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WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States needs to shift from muscle-flexing to alliance-building when it seeks to wield power in the world if it wants to patch up its battered global image, said a report on Tuesday. "America's reputation, standing and influence are at all-time lows, and possibly sinking further," the report by a 20-member think-tank commissioned by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said, citing half a dozen opinion polls from around the world. "The terrorist attacks on 9/11 caused America to become a frightened and angry nation," it said. "We reacted in ways that alarmed people...

"Mohammad Alavi, who worked at the triple-reactor Palo Verde power plant west of Phoenix, was arrested April 9 at Los Angeles International Airport when he arrived on a flight from Iran, authorities said."

Americans need to start living in the real world instead of the make-believe world portrayed by Hollywood. Presidents cannot completely solve every problem the way the Wizard of Oz supposedly could. President Bush may not be a great president, but he is doing a good job. In Hollywood, the overthrow of a tyrant results in everyone immediately living happily ever after. In the real world, the fall of a tyrant is often followed by the type of situation that currently exists in Iraq. The people of the Middle East have been killing each other for centuries. We cannot expect to...

LONDON - London's Metropolitan Police pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges stemming from the death of a Brazilian man who was shot last year after officers mistook him for a suicide bomber. Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head by Scotland Yard anti-terror officers as he sat aboard a train at a subway station in south London on July 22, 2005. Two weeks earlier, four suicide bombers had attacked London's transit system, killing 52 people. The day before de Menezes was shot, four other men attempted similar attacks that were thwarted. No individual officer was...

An al-Qaida-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were "doomed," as protesters raged across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence. The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified. The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross"...

Canadian police wrongly identified an Ottawa software engineer as an Islamic extremist, prompting U.S. agents to deport him to Syria, where he was tortured, an official inquiry concluded on Monday. Maher Arar, who holds Canadian and Syrian nationality, was arrested in New York in September 2002 and accused of being an al-Qaeda member. In fact, said the judge who led the probe, all the signs point to the fact Arar was innocent. Arar, 36, says he was repeatedly tortured in the year he spent in Damascus jails, and the inquiry agreed that he had been tortured. He was freed in...

Just in. I am looking at a picture of the WTC with smoke pouring out of the western tower. Looks like a huge amount of damage. Debris raining down on people in the street.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, marking five years since the Sept. 11 attacks, said Monday the war against terror is nothing less than "a struggle for civilization" and must be fought to the end. He said defeat would surrender the Middle East to radical dictators with nuclear weapons. "We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations," Bush said in remarks prepared for a prime-time address from the Oval Office. Two months before November elections, the president attempted to spell out in graphic terms the stakes he sees in the unpopular war in Iraq and the broader...

Here are some links from the FR archives in observance of the fifth anniversary of 9/11/2001 - Threads list of several breaking news items - Latest Articles The first post reporting the attacks by OldEconomyBuyer - World Trade Center Posted on the first anniversary - Associated Press newswire - September 11, 2001 - Chronology of news alerts, bulletins and flashes

A group of top classical musicians has warned of the threat to artistic life from a hand baggage ban introduced after police foiled an alleged bomb plot against transatlantic airliners. Many performers refuse to let their instruments, often centuries old and extremely valuable, out of their sight when they travel on planes in case they are damaged in the hold.

CAIRO, Egypt - An American thought to be an al-Qaida activist appeared in a videotape with the terror group's deputy leader Saturday and called on his countrymen to convert to Islam and for U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars. The 48-minute video, posted on an Islamic militant Web site, had footage of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, and of Adam Yehiye Gadahn, a 28-year-old American who the FBI believes attended al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan and served as an al-Qaida translator. It was the second time Gadahn appeared in the same video with al-Zawahri....

