&;
Syria threatened to fight in Lebanon war-Hezbollah
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23881673.htm
(North Africa) Al-Qaida in North Africa threatens of new attacks in Internet statement — Plans violent
campaign against “infidels” & government forces
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/23/africa/ME-GEN-Al-Qaida-North-Africa.php
Turkey vote: AKP win ‘a victory for Islam’ says Hamas
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=1.0.1133556981
Tajikistan Detains Seven IMU Suspects - Suspected members of banned Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan detained
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/7/208ED324-FBAD-49C7-A074-49B6676A4D50.html
(USA) Improving emergency communication on hold
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/07/23/improving_emergency_communication_on_hold/6496/
(USA - New Jersey) Webmaster of Islamist Forum Hosted by ISP in New Jersey Explains How Terrorist Attacks Advance Islamic Cause - MEMRI transcript
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD166207
US regulator suspends listing firms active in ‘terrorist’ - included companies like HSBC Holdings,
Unilever PLC, BP PLC, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Total, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Baker
Hughes, Marathon Oil and Mastercard.
http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&articleid=6204955&subject=companies&action=article
Somalia: Ethiopian Troops Raid a Hospital And Apprehend Suspected Insurgents
http://allafrica.com/stories/200707230023.html
(Somalia) Violence Kills Three Soldiers, Four Civilians in Somali Capital
http://allafrica.com/stories/200707230579.html
Sri Lanka Tigers run multi-million dollar empire-report
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23559541.htm
Nepal Maoists threaten to quit government
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL180966.htm
Commentary: What is Missing in the Current Debate on Islam
http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/225/what-is-missing-in-the-current-debate-on-islam.com
OUTRAGEOUSLY HORRIFIC, FOR SURE.
But certainly well within expectations. Timing has long been the only uncertainty . . . more or less.
Border Patrol nabs suspected MS-13 gang member
http://www.lcsun-news.com/news/ci_6423888
http://www.lcsun-news.com/news/ci_6423888
Border Patrol nabs suspected MS-13 gang member(12:49 p.m.)
Sun News Report
Article Launched: 07/20/2007 12:58:44 PM MDT
LAS CRUCES Customs and Border Patrol agents in New Mexico netted more
than
700 pounds of marijuana and nabbed a member of the international MS-13
gang
this week.
On Wednesday evening, Border Patrol agents followed footprints three
miles
south of NM Highway 9 when they encountered six individuals in the
desert
with five large bundles of marijuana. During the course of the arrest,
agents discovered that one of the members of the group, a 30-year-old
male
from Chihuahua, Mexico, is a member of the street gang, Mara
Salvatrucha
(MS-13). Agents also found .22 caliber ammunition hidden in a backpack
belonging to one of the suspected smugglers.
Agents seized 224 pounds of marijuana valued at $179,216, and turned
the
narcotics and subjects over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Thursday, agents discovered another eight bundles of marijuana
abandoned in
the same area. That load of contraband, weighing 206 pounds, is valued
at
$165,136.
The seizure came after another Thursday incident near Las Cruces.
Border
Patrol agents at the I-25 Border Patrol traffic checkpoint encountered
a
29-year-old female from Colorado who was driving a 2000 Chevrolet van.
The
driver displayed unusual mannerisms which generated suspicion. A Border
Patrol canine was summoned and alerted agents to the vehicle.
Agents searched the vehicle and discovered a hidden compartment
concealing
133 bundles of marijuana. Agents arrested the driver and seized the
drugs
valued at $230,000. Agents transferred custody of the driver, van, and
drugs
to the DEA.
Russia Calls Evidence in Poison Case Inadequate
Official Slams British Extradition Request
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 24, 2007; Page A11
MOSCOW, July 23 — A British legal request for the extradition of murder suspect Andrei Lugovoy was based on a flawed, politicized investigation, a senior Russian prosecutor said Monday.
“There is no evidence in the materials provided by Britain that there was an objective investigation” of the murder case by Scotland Yard, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev told reporters here. “The Russian side has more grounds to doubt the objectivity of the British justice
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072301597.html
Russian defense lawyers in hazardous profession
Reuters
Monday, July 23, 2007
By Christian Lowe
Viktor Parshutkin knows the occupational hazards of being a Russian
defense lawyer: long hours, stress, and the risk of imprisonment in a jail
so overcrowded the inmates have to sleep in shifts.
Parshutkin, 47, was held for three years in Moscow’s notorious Butyrka
prison while he awaited trial on charges — eventually dropped —
linked to a case in which he was defending a couple against the Russian
adoption authorities.
He and fellow lawyers allege that not only does the Russian state
manipulate the justice system to go after its opponents but it also
persecutes lawyers hired to defend those opponents in court.
“Any lawyer who does not cut a deal with the authorities, and defends
his client’s interests on the basis of the law, will one or another way
be subject to persecution,” said Parshutkin.
In the latest high-profile case, the state security service has charged
Boris Kuznetsov, a lawyer defending a member of parliament from
charges of corruption, with disclosing state secrets. The lawyer says he is
the victim of an official vendetta and has fled the country.
But that is not an isolated incident. Dozens of others have been
subject to criminal prosecution or had to fight off official applications to
strip them of their right to practice.
“Lawyers ... are viewed as fair game,” said Robert Amsterdam, who has
been barred from entering Russia over his role as part of the legal team
for jailed tycoon and Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
“Any professional groups that are independent and outside the control
of the authorities in (President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia are viewed as
a threat,” said Amsterdam.
TENUOUS
Reuters sent a written request to Russian prosecutors for comment on
allegations lawyers were being unfairly targeted, but they offered no
comment.
Some of the accusations leveled against Russian lawyers can seem
tenuous. Kseniya Kostromina was part of a team of four lawyers defending
Alexei Pichugin, head of security for Khodorkovsky, from murder charges.
