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America's intelligence agencies are struggling with a major hurdle in the war on terrorism, it was reported yesterday: they cannot agree how to spell Arab names.They are having trouble tracking terrorist suspects, as non-Arabic speaking agents convert Arabic names into English, using any one of dozens of competing spelling systems.One CIA agent reported finding more than 60 versions of the name of Libya's ruler, Muammar Gaddafi, on one computer database.Ageing databases have been thrown by the inability to search different spellings of the same name, such as Mohamed or Muhammed.The FBI director, Robert Mueller, last month admitted to the Senate...

A teenage girl was gang-raped in central Pakistan last month as "punishment" meted out by a tribal jury for her brother's alleged affair with a woman of a higher tribe, police said. A Panchayat, or tribal jury, ordered four men, including one of the jurists, to rape the 18-year-old girl on June 22 in the village of Meerwala. Meerwala lies 610 kilometres south-west of the capital Islamabad. District police chief Malik Saeed Awan said authorities were informed of the publicly-ordered gang-rape several days after the incident. He said four men took turns to sexually assault the girl inside a room....

The head of Afghan television was refusing to leave his post yesterday after he was sacked for banning women from the airwaves.Abdul Hafiz Mansoor, the president of Kabul TV and Radio, tore up an order by Sayed Makhdoom Raheen, the information minister, and refused to move out of his office.He has banned the female singing voice from Kabul's broadcast media, although Afghanistan's second city of Kandahar imposes no such restriction.Mr Mansoor said yesterday that he would give up his post only if ordered to do so by President Hamid Karzai. "I did not receive any orders from Karzai to step...

The most important collection of Lord Nelson memorabilia to be discovered for more than a century, including the bloodstained silk purse that was in his pocket at the Battle of Trafalgar, has been found during a routine insurance valuation.The archive, which had been missing for about 170 years, also includes scores of letters from his wife, Lady Nelson, and his mistress, Lady Hamilton, which throw new light on the women's battle to win the love of Britain's greatest admiral.The collection was discovered by Martyn Downer, a jewellery expert at Sotheby's, while he was carrying out routine valuation work. A diamond...

Two hundred twenty-seven years ago, British troops advanced on Concord to confiscate their arms. As we know, at the North Bridge, the embattled farmers stood to defend their freedoms and drove the British aggressors back to their fort in Boston. More than three years ago, Concord Police Officers illegally searched the home of Concord resident Alec S. Costerus and unlawfully seized his firearms. Costerus has battled the injustice ever since. Costerus filed a petition today to the nation's highest court in his bid to have Massachusetts' discretionary gun law declared unconstitutional. Massachusetts enacted its current gun control law in 1998....

Also see the new Expedient Shelter Book. Requires the DjVu plugin.   NWSS Contents CoverEdition Notes Table of Contents Book Order FormForewordAbout the AuthorAcknowledgmentsIntroductionCh. 1: The Dangers...Ch. 2: Warnings an...Ch. 3: Psychologic...Ch. 4: EvacuationCh. 5: Shelter, th...Ch. 6: Ventilation...Ch. 7: Protection ...Ch. 8: WaterCh. 9: FoodCh. 10: Fallout Ra...Ch. 11: LightCh. 12: Shelter Sa...Ch. 13: Surviving ...Ch. 14: Expedient ...Ch. 15: Improvised...Ch. 16: Minimum Pr...Ch. 17: Permanent ...Ch. 18: Trans-Paci...App. A: Instructio...App. A.1: Door-Cov...App. A.2: Pole-Cov...App. A.3: Small-Po...App. A.4: Abovegro...App. A.5: Abovegro...App. A.6: Above gr...App. B: How to Mak...App. C: A Homemade...App. D: Expedient ...App. E: How to Mak...App....

Al-Qaeda's Links in the Balkans By Jamie Dettmer Since Sept. 11 the U.S. intelligence services have been working hard to uncover links between Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network and other Islamic groups throughout the world. And the Bush administration has not been slow to advertise connections once discovered or to demand cooperation from local authorities in order to disrupt the links. According to President George W. Bush, the war on terror should be seamless and Washington expects all countries to assist in fighting the scourge of terrorism. In return, Bush has promised the United States will "support and reward...

JAMES LAKELY James Lakely's archive E-mail James Lakely Date published: Mon, 07/01/2002 THE HOPELESSLY LIBERAL judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sure picked a great time to declare the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional—when we are at war, and just a week before the first post-9/11 Fourth of July celebrations that promise to be the most patriotic and heartfelt in a generation. But bad timing—and the near universal screaming and rending of clothing over this decision—doesn’t mean it is necessarily wrong. Granted, whenever any decision is handed down by this loony bunch, the proper initial reaction is contempt...

