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news & stories 19 |
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| http://www.nwz-online.de/nwz/regionalausgaben/index_2965.php?imgaddi=/nwz-bilder/klein/2005/09/27/_heprod_images_foto_1_10_1_20050927_ wollhandkrabbe.jpg&showid=755051&navpoint=3.2 Uriger Anhalter auf Lindenallee 27. Sept. 2005 WOLLHANDKRABBE Das Tier wird nachts aktiv und geht auf Wanderschaft Eingeschleppt wurden die Larven der Tiere im Ballasttank der Schiffe. Die Krabben stammen ursprünglich aus China. von Thomas Husmann OLDENBURG - Kein Glas Bier zu viel und auch keine optische Täuschung — die Wollhandkrabbe auf der Lindenallee, die am Wochenende von manchem Nachtbummler gesehen wurde, ist echt. „Eingeschleppt aus dem chinesischen Meer“, weiß Rüdiger Wohlers vom Naturschutzbund Oldenburg. Im 19. Jahrhundert sind die Larven im Ballastwasser der Schiffe nach Europa gekommen. Die enorm anpassungsfähigen Tiere haben dann in Europa zum Siegeszug angesetzt und die Flüsse und Seen erobert. „Besonders nachts sind die Krabben aktiv und gehen auf Wanderschaft“, erklärt Wohlers den nächtlichen Fund. Beim Nabu würden sich häufiger Oldenburger melden, die ungläubig von diesen seltsamen Funden berichten. „Einmal soll eine Krabbe sogar im Kofferraum eines Autos gesessen haben“, sagt Wohlers. Auch in der Kanalisation fühlen sie sich wohl. Negativ fallen sie kaum auf, sie ernähren sich von Pflanzen und Aas. Allenfalls Fischern sind die Wollhandkrabben lästig, sie dringen in Fischreusen ein und fressen den Köder oder greifen die gefangenen Fische an. Tagsüber verbergen sie sich in selbst gegrabenen Wohnhöhlen, die bei massenhaftem Auftreten Dämme und Böschungen schädigen können. Vom Anfassen der Tiere rät Wohlers übrigens ab, „die können mit ihren Scheren ganz schön zukneifen.“ Man sollte sie besser auf eine Schippe nehmen und in einen Eimer balancieren — für den Transport in ein Gewässer. Wohlschmeckend sind die Krabben nämlich nicht. |
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Seltsamer Anhalter: Die Wollhandkrabbe versuchte, in der Lindenallee über die Straße zu kommen. |
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| http://news.ft.com/cms/s/034a384e-2f8a-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8.html Rita causes record damage to oil rigs By Carola Hoyos in London, Sheila McNulty in Houston and Thomas Catan in Johannesburg Published: September 27 2005 20:14 | Last updated: September 27 2005 20:14 Hurricane Rita has caused more damage to oil rigs than any other storm in history and will force companies to delay drilling for oil in the US and as far away as the Middle East, initial damage assessments show. ODS-Petrodata, which provides market intelligence to the offshore oil and natural gas industry, said it expected a shortage of rigs in the US Gulf this year. “Based on what we have right now, it appears that drilling contractors and rig owners took a big hit from Rita,” said Tom Marsh of ODS-Petrodata. “The path Katrina took was through the mature areas of the US Gulf where there are mainly oil [production] platforms. Rita came to the west where there is a lot of [exploratory] rig activity.” Ken Sill of Credit Suisse First Boston said: “Early reports indicate numerous rigs are missing, destroyed or have suffered serious damage and several companies have yet to report. Rita may set an all-time record.” The US Coast Guard said nine semisubmersible rigs had broken free from their moorings and were adrift. This damage could not have come at a worse time for oil companies and consumers. US crude futures on Monday fell 37 cents to $65.45 a barrel in midday trading in New York as refineries that were evacuated before the onset of Rita returned to operation. Earlier in the day, Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, said the market had not taken up the 2m barrels a day of spare capacity the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries offered last week. Speaking in Johannesburg, he blamed high oil prices on a lack of industry infrastructure, including rigs and refineries, rather than oil reserves. Rigs, which are movable and are used for exploration and development, were in short supply before hurricanes Katrina and Rita blew through the US Gulf in late August and September. High oil prices and the desperate search for new oil supplies needed to meet rampant demand from the US and China have made rigs difficult to find and expensive to hire. Rigs cost $90m-$550m to construct, depending