She and two other lawyers missed a hearing because she had to appear
before the Constitutional court and the others were ill. They sent their
apologies, but a judge applied to have them disbarred.
The application was turned down. “It seems that they were ... trying to
frighten us,” said Kostromina.
Prosecutors also applied to the Moscow Bar Association to have Karina
Moskalenko, a senior member of the Khordorkovsky defense team, stripped
of her right to practice as a lawyer.
The grounds for the complaint was that she had not applied to see
Khodorkovsky in his Siberian prison.
But she said other members of the defense team were visiting him there,
while she was preparing his application to the European Court of Human
Rights in Strasbourg. “This is a game to deprive him of his lawyers,”
she said.
Moskalenko said the Russian authorities were undermining a central
principle of justice: that defendants are entitled to a competent defense.
“Across the whole world it is well known that lawyers who are carrying
out their professional activities cannot be subjected to pressure,” she
said. “But it seems to me that today’s Russian authorizes are not
driven by logic.”
Other lawyers said the practice of targeting lawyers was already having
a damaging effect on Russian justice.
“When a lawyer is afraid of unpleasantness, he tones down his defense,
he steps back,” said Parshutkin. “We see this left right and centre in
Russia. There are very few lawyers who are prepared to give their
clients a worthy defense.”
url is unknown.
20 suspects detained in attack on nuclear demonstrators in Russia
The Associated PressPublished: July 23, 2007
MOSCOW: Russian authorities have detained 20 suspects in an attack on a camp of anti-nuclear protesters in Siberia that left one environmentalist dead and seven injured, police said Monday.
Two of those detainees have been charged with premeditated infliction of bodily harm leading to death, German Strublin, the Irkutsk regional police spokesman, told The Associated Press. Authorities have not decided whether to charge the others, he said.
Witnesses said the attackers were dressed in dark clothes, wielded metal pipes and shouted nationalist slogans Saturday as they rampaged through a camp in a forest near the city of Angarsk, about 4,200 kilometers (2,600 miles) east of Moscow.
Strublin said that police believe the attack may have been triggered by a personal argument between one of the environmentalists and one of the attackers. They do not believe it was linked to the protest, he said.
The 21 environmentalists were protesting over a chemical plant outside Angarsk, which processes uranium for the nuclear power industry. Activists charge that Russia plans to become a center for processing and storing spent fuel from abroad, and that the Angarsk plant could be part of the lucrative business.
Police said earlier that the attackers were young people, including the unemployed and students.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/23/europe/EU-GEN-Russia-Demonstrator-Killed.php
The more games Russia plays over this investigation, the more it appears that Putin ordered the death and several others..........
See my post after yours..........
LA mother, daughter baffled by thallium poisoning in Russia
The Associated PressPublished: July 22, 2007
LOS ANGELES: Two American women poisoned by thallium during a trip to Russia this year say they have no idea why they were targeted.
“Either someone wanted us dead or somebody messed up,” Yana Kovalevsky told the Los Angeles Times.
“We have no political ties, we have no property in Russia and I don’t have a boyfriend with mob ties,” she told the newspaper.
Kovalesvsky, 27, and her mother, Dr. Marina Kovalevsky, 50, became ill in February and were hospitalized in Moscow before returning home to Los Angeles. They were discharged from an L.A. hospital in March after their thallium levels decreased with treatment.
Their ordeal made worldwide headlines in part because it was reported just three months after Alexander Litvinenko — a Kremlin critic with asylum in Britain — died Nov. 23 after ingesting a rare radioactive isotope. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, blamed Putin from his deathbed.
The women were born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States in 1989. Marina Kovalevsky has a medical practice in Los Angeles. Her daughter is a social worker.
It remains unknown how they came to ingest the tiny, but potentially lethal amounts, of the heavy metal. Among the other unanswered questions is who targeted them and why.
They and their doctors believe the poisoning was intentional.
In the past, thallium had been used in rat poison, until its toxicity to humans prompted most countries to ban it. One gram is enough to kill a person and lesser amounts can damage the heart, brain, spinal cord and lungs.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/22/america/NA-GEN-US-Russia-Americans-Poisoned.php
Check the links in post 1752 of this thread, it will show you the new Russian Youths, that Putin formed and supports.
They show up at any protest that is against putin or russia.
Ping to Davey’s post 1826.
I remember when this happened, they barely got the Mother back to the U.S. safely.
I think they took American medicine there to treat her, her brother, as my memory goes.
Thanks to Milford421 for this report:
Topeka Police Blow Up Suspicious Package
http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/8632732.html
Man In Custody After Topeka Police Blow Up Suspicious Package
Posted: 6:37 PM Jul 20, 2007
Last Updated: 9:13 AM Jul 21, 2007
Reporter: Lindsay Shively
Email Address: Lindsay.Shively@wibw.com
Topeka police have a man in custody who they say is behind a
suspicious package officers blew up in a Topeka neighborhood. 13’s
Lindsay Shively watched it unfold.
Police say it all started before seven this morning, when a
frightened woman saw the package in her driveway.
The morning quiet on Eighth and Oakley was anything but peaceful.
“I came home today from work and it’s like, ‘no, you can’t pull in
your driveway,” Neighbors explained.”They told me to get back in the
house.”
Police say the woman living here called police after finding a
suspicious package in her driveway again. “This is the second bomb
threat.”
Two weeks ago, police detonated another suspicious package at the
same address. “There is a history of domestic situations here so it
was left by one of the people involved in that,” says Sgt. J.P.
Anguino.
“From what I hear from neighbors, it’s a psycho boyfriend. He’s been
throwing nails in her driveway and stalking her,” one neighbor said.
Before getting close, police x-rayed the package with a robot.
Another neighbor witnessed this. “I looked down there and tried to
see what was going on and saw that little robot down there, so i
figured it was the same thing that happened a few weeks ago.”