UNARMED police were sent to search homes in the airline terror plot - despite a cache of weapons being uncovered in one house. It is thought police chiefs did not want to risk another bungle like the Forest Gate raid or the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes. But a senior intelligence source said: "The decision not to go in with armed officers was dicing with death. What would have happened if the came up against an armed suspect? All 23 arrests in High Wycombe, Walthamstow and Birmingham were carried out by Metropolitan Police's unarmed Territorial Support Group.

BAY CITY -- Lawyers for three Texas men once accused of plotting to blow up the Mackinac Bridge claim the government is bailing out an overzealous prosecutor by bringing unprecedented charges. Until Wednesday, even the FBI said the business of buying and altering cell phones -- as the men claim was their only motive -- was a legal enterprise, and that the only issue was whether proceeds end up in terrorist coffers. But now, the FBI and U.S. attorneys in Bay City say the entrepreneurial behavior of three Americans of Palestinian descent amounts to fraud, not terrorism. <excerpted>

An Islamic militant jailed in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings was released from prison Thursday while 11 others linked to the blasts received sentence reductions. The militants had their sentences cut by four months to mark Indonesia's independence day. The reduction allowed one of the men to walk free after completing his jail term. Officials say the 12 militants carried out robberies, financed the attacks and sheltered key figures in the nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. Indonesia often reduces prison terms on holidays, but the move is likely to draw protests from Australia...

Isn't it ironic that one of the things our enemies, the Islamofascists, hate about America is the very thing that enables them to operate here? I'm talking about our openness. Our rights to privacy. The many freedoms granted us by the U.S. Constitution. And the protections and even special treatment afforded Muslim organizations in the U.S. We're a society like no other. Take for example last week's decision by Federal District Court Judge James Whittemore of Florida, who ruled in favor of ACLU lawyers last week that pat down searches before football games should be prohibited because they violate fans'...

Inquiry - Jared Guinther's parents call the Army's actions fair, saying they just wanted to "get our son out"The U.S. Army has disciplined two recruiters who were involved in signing up a Portland teenager with autism, military and congressional officials confirmed Wednesday. S. Douglas Smith, a civilian spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Ky., said a military investigation found that one of the two recruiters improperly concealed 19-year-old Jared Guinther's disability, which should have made him ineligible for service. That recruiter, Cpl. Ronan Ansley, has been relieved from recruiting duties and will be reassigned. Military officials...

Reuters cameraman being held without charge in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison is to be detained for a further six months while the US military reviews his case. By Claire Cozens. A Reuters cameraman being held without charge in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison is to be detained for a further six months while the US military reviews his case. Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani has been in custody since he was arrested by US forces on August 8, and a military tribunal held in secret this week ruled that he should be held for another six months. Another Reuters cameraman,...

THE nation's attorneys-general will consider banning books that praise terrorism and placing fresh restrictions on reality shows like Big Brother when they meet tomorrow. The federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, has placed these proposals on the agenda following the uproar over the "turkey slapping" incident on Big Brother this month and after only two of eight "hate" books he submitted to the Classification Review Board were banned a fortnight ago. Mr Ruddock has told his state and territory colleagues the difficulty of banning the books shows that present classification codes "may not provide sufficiently clear guidance" at a time when "there...

OBSESSION <---click back thereObsession is a new documentary culling together media reports within the Middle East that incite violence and spread complete fabrications of events and outright lies about the West as a whole. The “West” though is a term used to describe everyone who lives outside of the Middle East. Terrorism analysts such as Steve Emerson as well as former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat and a daughter of a ‘martyr’ are featured in the film. It’s fairly long (1 hour, 17 minutes) which is why I’m posting it on the weekend, but well worth the watch. You can pre-order...

I didn’t grow up with dreams of spreading democracy. I was an all-American kid from a small southern town who went to college on a baseball scholarship and joined the National Guard to earn some extra money. During graduate school, recruiters persuaded me to join the Army through ROTC so that after graduation I would enter as an officer. I bought their pitch and believed our newly elected president when he promised no more nation building. My dad told me, “It’s a great time to join the military. It has done an excellent job of repairing itself after Vietnam.” I...