on how sophisticated the structure and how deep the water in which it will drill. A rig ordered today is unlikely to be ready before 2008 or 2009, analysts said. As a sign of just how precious rigs are becoming to the market, Anadarko, the biggest US independent oil company, this week set a record by committing to a rig six years in advance; commitments in the past were made months ahead of time rather than years. Initial reports from companies are ominous. Global Santa Fe reported it could not find two of its rigs. Rowan Companies reported four rigs damaged, with two having moved, one losing its “legs” and the fourth presumed sunk. Noble has four rigs adrift, with two run aground one into a ChevronTexaco platform. |
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| http://www.krone.at/index.php?http://wcm.krone.at/krone/C00/S25/A7/object_id__35682/hxcms/index.html US-Krisen lassen Bush wieder zur Flasche greifen Erst der Irak-Krieg, dann Hurrikan "Katrina" und damit einhergehend die steigenden Ölpreise und jetzt auch noch "Rita". Da kann es einem schon einmal zu viel werden. Angesichts der zahlreichen Krisen griff US-Präsident George Bush daher wieder zur Flasche, wie der "National Enquirer" berichtet. First Lady Laura Bush zeigte sich wenig erfreut über das Verhalten des Gatten. Bush, der nach eigenen Angaben seit seinem 40. Geburtstag keinen Alkohol mehr anrührt, ist offensichtlich schwach geworden. Wie der "National Enquirer" berichtet, sind George die gesamten Krisen über den Kopf gewachsen. Die Bilder der Zerstörungen durch Hurrikan "Katrina" ließen George zur Flasche greifen - vielleicht ist ihm auch sein eigenes Scheitern hinsichtlich des mageren Katastrophenmanagements in New Orleans bewußt geworden. Ehefrau und First Lady Laura Bush konnte gerade noch schlimmeres verhindern. "Hör auf, George!", schrie sie, als Bush auf der texanischen Ranch in Crawford einen kräftigen Schluck zur Brust nahm. Die Standpauke für den Präsidenten folgte direkt im Anschluss. Um einen Rückfall von George zu verhindern, hat Laura auch schon die passende Lösung parat: In Zukunft wird sie ihren Ehemann häufiger auf Reisen begleiten, um so ein schützendes Auge auf ihn werfen zu können. Der Hang zur Flasche scheint dem Clan der Bushs übrigens nicht fremd zu sein. Erst kürzlich wurde ein Neffe von Präsident Bush wegen Trunkenheit am Steuer festgenommen |
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| "Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism
whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through
the use of electromagnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there
that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations.It's
real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why
this is so important." [Secretary of Defense William Cohen at an April 1997 counterterrorism conference sponsored by former Senator Sam Nunn. Quoted from DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy, University of Georgia , Athens , Apr. 28, 1997]. http://www.journalnet.com/articles/2005/09/23/news/local/news05.txt Friday, September 23, 2005 Forecaster leaves job to pursue weather theories\ By Jana Peterson and John O'Connell - Journal writers Scott Stevens, former meteorologist at News Channel 6, gets blown around by the weather one stormy afternoon. Journal file photo POCATELLO - To the rest of the country, Scott Stevens is the Idaho weatherman who blames the Japanese Mafia for Hurricane Katrina. To folks in Pocatello, he's the face of the weather at KPVI News Channel 6. The Pocatello native made his final Channel 6 forecast Thursday night, leaving a job he's held for nine years in order to pursue his weather theories on a full-time basis. "I'm going to miss that broadcast, but I'm not going to miss not getting home until 11 p.m.," Stevens said. "I just don't have the hours of the day to take care of my research and getting those (broadcasts) out and devoting the necessary research to the station." It was Stevens' decision to leave the TV station, said KPVI general manager Bill Fouch. "When Scott signed his current contract, he told Brenda and me at the time that it would be his last contract," Fouch said Thursday. "We knew, but the timetable moved up because of all the attention (he's been getting.)" Since Katrina, Stevens has been in newspapers across the country where he was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying the Yakuza Mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He was a guest