And by 9:00 a.m. they decided nearby neighbors needed to
get out. “They were evacuating everyone, it’s kinda scary.” All
neighbors could do was watch and wait.
Twila Caballero has watched a lot since she moved in three weeks
ago. “It’s like, ok is my house gonna blow up? Can i go home?” Frank
Honn says it’s been mostly quiet for the past 28 years. “We haven’t
really had any problems since I’ve been here.”
Police picked up the man involved in the other disputes here for
questioning. And then, just before eleven, police blew up the
package. They say it was full of what they called personal affects.
13 News later learned the package contained compact discs and
slippers.
But bomb or not, neighbors hope this was the last time. “I don’t
know, I just hope they get the guy, because it’s getting out of
control here.”
Police haven’t released the suspect’s name but say he is now in
custody for violating a “protection from abuse” order. They say
they’re still investigating today’s incident.
“Smoking” can
Date: Mon 23 Jul 2007
Source: Forbes, Associated Press report [edited]
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/23/ap3941422.html
Castleberry’s Food Company has closed its production facility in
Augusta, Georgia, after 16 cans of chili sauce tested positive for
botulism over the weekend [21-22 Jul 2007], company officials said
Mon 23 Jul 2007. In addition, the company has hired an outside firm
to visit more than 8500 retailers around the country in an effort to
quickly get recalled products off store shelves.
So far, 4 cases of botulism have been reported — 2 from Indiana and
2 from Texas. All 4 people consumed Hot Dog Chili Sauce Original, a
product made by Castleberry’s.
On Sat 21 Jul 2007, Castleberry’s expanded its recall of canned meat
products that may be connected to a botulism outbreak. It recalled
more than 80 types of canned chili, beef stew, corned beef hash, and
other meat products in addition to the 10 brands it had recalled 19 Jul
2007.
Company officials said they were working closely with the FDA (US
Food & Drug Administration) and the USDA (US Department of
Agriculture) to determine just how widespread the problem is, but
they could not provide information about what quantity of the
products in question are still on store shelves.
“So that we can devote all available resources to this investigation,
we agreed to shut down our entire facility in Augusta. We will not
process any more food there until the FDA and the USDA agree it is
appropriate to reopen,” said Dave Melbourne, senior vice president
for Castleberry’s. “And, we have stopped all further product
distribution from our centers.”
Typically, commercially canned foods are heated long enough and to
high enough temperatures to kill the spores. Melbourne confirmed that
the botulism occurred in the chili sauce because the product was
undercooked. Out of caution, the company decided to recall all other
products produced on that particular production line.
[Byline: Kevin Freking]
—
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail
promed@promedmail.org
[This is the 1st posting of the thread to document a “smoking” can.
That is, the disease agent directly isolated from the implicated
product. - Mod.LL]
******
[2] Markedly expanded recall including dog food
Date: Sat 21 Jul 2007
Source: US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) News [edited]
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01670.html
The FDA is expanding its 18 Jul 2007 warning to consumers. This
expansion is for consumers and pet owners regarding canned food
products and dog food produced by Castleberry Food Company of
Augusta, GA, due to the risk of botulinum toxin. Castleberry is
expanding the recall to include all of the following canned products
with all “best by” and code dates, and FDA is warning consumers not
to purchase or eat any of the canned products listed in the table
below.
Hot Dog Chili Sauces / Size / UPC Codes
Natural Balance Eatables dog food varieties
The agency is expanding its warning based in part on FDA test results
and information obtained during a joint FDA and USDA inspection of
the Castleberry’s facility in Augusta, GA.
Exposure to botulinum toxin can be fatal and 2 people in Texas and 2
people in Indiana remain seriously ill and hospitalized with botulism
poisoning associated with eating Castleberry’s Hot Dog Chili Sauce.
While the previous recall and the known illnesses are linked to
production dates of 30 Apr to 22 May 2007, the firm has extended the
recall to include all products listed irrespective of “best by” date.
The firm is cooperating with FDA in the recall of these products and
has ceased processing and distribution.
In addition, Castleberry is recalling other products containing meat,
which are regulated by the USDA. USDA is also warning the public not
to eat certain brands of Castleberry products containing meat. The
list of these USDA-regulated products can be viewed at this link to
the USDA website
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/Recall_033_2007_expanded/index.asp
Consumers who have any of these products or any foods made with these
products should throw them away immediately. Double bag the cans in
plastic bags that are tightly closed then place in a trash receptacle
for non-recyclable trash outside of the home. Additional instructions
for safe disposal can be found at
www.cdc.gov/botulism/botulism_faq.htm
The disease has only been seen occasionally in dogs and has not been
reported in cats. Ferrets are highly susceptible to botulinum toxin.
The incubation period can be 2 hours to 2 weeks; in most cases, the
symptoms appear after 12 to 24 hours. Botulism is characterized by
progressive motor paralysis. Typical clinical signs may include
muscle paralysis, difficulty breathing, chewing, and swallowing;
visual disturbances and generalized weakness may also occur. Death
usually results from paralysis of the respiratory or cardiac muscles.
Pet owners who have used these products and whose pets have these
symptoms should contact their veterinarian immediately. At this time
we are not aware of pet illnesses associated with these products
although we recommend that all these products be discarded.
—
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail
promed@promedmail.org
[The serotype of the botulinum neurotoxin is still not stated. This
moderator is impressed by the number of meat products on the expanded
recall list, and that dog food is produced, apparently, on the same
product assembly line. The unedited list of other recalled food, in
alphabetical order based on the 25 brand names (all produced however
by Castleberry’s) follows:
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Austex Beef Stew.”
15- and 19-oz cans of “Austex Chili With Beans.”
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Austex Chili No Beans.”
12-pack of 19-oz cans of “Austex Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Best Yet Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Best Yet Corned Beef Hash.”
15-oz cans of “Big Y Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Big Y Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Big Y Corned Beef Hash.”