Two and a half centuries ago, our forefathers landed upon the shores of this nation and made a covenant with God. They covenanted in the Mayflower Compact that they would be His people and this land would be a light to the nations. Today this ground that we stand upon is crying out to us. The covenants of our forefathers are crying out to us today to renew them! In 1837, Jonathan Adams stood... Jonathan Quincy Adams stood here and he said, "Posterity, you will never know the price that my generation has paid for your freedom! I hope you...

 Weekday Commentary from Jim Puplava Home How Much Longer Will John Q. Hold On?S&P 500 Back to Early 1998 Levels Musical Chairs by Jim Puplava6/28 Update Introduce our newFSO Resource PageClyde Harrison Raw Materials: Economics 101Jim RogersWhy Raw Materials?   Nyquist Column 6/24The Coming Attack  Monday's Market Scoreboard  July 1, 2002  Dow Industrials 133.33 9109.93  Dow Utilities 4.78 269.1  Dow Transports 31.79 2699.85  S & P 500 21.17 968.65  Nasdaq 59.38 1403.83  US Dollar to Yen 119.92  US Dollar to Euro .9900  Gold 0.5 314.4  Silver 0.03 4.888  Oil 0.05 26.81  CRB Index 1.05 210.34  Natural Gas 0.05 3.192...

Microsoft’s Freon project is an Xbox, with extras July 1 — Its code name is “Freon,” reflecting the notion that it is the coolest secret project at Microsoft Corp. these days, at least in the eyes of the Xbox video-game division. FREON STANDS FOR is a souped-up successor to the Xbox console — capable of playing games but also offering television capabilities, such as pausing live TV and recording shows onto a computer hard drive, say people familiar with the effort. Though it is unclear whether such a product will ever be built, its core concept appears to have the...

TRIO CON BRIO They don't work together often, but when they do, you can expect the work of Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg and political consultants Bob Shrum and James Carville to be something special for Democrats. And in the case of a recent poll and analysis, their output certainly brought smiles to the faces of people like Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt. That's because the three-headed monster reports that Republicans are highly vulnerable in the 2002 elections. So vulnerable, in fact, that Democrats are in prime position to sweep through statehouses and both houses of Congress. The poll, taken in...

George Steinbrenner wanted outfield help, and he got it Monday. The first-place Yankees have acquired Blue Jays outfielder Raul Mondesi, the team announced. The Yankees have also planned an anouncement for 7 p.m. ET.

Lance Armstrong's excellence, combined with his inspirational comeback from cancer, puts him in the elite class of athletes who transcend their sport. By Bonnie DeSimone Tribune staff reporter June 30, 2002 The most excruciating climbs in the Tour de France--steep, twisting mountain roads that chew up car engines, let alone a cyclist's legs--defy the sport's numerical rating system. They are simply labeled hors categorie, or beyond categorization. As Lance Armstrong readies for his campaign to win a fourth straight Tour, the same tag could be applied to him. The 30-year-old Texan appears to be at the peak of his athletic...

Just flashed on the MSNBC Website. Waiting for more info.

Fox news has an alert about two large aircraft involved in a mid-air crash over germany.

Boeing airliner and another plane collide in air over southern Germany on Drudge nothing more...

The recent 9th Circuit ruling on the words “under God” stirred the country to debate the question of separation of church and state, but what hasn’t been mentioned is the more glaring problem: the failure of the union of school and state. And in light of other court decisions, the future for government schools looks bleaker for students - whether they recite the pledge of allegiance or not.  The history of public or government schools in America shows the success and failure of the private versus government models. From the early colonial period to the revolution, parents had the greatest...

Environmental Protection Administration chief Christine Todd Whitman answers questions during a news conference on air quality near Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Monday, July 1, 2002, near the Tennessee-North Carolina border. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Cuba has been deemed a leading supplier of biological weapons components and technology to so-called rogue states in the Middle East. The United States has determined that Cuba is cooperating with such countries as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya in both biological and chemical weapons. U.S. officials said Libya and Syria, with chemical weapons facilities, are especially interested in advancing their nascent biological weapons programs. Assistant Secretary of State Carl Ford said Cuba both exports and imports weapons of mass destruction technology from Middle East rogue states. He said the United States has evidence of Cuban exports of...