on Coast to Coast, a late night radio show that conducts call-in discussions on everything from bizarre weather patterns to alien abductions. On Wednesday, Stevens was interviewed by Fox News firebrand Bill O'Reilly. Stevens said he received 30 requests to do radio interviews on Thursday alone. Fouch said Stevens wanted to leave as quickly as possible because his "plate is full," and he needs to take advantage of the opportunities that exist now. Stevens said he's received offers that he's not at liberty to discuss. Stevens, 39, who was born in Twin Falls, plans to remain in Pocatello, where his family remains. He said his family wishes him the best in his future endeavors. It costs him hundreds of dollars each month to run his Web site, weatherwars.info, but he said that's a price he's willing to pay. "There's a chess game going on in the sky," Stevens said. "It affects each and every one of us. It is the one common thread that binds us all together." Although the theories espoused by Stevens - scalar weapons, global dimming - are definitely on the scientific fringe today, there are thousands of Web sites that mention such phenomena. "The Soviets boasted of their geoengineering capabilities; these impressive accomplishments must be taken at face value simply because we are observing weather events that simply have never occurred before, never!" Stevens wrote on his Web site. "The evidence of these weapons at work found within the clouds overhead is simply unmistakable. These patterns and odd geometric shapes seen in our skies, each and every day, are clear and present evidence that our weather has been stolen from us, only to be used by those whose designs for humanity are rarely in alignment with that of the common man." However, Stevens never discussed his weather theories on the air during his time at Channel 6 - an agreement he had with the station management. What the meteorologist chose to do in his off time was his business, said his manager of eight years. Fouch said he would miss Stevens, whom he described as energetic, easy-going and enthusiastic about the weather, but he is supportive of his decision to pursue his passion. "His theories are his theories," Fouch said. "But, if you think about it - of all the TV weather people, he continues to be the most accurate. It isn't his theories getting involved with his professional job." For Stevens, however, the recent attention to his theories has been somewhat of a distraction from work. "When there has been so much attention, it gets in the way of them doing their jobs and me doing my job," Stevens said. Find out more: To learn more about Stevens and his thoughts on manipulated weather, check out his Web site at www.weatherwars.info, or go to www.journalnet.com/articles/2005/03/06/opinion/opinion04.txt to read the story that Journal City Editor Greg McReynolds wrote about Stevens in March. |
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Weather-War links of interest http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Gerner05.html Fri., September 23, 2005: Playlists: M3U
| RAM (Individual MP3s: Hr1 Hr2 ) Updates
Serious question: Are Hurricanes: Scalar? http://www.cuttingedge.org/articles/weather.cfm Weather Modification a Long-Established,
Though Secretive, Reality"Weaponized weather control is in use" |
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| http://www.nwz-online.de/nwz/index_2590.php?imgaddi=/nwz-bilder/klein/2005/09/23/&showid=752830&navpoint=1 23.09.2005 Deutschland größter Nettozahler der EU FINANZEN Jährliche Belastung von 7,1 Milliarden Euro – London wird durch Briten-Rabatt stark geschont Gemessen an der Wirtschaftskraft zahlen andere Länder mehr. Das sind Luxemburg, Holland und Schweden. BRÜSSEL/DPA - Deutschlands Beitrag für die Europäische Union ist vergangenen Jahr trotz der großen EU-Erweiterung leicht gesunken. Ausgaben und Einnahmen miteinander verrechnet blieb für Berlin eine Belastung von 7,1 Milliarden Euro. Das war gegenüber dem Vorjahr ein Minus von sieben Prozent, teilte EU-Haushaltskommissarin Dalia Grybauskaite am Donnerstag in Brüssel mit. Die Litauerin forderte als erstes Kommissionsmitglied überhaupt die EU-Staaten unmissverständlich auf, schon beim informellen Gipfel Ende Oktober in Großbritannien über die künftigen EU-Finanzen zu sprechen. Deutschland, das größte Mitgliedsland der EU, bleibt der mit Abstand größte Nettozahler der Gemeinschaft, gemessen an der tatsächlichen Summe. Auf die jeweilige Wirtschaftskraft bezogen liegen aber Luxemburg, die Niederlande und Schweden noch vor Deutschland. Der Beitragsrabatt für Großbritannien betrug im vergangenen Jahr 5,3 Milliarden Euro. Grybauskaite machte deutlich, dass London als einziges EU-Land weit weniger belastet wird, als dies von der Wirtschaftskraft her möglich sei. London hatte den Abschlag vor über 20 Jahren erstritten, da es vergleichsweise wenig von der EU-Agrarpolitik profitiert. |