15-oz cans of “Black Rock Chili With Beans.”
24-pack of 10-oz cans of “Bryan Hot Dog Chili Sauce.”
24-pack of 15-oz cans of “Bryan Corned Beef Hash.”
24-pack of 10-oz cans of “Bryan Chili No Beans.”
24-pack of 15-oz cans of “Bryan Chili No Beans.”
24-pack of 15-oz cans of “Bryan Chili With Beans.”
10-oz cans of “Bunker Hill Chili No Beans.”
10-oz cans of “Bunker Hill Chunky Chili No Beans.”
10-oz cans of “Castle Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Beef Stew.”
15-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Brunswick Stew.”
10-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Bunker Hill, Original Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Chili With Beans.”
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Corned Beef Hash.”
10-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Hickory Smoked, Oven Roasted, With
Skins, Barbecue Pork in BBQ Sauce.”
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Hot Chili With Beans.”
10- and 14.5-oz cans of “Castleberry’s BBQ Pork.”
10-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Sausage Gravy.”
10-oz cans of “Castleberry’s Chip Beef Gravy.”
15-oz cans of “Cattle Drive Beef Stew.”
15-oz cans of “Cattle Drive Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Cattle Drive Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Cattle Drive Chili With Beans.”
8-pack of 15-oz cans of “Cattle Drive Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Cattle Drive Chicken Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Firefighter Chicken Chili.”
15-oz cans of “Firefighter Chicken Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Firefighter Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Firefighter Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Food Club Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Food Club Corned Beef Hash.”
15-oz cans of “Georgia Hash.”
10- and 15-oz cans of “Goldstar Chili.”
15-oz cans of “Goldstar Tex Mex Chili.”
15-oz cans of “Great Value Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Great Value Hot Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Kroger Beef Stew.”
15-oz cans of “Kroger Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Kroger Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Lowes Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Lowes Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Lowes Corn Beef Hash.”
15-oz cans of “Meijer Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Meijer Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Meijer Corned Beef Hash.”
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Morton House Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Morton House Corned Beef Hash.”
10- and 15-oz cans of “Paramount Hot Dog Chili Sauce.”
15-oz cans of “Paramount Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Paramount Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Piggly Wiggly Chili With Beans.”
10- and 15-oz cans of “Piggly Wiggly Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Piggly Wiggly Corned Beef Hash.”
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Prudence Corned Beef Hash.”
15-oz cans of “Southern Home Chili With Beans.”
10- and 15-oz cans of “Southern Home Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Southern Home Corned Beef Hash.”
10-oz cans of “Steak N Shake Chili.”
15-oz cans of “Thrifty Maid Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Thrifty Maid Corned Beef Hash.”
15-oz cans of “Triple Bar Chili With Beans.”
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Triple Bar Chili With Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Triple Bar Chili No Beans.”
12-pack of 15-oz cans of “Triple Bar Chili No Beans.”
15-oz cans of “Value Time Chili With Beans.”
Each can label or can end bears the establishment number “EST.195”
inside the USDA seal of inspection. The canned meat products were
distributed nationwide. - Mod. LL]
Guatemala and Costa Rica: In and Out of CAFTA
By Umberto Mazzei
After nearly a year in CAFTA’s orbit, the same traditional exports as always are growing, outside of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The message is overwhelming: the country “sacrificed” itself to the Free Trade Agreement with the United States for nothing. The CAFTA model, pushing the Central American economy toward the export of non-traditional goods to the United States, has been a pretext for imposing expensive foreign pharmaceuticals as opposed to cheap, national generic drugs, overwhelming the peasant farmer with subsidized imports, and granting extra-territorial jurisdiction to foreign companies.
All indicates that the privileged share in an FTA with the United States is more a hindrance than a help.
Umberto Mazzei is a Doctor of Political Science from the University of Florence. He has been Professor of International Economics in universities in Colombia, Venezuela, and Guatemala. He is director of the Institute of International Economic Relations in Geneva (www.ventanaglobal.info) and member of the Mesa Global coalition in Guatemala and a trade analyst for the Americas Program t www.americaspolicy.org. Translated by Charlotte Elmitt.
See full article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4408
http://ww4report.com/node/1898
The Mystery of Plum Island: Nazis, Ticks and Weapons of Mass Infection
by Mark Sanborne
In Part 2 of this series, which ran in our February issue, journalist and researcher Mark Sanborne looked back at how the US, which now hypes the threat of “bio-terrorism” to justify gutting the Biological Weapons Convention, has actually spearheaded the development of biological weapons—and their use against civilian populations. In this new installment, Sanborne explores the possibility that unusual outbreaks of exotic diseases within the United States have been linked to the Pentagon’s bio-warfare experiments—including some overseen by former Nazis. The closing installments will explore the survival of the secretive Cold War biowar apparatus in both the US and Russia, and its links to the new wave of biological threats.
If covert elements of the U.S. government have indeed been bombarding Cuba for over four decades with diseases aimed primarily at animals and crops, as discussed in Part 2 of this series, where might such bioagents have been developed? One likely suspect is Plum Island, the site where, during the early years of the Cold War, germs and viruses that could be used to wipe out Soviet livestock were cultivated.
Located less than two miles off the North Fork of Long Island and only six miles from Connecticut, the 840-acre Plum Island Animal Disease Center was established after World War II. Initially run by the Army, the facility was put under nominal control of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the 1950s.
The PIADC was dubbed “the safest lab in the world” and tasked with studying diseases that could threaten the nation’s livestock—which it did, effectively. But from the beginning Plum Island also played a key role in the U.S. biowarfare program and shared close ties with Fort Detrick, MD, the Army’s biowar HQ.
This long-suspected nexus was confirmed in Cold War records declassified in 1993. According to the documents, when calling for a major biowarfare test in the early 1950s, the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated: “Steps should be taken to make certain adequate facilities are available, including those at Fort Detrick, Dugway Proving Ground [Utah], Fort Terry [Plum Island] and an island testing area.” (”Plum Island’s shadowy past: Once-secret documents reveal lab’s mission was germ warfare,” Newsday, Nov. 21, 1993.)
“In many cases there were only maybe five people who knew what was going on in weapons research [at Plum Island]. People in one lab didn’t know what happened in the next lab, and they didn’t ask,” said Norman Covert, the aptly named base historian at Fort Detrick.
AGAIN WITH THE NAZIS?
And just to make it officially nefarious: it turns out Plum Island has Nazi connections. Former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor and Nazi-hunter John Loftus wrote his 1982 book The Belarus Secret: “Even more disturbing are the records of the Nazi germ warfare scientists who came to America. They experimented with poison ticks dropped from planes to spread rare diseases. I have received some information suggesting that the U.S. tested some of these poison ticks on the Plum Island artillery range off the coast of Connecticut during the early 1950s... Most of the germ warfare records have been shredded, but there is a top secret U.S. document confirming that ‘clandestine attacks on crops and animals’ took place at this time.”
More recently, other details emerged in Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory by Long Island lawyer Michael Christopher Carroll, who spent six years researching the topic. His explosive book actually prompted a lengthy article in the New York Times (”Heaping More Dirt on Plum Island,” Feb. 15, 2004). Though meant as a debunking—aside from Carroll, all seven people interviewed were critics or skeptics—in the Times’ perverse tradition, a lot of interesting information was revealed to its mainstream readers. But not all of the establishment took the party line: Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo endorsed the book as “brilliant” and a “carefully researched, chilling expose of potential catastrophe.”
Most of the controversy centered around Carroll’s informed speculation that Plum Island may have been the source of a series of epidemics over the decades: outbreaks of Dutch duck plague that almost wiped out Long Island’s duck industry in the 1960s, the insidious appearance and spread of Lyme disease in the 1970s and 1980s, a mystery infection that killed most of the Long Island Sound’s lobsters in 1999, and in the same year the arrival of West Nile virus in the New York metropolitan area, which claimed a number of lives and prompted authorities to repeatedly spray the city with malathion. Allaying potential public fears over such verboten ideas was a main reason the Times devoted so many inches of newsprint to damage control; the article mentioned the Nazi angle only in passing.
It turns out that the spiritual godfather of Plum Island was one Dr. Erich Traub, a Nazi scientist with a fascinating history, according to Carroll’s well-documented account. He spent the pre-war years in a scientific fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute in Princeton, N.J., studying bacteriology and virology, while still finding time to hang out at Camp Sigfried, headquarters of the American Nazi movement in Yaphank, Long Island, 30 miles west of Plum Island. He then took his laboratory skills back to Germany where he eventually became chief of Insel Riems, the Nazi’s secret biological warfare lab located on an island in the Baltic, supervising the testing of germ and viral sprays over occupied Russia, targeting cattle and reindeer, while reporting directly to Heinrich Himmler.
After the war Traub worked briefly for the Soviets before escaping into the embrace of Operation Paperclip, Washington’s covert employment program for useful Nazi scientists. As Werner von Braun was to rockets, Traub was to germs: He promptly went to work for the Naval Medical Research Institute and gave operational advice to the CIA and the biowarriors at Fort Detrick. Indeed, his detailed description of his work at Insel Riems probably helped inspire the selection of Plum Island by the Army: both the German and U.S. facilities were situated on islands where the prevailing winds blew (mostly) out to sea.
VECTOR ANALYSIS
Despite his exceedingly questionable history, Dr. Traub in fact was twice asked to be director of Plum Island, including by the USDA. He declined, but was known to have paid at least several official visits there. He may very well have been one of the Nazi scientists cited by Loftus who supervised the dropping of infected ticks from planes. Which brings us to the question of vectors.
In the context of biowarfare and infectious disease generally, a vector is an organism or agent that carries pathogens from one host to another. To attack an enemy’s agriculture system, such intermediary vectors aren’t always needed: It’s often enough to covertly disperse a pathogen directly on part of a crop and allow the infection to spread from plant to plant, as anti-Castro agents apparently did in Cuba on a number of occasions. (The versatile U.S. attack reportedly has also employed molds, fungi, insect infestations, and other minute pests targeted at specific crops—all of which, of course, had to be grown and tested somewhere first.)
However, it’s not quite so simple to attack animal and human populations, which are not stationary targets. Effective aerial delivery of agents like anthrax or rabbit fever can be affected by wind and weather, and is more likely to be detected as a deliberate attack. (Though if it’s sprayed on an army of protestors on the Washington Mall, a possibility discussed in Part 1 —well, that’s apparently another story.)
On the other hand, employing such vectors as mosquitoes, fleas, lice, and ticks to transmit diseases to targeted populations, while much slower in effect, can spread a greater variety of infections much more widely while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability for the attacker. Thus we should not be surprised that the fruits of Nazi and Imperial Japanese research and development in this ugly field ended up in eager U.S. hands after the war.
RETURN TO CUBA
Which bring us to this: Carroll cites an internal 1978 USDA document titled “African Swine Fever” obtained from an investigation by former Long Island congressman Thomas Downey. It notes that in research at Plum Island 1975 and 1976, “the adult stages of Abylomma americanum and Abylomma cajunense were found to be incapable of harboring and transmitting African swine fever virus.” Translated, that means scientists had tested the Lone Star tick and the Cayenne tick as effective vectors for African swine flu and found them wanting.
A vector is generally thought to be a one-way affair. But while this particular vector test failed, it also seems to point, paradoxically, in two directions at once. One is back, once again, to Cuba. Note that Plum Island’s research on suitable vectors for African swine fever took place midway between unusual outbreaks of that disease in Cuba, in 1971 and 1979-80, as discussed in Part 2. (And recall that its appearance in Cuba was a first in the Western hemisphere.)