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| http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/64167 22.09.2005 12:09 Nummernschild-Erfassung kontra informationelle Selbstbestimmung Am hessischen Staatsgerichtshof ist eine Grundrechtsklage eingegangen, die klären soll, ob Kennzeichenlesegeräte gegen das Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung verstoßen. Der Einsatz von solchen Lesegeräten wurde mit einer Änderung des hessischen Polizeigesetzes im vergangenen Jahr möglich gemacht. Diese Geräte werden gerade angeschafft. Nach Auskunft des Pressesprechers im hessischen Innenministerium, Michael Bußer, sollen neun Geräte sowohl mobil als auch stationär eingesetzt werden. Sie sollen voraussichtlich Ende des Jahres in Betrieb gehen und an zentralen Verkehrspunkten wie dem Geschwindigkeitskontrollsystem am Elzer Berg (A3) eingesetzt werden. Die Geräte lesen alle KFZ-Kennzeichen aus und vergleichen sie mit Informationen einer Datenbank mit zur Fahndung ausgeschriebenen Kennzeichen. Das hessische Innenministerium sieht in dem System keinen Angriff auf die Privatsphäre der Bürger, da unverdächtige Kennzeichen sofort wieder gelöscht würden. Somit sei das Aufzeichnen von Bewegungsprofilen unbescholtener Bürger unmöglich. Eine Klage vor dem Staatsgerichtshof gibt nicht nur den Anwälten, sondern auch dem hessischen Landtag, Datenschützern und der Landesregierung die Möglichkeit, sich zum Thema der informationellen Selbstbestimmung zu äußern. Die Technik der KFZ-Lesegeräte selbst wird in einer mündlichen Verhandlung demonstriert, die nach Angaben des Gerichts in einem Jahr stattfinden könnte. Die Klage vor dem Staatsgerichtshof könnte zu einem Musterfall werden, da andere Bundesländer ebenfalls ihre Polizeigesetze geändert haben, um den automatischen Kennzeichenabgleich möglich zu machen. Die Klage zur informationellen Selbstbestimmung geht unter Umständen über die Technik der Kennzeichenauswertung hinaus. Immer wieder monieren Datenschützer, dass bei der Raumüberwachung mit Hilfe von Videokameras Daten aufgezeichnet werden, die die Privatsphäre der Abgefilmten verletzen. Am vergangenen Montag hatte die Firma Eptascape eine Überwachungskamera vorgestellt, die Videoüberwachung und Datenschutz kombinieren soll. Ihr Eptacam-System besteht aus einer Kamera, einem intelligenten MPEG-7 Kodierer und einer Datenbank. Dabei wandelt die Software die Videoaufnahme vor der Speicherung in einen MPEG-7-Stream um und anonymisiert dabei zugleich alle erkannten Gesichtspartien. Sollte sich bei der dann datenschutzrechtlich unbedenklichen Sichtung des Materials herausstellen, dass eine Straftat von den Überwachungskameras aufgezeichnet wurde, können die gesondert in einer Datenbank verschlüsselt gespeicherten Gesichtspartien von den Strafverfolgern entschlüsselt werden. (Detlef Borchers) / (pmz/c't) |
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| http://www.wingtv.net/thornarticles/paulisaac.html Fireman Admits Again: 9-11 Inside Job by Victor Thorn On the morning of September 11, 2005, New York City auxiliary fire lieutenant Paul Isaac, Jr. admitted yet again that 9-11 was an inside job. In fact, here is his exact quote to Lisa Guliani and myself: “I know 9-11 was an inside job, the police know it’s an inside job, and the firemen know it too.” Think about the ramifications of this statement. One of New York’s own firefighters revealed publicly that 9-11 wasn’t the work of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but instead was planned, coordinated, and executed by elements within our own government. Isaacs also added, after pointing to throngs of police officers standing around us, that, “We all have to be very careful about how we handle it.” Preeminent researcher Jim Marrs (Inside Job: Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies) also quotes author Randy Lavello, who wrote the following about Paul Isaac, Jr.: “New York firemen were very upset by what they considered a cover-up in the WTC destruction. Many other firemen knew there were bombs in the buildings,’ he said, ‘but they are afraid for their jobs to admit it because the higher-ups forbid discussion of this fact.’ Isaac, who was stationed at Engine 10 near the WTC in the late 1990s, said the higher-ups included the NYFD’s antiterrorism consultant, James Woolsey, a former CIA director. ‘There were definitely bombs in those buildings,’ Isaac added.” The above information was corroborated by Nico Haupt in the November 1, 2004 edition of 911 Skeptics where he wrote, “[Isaac] explained to me that if the building had 'pancaked' as it's been called, the falling floors would have met great resistance from the steel support columns, which would have sent debris flying outward into the surrounding blocks.” Adding further weight to this argument is Greg Szymanski’s July 21, 2005 article entitled Former Auxiliary NY Fireman Is 'A One-Man Investigative Team' When It Comes To Finding The Truth About 9/11 where the following quote appears: “When Isaac first watched the towers collapse from a block away, he said they ‘strangely came down like a house of cards, in their own footprints’ in what he called a perfect demolition job.” Isaac also reiterated what a 9-11 survivor told me during our protest at Ground Zero on September 11, 2005 --- that emergency radios were buzzing with information about bombs being detonated inside the World Trade Center towers. Isaac told Szymanski in the above-mentioned article, “I heard some crazy things over my radio in those days, things I can’t repeat on the phone.” Also, Isaac directly addressed the gag order placed on firemen and police officers in Szymanski’s article: “It’s amazing how many people are afraid to talk for fear of retaliation or losing their jobs,” said Isaac, regarding the FBI gag order placed on law enforcement and fire department officials, preventing them from openly talking about any inside knowledge of 9/11. There is certainly more information of this nature related to Mr. Isaac on the Internet, so here again we are hearing first-hand evidence from individuals who were on the scene (i.e. William Rodriguez) saying that the World Trade Center towers were brought to their knees not by the airliner’s impact or the resulting jet fuel fires, but instead by a deliberately executed controlled demolition. Tragically, due to heavy-handed pressure from officials at the city, state, and federal levels, we are still not hearing the entire story. Last but not least, researcher Vincent Sammartino, who was also in attendance at the WTC 'open grave site' on the afternoon of September 11, 2005, wrote the following on APFN: "I just got back from Ground Zero. People know the truth! Half of the police and firemen were coming up to us and telling us that they know that 911 was an inside job. They were told not to talk about it. But they were supporting what we were doing!!!!! I had tears in my eyes." |
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| Was uns in den nächsten Jahren erwarten wird T-Online 22.9.05 (leicht gekürzt) 22.9.05 Deutschlands Finanzkraft schwindet Es muss rasch durchgreifende Reformen in Deutschland geben, oder die Bonität des Landes gerät ins Wanken. Die Ratingagentur Standard & Poors (S&P) weist in ihrer aktuellen Länderanalyse darauf hin, dass das Programm der kommenden Regierung entscheidend dafür sein wird, ob Deutschland seine Triple-A-Note behält. Das Programm der neuen Regierung ausschlaggeben Deutschland fällt zurück Die Ratingagentur verwies darauf, dass Deutschland zuletzt, gemessen an Wachstums- und finanzpolitischen Kennziffern, hinter andere "AAA"-Schuldner zurückgefallen sei. Das Verhältnis der gesamten öffentlichen Verschuldung zum Bruttoinlandsprodukt sei in diesem Jahr mit 67,6 Prozent das höchste in der Gruppe der "AAA"-Schuldner.Hans-Olaf Henkel hat vor dramatischen Konsequenzen gewarnt, sollte S&P Deutschlands Kreditwürdigkeit herabstufen. "Die Warnung von S&P sollte die Alarmglocken in allen Parteizentralen schrillen lassen", sagte Henkel der "Rheinischen Post". "Wird diese Drohung wahr, würde das zu einer dramatischen Anhebung der Zinszahlungen der öffentlichen Hand führen." Bei Herabstufung Haushaltsprobleme nicht zu vermeiden . Noch profitiere Deutschland von einem niedrigen Zinsniveau, sagte Henkel weiter. "Aber wenn eine Rating-Agentur Deutschland jetzt herabstuft, bekämen wir ein Haushaltsproblem in den Ländern und Kommunen, das kaum noch beherrschbar wäre." |