Perhaps the U.S. scientists were innocuously testing potential vectors that could spread the exotic flu to America’s pork industry. Or perhaps—considering Plum Island’s longstanding connections to Fort Detrick—the tests were actually designed to find a new vector to transmit the virus once again to Cuba, which coincidentally did suffer another outbreak a few years later. In any event, whatever vector infected Cuba’s pigs with African swine fever in 1971 and 1979, it’s safe to say it wasn’t the Lone Star or Cayenne ticks.
But is that the end of the infected tick story? Unfortunately, no. Because the failed Plum Island vector test also points in another possible direction, right back into the heart of what our political-warrior class now likes to call the Homeland. And rather than riding off ineffectually into the sunset, the Lone Star tick has gone on to a key supporting role in yet another biomystery.
THE PANDEMIC THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME
In 1975, a strange disease broke out in Old Lyme, Connecticut, just 10 miles across Long Island Sound from Plum Island. Often initially characterized by a red rash and swollen joints, it afflicted an original cluster of 50 victims, many of them children, who were at first misdiagnosed as having juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
It turns out that “Lyme disease”—as it came to be called as cases mounted and spread in the years that followed—is a devious, multi-systemic, inflammatory syndrome that mimics other illnesses by encompassing a range of afflictions, including chronic and crippling pain and fatigue that untreated can spread to organs and the central nervous system, causing depression, palsy, memory loss, psychosis, and even encephalitis and death.
Such severe outcomes might surprise many Americans, most of whom have heard of Lyme disease but because of the current lack of media attention probably think it’s no big deal—unless they know someone who suffers from it. Well guess what? With a quarter century behind the outbreak, Lyme is now the most common vector-borne infection in the United States, and the most common tick-born illness in the world. Yes, you heard that right.
After spreading out from “ground zero” in the Long Island Sound area, as of mid-April 2006, a total of 267,779 domestic cases of Lyme in 49 states had been reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Some experts estimate that, due to Lyme’s confusing multiple manifestations, at most only one in 10 cases are recognized and reported to the CDC, so that the total number of victims could be more than 2.68 million. On top of that, a study predicts a one-third increase in the number of cases per year in the U.S. over the 10-year period from 2002 to 2012.
A TICK WITH A HISTORY
So what’s going on? Where did this weird bug—which, leaving aside its suspicious proximity to Plum Island, seemed to emerge from nowhere—supposedly come from? Its history is intriguing. In 1982, National Institutes of Health researcher Dr. Willy Burgdorfer isolated and identified spirochetes (a form of bacteria) of the genus Borrelia from the gut of infected Ixodes scapularis (commonly known as deer ticks) as the etiological agent of Lyme disease. It was dubbed Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), and the good doctor ruefully said of his discovery: “It’s a helluva bug, and I’m sorry my name is on it!”
However, while Burgdorfer was the first to isolate the insidious spirochete (which animal studies suggest in some cases can worm its way deep inside tendons, muscle, the heart and the brain inside a week), earlier incarnations of the disease had been studied in Europe since the late 19th century. By the 1930s, it was known to cause neurological and psychiatric problems and the tiny Ixodes tick was suggested as a vector. By mid-century doctors were using new antibiotic treatments with some success.
But while the disease caused by the Bb bacteria was known in Europe, it did not appear to constitute a major health problem. It was even less of an issue on the other side of the Atlantic: Although Bb and related bacterial strains are thought to have long been present in North America, the only official case reported in the U.S. before the Connecticut outbreak occurred in Wisconsin in 1970, when a hunter became infected from a tick bite.
So what changed in the 1970s to kick-start what has since become a pandemic, both here and in Europe? (Though the P-word is never used in reference to Lyme, as opposed to bird flu, which is still only a potential pandemic.) Or are we to believe that Bb has been infecting people all along but somehow it just wasn’t being noticed? A similar argument has been advanced by apologists for the medical-industrial complex who maintain that the recent explosion of autism was simply the result of better detection and recognition of the condition, rather than being largely caused by mercury-laced vaccines, as many now suspect.
THE INVADERS
Dr. Alan G. Barbour, who worked closely with Burgdorfer in the identification of Bb, co-wrote an article with Durland Fish in 1993 that made an interesting case for how the modern outbreak of Lyme disease may have occurred. They suggested that Bb infections were a fact of life in early American history that went largely unnoticed amid the harshness of frontier life:
“The generally benign nature [!] of acute B. burgdorferi infection relative to the debilitating and fatal effects of diseases plaguing North Americans through the 19th century may have contributed to its obscurity until a cluster of cases of childhood arthritis first brought it to wider attention on this continent. The ecological changes in the northeastern and midwestern United States during this century are responsible for the recent emergence of Lyme disease as a public health problem.”
They argue that mass deforestation of the Northeast due to the clearing of land for agriculture and settlement in the 19th and early 20th century resulted in a collapse of white-tailed deer populations, the primary carriers of the I. scapularis tick, and hence the tick itself became too scarce to infect people with Bb. The authors further theorize that Long Island served as a refuge for relict populations of deer in the area. Then, as land-use patterns changed in the latter half of the 20th century, woodlands and forests recovered in the Northeast, along with deer and deer ticks:
“The invasion by I. scapularis of the increasingly reforested mainland from island refuges initiated the current epidemic of Lyme disease in the Northeast … There is evidence that several independent mainland invasions [mainly from Long Island] by I. scapularis took place, resulting in early Lyme disease foci in central New Jersey, mainland Westchester County, N.Y., southeastern Connecticut, and eastern Massachusetts.”
So science seems clear on the fact that Long Island was the source of the modern outbreak of Lyme disease, but the devil is in the details. The key problem with Barbour and Fish’s scenario is that it treats pre-1975 Long Island like some kind of lost world, an offshore wilderness Eden where remnant deer lived free of human interaction. In fact, the island’s deer population, concentrated in eastern Suffolk County, has long lived close by people, many of whom were certainly exposed to deer tick bites over the years. So why were there no reports of the disease on Long Island in the decades before the outbreak in Connecticut? And why, in the wake of that outbreak across the Sound, did Suffolk County—home of Plum Island—quickly develop one of the highest rates of Lyme disease in the country?
This writer grew up in western Suffolk County in the 1960s and ‘70s, and spent plenty of time exploring the woods, and was bitten by plenty of ticks. But they were the types of tick you can easily see and feel crawling on your skin, and thus usually could be picked off before they began engorging themselves in earnest on one’s blood. Fortunately, there were no deer or deer ticks in my neck of the woods. So it came as quite a shock to learn in the late ‘70s of the sudden existence, just a few dozen miles to the east, of infected ticks that were almost invisible—literally the size of a pinhead—and had the ability to make an unlucky hiker’s life into a living hell. Our tiny friend I. Scapularis is indeed the perfect covert agent: it does its dirty work quickly and disappears before you know it’s there, usually leaving behind a telltale rash and a very questionable prognosis.
WOUND, DON’T KILL
Okay, enough beating around the real and metaphorical bushes. Is there any actual evidence that Lyme disease could be the outcome of biological warfare research at Plum Island that, either accidentally or otherwise, escaped into the outside world? In fact, the evidence seems quite suggestive, especially when compared to the shaky logic of the official story.
Some might ask: Why would biowarriors be interested in studying a disease agent like Borrelia burgdorferi that incapacitates but rarely kills its victims? Actually, for all the attention focused on deadly pathogens like anthrax, plague, and rabbit fever, the biowar establishments of various powers have also long been interested in agents that can slowly stricken and debilitate a civilian population.
The logic is brutally simple: just as a wounded soldier puts more logistical strain on an army than a dead one does, gradually sickening a population places greater economic and social stress on a society than simply killing a limited number of people with a more direct and virulent attack. If the disease agent can be transmitted via a “natural” vector like ticks or mosquitoes, providing plausible deniability, and can confuse medical authorities by presenting a broad array of symptoms that mimic other conditions (Bb, like its more famous relative syphilis, has been called the “Great Imitator”), then so much the better.
Imperial Japan’s infamous Unit 731 biowar outfit, discussed in Part 2, reportedly conducted experiments with the Borelia genus, the results of which likely fell into U.S. hands after the war. However, there is no documentary evidence that indicates Plum Island researchers ever worked with Bb —after all, it is primarily a disease of humans, not animals. On the other hand, if the bacteria were being secretly studied (or worse, “weaponized”) at the lab and introduced to ticks for vector tests, there are any number of ways tick-borne Bb could have escaped to the mainland: from deer—which are able to swim to and from the island—to birds, or even an inadvertently infected lab worker. (Assuming, of course, it wasn’t released on purpose as part of some sinister test.)
Since the Lyme outbreak, scientists claim to have documented the presence of Bb in I. scapularis museum specimens collected in the late 1940s from Shelter Island and other parts of Long Island close by Plum Island. This is presumed to be evidence that the spirochete was pre-existing in the area and was not “engineered” in a lab in the 1970s. But note that the period the tick specimens were collected is suspiciously close to the time when Nazi scientists may have “experimented with poison ticks dropped from planes to spread rare diseases” at Plum Island.
GIVING NATURE A HAND
The question then arises: Are the unusual characteristics of Bb solely the result of natural evolutionary processes, or were they helped along by the hand of man? Speaking more generally, here’s what Col. Oliver Fellowes, a founding father of Plum Island who was transferred from Fort Detrick in 1952, had to say: “We were always looking for a way to camouflage a strain so that it would be so difficult to detect and identify that, by the time the enemy had done so, the disease would have done the damage.” (Unit 731 by Peter Williams and David Wallace, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1989.)
Wait, it gets better. On July 1, 1969, Dr. Donald MacArthur, director of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, testified before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. He had this exchange with Rep. Robert Sikes of Florida:
DR. MACARTHUR: There are two things about the biological agent field I would like to mention. One is the possibility of technology surprise. Molecular biology is a field that is advancing very rapidly and eminent biologists believe that within a period of five to 10 years it would be possible to produce a synthetic biological agent, an agent that does not naturally exist and for which no natural immunity could have been acquired.
REP. SIKES: Are we doing any work in that field?
DR. MACARTHUR: We are not.
REP. SIKES: Why not? Lack of money or lack of interest?
DR. MACARTHUR: Certainly not lack of interest.
MacArthur’s chilling testimony can be seen as the Rosetta Stone of bionoia, and will be discussed in greater detail in a later installment. But we don’t need it for confirmation that something like Lyme disease can be considered a biological warfare agent—we have it straight from the source, namely the U.S. government. On Nov. 15, 2005, the Associated Press reported:
“A new research lab for bioterrorism opened Monday at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The $10.6 million Margaret Batts Tobin Laboratory Building will provide a 22,000-square-foot facility to study such diseases as anthrax, tularemia, cholera, lyme disease, desert valley fever and other parasitic and fungal diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified these diseases as potential bioterrorism agents.”
That, it would seem, makes it official. Among those who took note of this matter-of-fact admission was Dr. Virginia Sherr, who, in a letter to the editor published Nov. 22, 2005 in the online edition of the Lancet medical journal, wrote:
“[The] concern is the overriding significance of an invisibilized but nonetheless serious infection caused by an extraordinarily complex neurotropic spirochete. Its pandemic is approaching severity that was experienced throughout the world in the Spanish Flu of 1918. The causative spirochete is, of course, less immediately fatal than was the virus of that epidemic, but it is deadly, nonetheless, to the human brain. The fact that the causative spirochete, B. burgdorferi, is being studied as an agent of biowarfare in the USA adds impetus to a need for quick education of most of the world’s academic physicians as to what has been sensed at the clinical level for a long time: we are dealing here with a formidable ‘smart stealth’ type of bacteria that is hard to eradicate—one that does extreme damage to psyche and soma if not treated aggressively over the long term when missed in the first days following inoculation by the vector... Organized Medicine has mostly ignored or deserted the field of neuro-Lyme’s currently immense proportions, internationally.”