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| http://www.local6.com/news/5000311/detail.html Mysterious 'Ball Of Fire' Seen In Fla. Skies POSTED: 7:23 am EDT September 21, 2005 Dozens of people from Jacksonville to Ft. Pierce flooded the U.S. Coast Guard late Tuesday with calls about a mysterious ball of fire seen flying in the sky, according to a Local 6 News report. Callers flooded the newsroom of Local 6 News partner Florida Today after they saw the object over the Space Coast Tuesday night. "Starting at about 7:30 last night, we started receiving calls here in the newsroom," Florida Today online news editor Dave Larimer said. "In fact, the Coast Guard station in Port Canaveral got more than two dozen reports of people seeing a bright light in the sky over the ocean." From Fort Pierce to about five miles south of Jacksonville, reports came in to Coast Guard offices starting about 7:30 p.m., said Dan Yates, a Coast Guard petty officer in Port Canaveral. Yates said one caller who was walking his dog near the Sebastian Inlet described the object as "huge, like a giant fireball." Yates said callers to the Coast Guard station thought a boater might have been in trouble. "A lot of people thought it might have been a flare that might have gone up," Yates said of other callers. "One person thought this fire ball went into the ocean," Larimer said. "The Coast Guard said it probably didn't and it was just his perspective. We know it was not a rocket launch and we know the Air Force was not doing anything." Experts said it could be a piece of space junk or a large meteor burning up in the atmosphere. The Coast Guard base near Jacksonville also received calls. Babs Angel, a public affairs spokeswoman for Patrick Air Force Base, said no local military activity was taking place Tuesday night. Watch Local 6 News for more on this story. Copyright 2005 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
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| http://www.wunderground.com/blog/SteveGregory/show.html * HURRICANE RITA - CATEGORY 5 - 914mb URGENT UPDATE #4 ** Posted By: SteveGregory at 05:15 PM GMT am 21. September 2005 Updated: 08:50 PM GMT am 21. September 2005 SEP 21, 2005 / 3:28PM CDT - SPECIAL UPDATE #4 RITA EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 - 914MB PRESSURE The latest RECON, and confirmed measurements from NHC - report RITA's central pressure is now down to 914mb. MAX sustained flight winds are 161Kts, with sustained surface winds of 165mph -=- and gusts to 185mph. The thermal eyewall temp difference is an astounding 21°C The pressure has been dropping at 6mb/hr which may be s some form of record of it's own. Furthermore, there are no signs yet that Rita has finished intensifying. This places Rita in the top 10 of all-time Atlantic Basin Storms -- and in the top 4 for the Gulf of Mexico. At it's peak -- Katrina reached 902mb. Latest numerical guidance continues to show a landfall on Saturday between Port O'Connor and Freeport. A full update will be sent late tonight -- but brief status reports will be issued as warranted. Read more ... |
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| http://indiadaily.com/breaking_news/45908.asp Crude prices spike as Hurricane Rita upgraded Sep. 22, 2005 Crude prices spiked higher on Wednesday as Hurricane Rita gathered pace and stayed on course to sweep through oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico and strike at the heart of the Texas energy industry. The hurricane, currently crossing the Florida Keys, was upgraded to category 4 with sustained winds in excess of 135mph. The US National Hurricane Center said the hurricane could strengthen to category 5 within the next 24 hours beore weakening. On Wednesday, Houston mayor Bill White, called on residents in low-lying areas to evacuate the city. Emergency officials estimate that as many as 1m people may leave ahead of the storm. The US energy industry, which is still reeling from Hurricane Katrina, is bracing itself for another blow, as oil companies in the Gulf, including BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Marathon Oil, have evacuated staff and shut rigs and platforms in the path of Rita. Crude prices in London rose as the storm gained strength, Nymex West Texas Intermediate for November delivery was up $1.13 at $67.33 a barrel, while November Brent was up 81 cents at $65.01 a barrel. |