THE REVENGE OF TEXAS
Whither Plum Island? According an Aug. 28, 2005, story in Newsday, “Plum Island’s Future Up In The Air,” the federal government plans to replace the existing facility on the island with a more secure one or relocate to a higher-security level research lab elsewhere by 2011. “The Plum Island facility was built in the 1950s and is nearing the end of its life cycle,” according to the Deptartment of Homeland Security. Glad to hear those guys are on the case.
Ah, but what about the Lone Star tick and its failed vector test back in 1975? Aside from that curious coincidence with Cuba, the documented research also appears to have something to say about events much closer to home. It demonstrates that Plum Island researchers were infecting Abylomma americanum with various bioagents to see if they could be successfully vectored to other species. (In this case pigs, but swine are often used as stand-ins for humans in medical experiments.)
That is a matter of some interest because, while the I. Scapularis deer tick is the major vector for Lyme disease in the Northeast, the Lone Star tick has also been found to be a carrier of spirochetes. There is some debate about whether A. americanum can transmit Bb to humans. Researchers say the tick carries a slightly different bacteria that they’ve dubbed Borrelia lonestari, which may or may not cause a “new” Lyme-related ailment called Masters disease, identified in 1991 in Missouri.
The fact that two different ticks carry their own versions of an unusual spirochete bio-agent is suspicious enough—designer bugs, perhaps? (Check out this unintentional smoking gun in Barbour and Fish’s article: “The presence of spirochetes similar to B. burgdorferi in A. americanum in areas where competent vectors are absent is inexplicable.”) But here’s the real kicker: The Lone Star is a warm-weather tick that is prevalent in the Southeast and until recently was mostly unknown in the colder Northeast. Now it has reached as far north as—you guessed it—Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. (Though perhaps the word should not be “reached” but “released.”)
A. americanum now makes up 5% of the overall tick population in the region, though there are greater concentrations in some areas than others. (Researchers combing the woods in New Jersey have found 2,000 to 3,000 Lone Star ticks within one hour.) When did these little devils start being noticed up here in large numbers? Yup: In the wake of the outbreak of Lyme disease—though there are reports that the initial invaders may have “arrived” as far back as the 1950s, just as things were getting underway at Plum Island.
And yes, Abylomma americanum, as it’s nickname suggests, has a special association with the Lone Star State. Another import from Texas that the rest of the country probably could have done without.
RESOURCES:
Lyme Disease Foundation
http://www.lyme.org/
“The Biological and Social Phenomenon of Lyme Disease,” Barbour and Fish, Association for the Advancement of Science, June 1993
http://info.med.yale.edu/eph/vectorbio/fish/BarbourFish.pdf
Dr. Donald MacArthur, Congressional testimony, July 1, 1969
http://panindigan.tripod.com/aidsdodhear.html
See also:
“Bionoia,” Pt. 2, WW4 REPORT #118
Posted on AntiMullah
cheers,
Wild and wicked if one believes this one.
They are so worried about the Nazi doing the experiments, if so they are 100 years old or more, must have better minds than mine.
I don’t know what to believe and what is hype in this one.
No doubt we have had many experiments, but I do not think that we have been sending them to Cuba for 40 years, I would say that Cuba has sent them to us.
No doubt, that more than one experiment had invected things get loose and also travel out of the lab, by accident or on purpose.
Thanks for posting it here, gives one something to think about.
Borujerdi belongs to the “quiestist” school of Shia Islam, which rejects the role of Islam in government.
Associates say he has received support from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq, and from Grand Ayatollah Sadegh Rouhani, who has been under house arrest in Qom, Iran since 1986 for similarly rejecting the authority of the Islamic regime.<<<
Is Borujerdi the reason the terrorists in Iraq are attempting to kill
Sistani in Iraq.
I was glad to find Borujerdi is still alive.
from:
There are several here that we should all read, tell Alan it is an exceptional page tonight.
A Toast to the Fallen, has been picked up and is at the top of the Anti Mullah website.
Thank you to Fars for alerting Alan Peters to your post.
Fars, did you see the recipe for a hero’s punch bowl?
See post 1818.
There are several subjects on the AntiMullah site that you will want to take the time to read, with more info than we have had.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
FOR THOSE WHO TURN TO TRITA PARSI - BE AWARE
Robert William (Bob) Ney is a current federal prisoner and a former Ohio Congressman from 1995 until November 3, 2006.
On October 13, 2006 Ney pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Jack Abramoff lobbying and bribery scandal.
Ney reportedly received bribes from Abramoff, other lobbyists, and two foreign businessmen - a felon and an arms dealer - in exchange for using his position to advance their interests.
Conspicuously missing from this dossier of disservice to the country is Ney’s masterful creation of an active and disguised Washington-based lobbying enterprise for the Iranian theocratic regime, The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC).
NIAC is an effective node of Tehran’s comprehensive US lobbying web.
(Alan Note: reports, indicators, documentation from a wide variety of sources point to Persian language “independent” TV and radio stations throughout the USA and Europe being stronly subsidized by the Islamic Regime of Iran. To a point of some of them depending on this cash in-flow to operate and survive. One document seemingly issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei provides orders to pay an American based Persian language TV station $2,500,000 for its efforts and good performance during the previous year. Indicators, such a clear lack of suffieient advertisers to pay for the cost of satellite fees used by some TV and radio stations send their operations into question and as they do not appear to have “deep pocket” supporters as benefactors, other than invisibly the Islamic Regime of Iran, their true motives and allegiances are put to great doubt.
Continues with much more info.................
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