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| http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=25480 Special Report: Rita's Projected Path Could Mean Big Damages Rigzone Thursday, September 22, 2005 As of late Thursday, Hurricane Rita sits poised on the edge of US waters, preparing to make its drive through the central and western GOM oil and gas leasing areas. Based on current projections, the eye of Hurricane Rita is likely to pass through some of the most active producing areas in the Gulf. In total, there are approximately 860 unmanned platforms in areas expected to experience hurricane force winds, with an additional 360 manned platforms in those areas, for a total of over 1,200 platforms facing the hurricane force winds that Rita is bringing across the GOM. These platforms in the direct path of this storm represent more than 30% of the offshore installations in the Gulf of Mexico. On her journey, Rita will start out passing through the frontier areas of Walker Ridge and Keathley Canyon. From there, she will continue to move northwest across the eastern portions of Garden Banks and the western portions of Green Canyon. These two areas contain a total of only about 40 offshore platforms, but all of these are major deepwater projects such as Kerr McGee's Red Hawk spar and ConocoPhillips' Magnolia field. After passing through these deepwater areas, Rita will begin to push onto the shallower waters of the continental shelf, first reaching the southern additions of South Marsh, Vermillion, East Cameron and West Cameron. Rita is them likely to continue across the rest of the West Cameron area and reach large portions of the High Island and Galveston areas before making landfall east of the Houston area. West Cameron, situated south of Lake Charles, LA to the TX-LA border, is likely to be one of the areas hardest hit by Rita and will most likely see some of the worst damage to its offshore installations. This area is one of the most most actively producing and explored areas in the Gulf of Mexico. It has the third highest number of unmanned offshore platforms and the fifth highest number of manned platforms of any area in the GOM, with a total of 292 unmanned and 88 manned platforms. Additionally, there are a total of 22 mobile offshore drilling rigs in the West Cameron area, including 19 jackups, 2 submersibles, and 1 platform rig. Of those rigs, 10 of them are owned and managed by TODCO, The Offshore Drilling Company, which is the rig manager with the most rigs facing possible damage from Rita. In addition to 22 rigs located in West Cameron, there are another 50+ rigs in the areas that are likely to be affected by Rita. A total of 16 semisubmersible rigs are located in the Walker Ridge, Garden Banks, and Green Canyon areas that Rita will be passing through late Thursday and early Friday morning. Closer to shore, there are 25 jackup rigs in the areas of High Island, East Cameron, Vermilion, and Galveston that will be catching much of the force of Rita mid-to-late-day on Friday. If Rita is able to inflict as much damage to the offshore rigs in its path as Katrina was, there will be some fairly serious losses to the Gulf of Mexico rig fleet. Approximately 60 rigs stood in the direct path of Katrina, and of those rigs, 8 were damaged severely or lost enirely. That is about 12% of the rigs in Katrina's path. There were an additional 10 rigs that suffered less severe damages, which amounts to another 15% of the rigs in Katrina's path. There are nearly 80 rigs that stand in the direct path of Rita, with fully 25% of those in the area (West Cameron) that is likely to be hardest hit. So, assuming a similar rate of damage for Rita would lead to an estimate of 9 rigs severely damaged and another 12 rigs suffering lesser damages. That is a significant portion of the GOM rig fleet which is already depleted from the losses suffered by Katrina. |
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| http://www.welt.de/z/newsticker/ticker.php?channel=new&nid=387788 "Rita" jetzt Hurrikan der schlimmsten Kategorie 5 Washington (dpa) - Hurrikan «Rita» wird immer gefährlicher und bedroht mit seiner zerstörerischen Kraft die 1000 Kilometer lange Küste von Texas. Nach Angaben des Hurrikanzentrums in Miami entwickelte er sich mit Windgeschwindigkeiten von 264 Stundenkilometern in seinem Zentrum zu einem Hurrikan der schlimmsten Kategorie 5. «Rita» zieht zur Zeit durch den Golf von Mexiko und steuert auf die texanische Küste bei Galveston zu, wo er am späten Freitagabend oder frühen Samstagmorgen (Ortszeit) eintreffen könnte. Die Experten befürchten dann eine bis zu sechs Meter hohe Flutwelle und schwere Regenfälle. Allerdings sind bis dahin noch Kursänderungen in Richtung Mexiko oder auch des westlichen Louisiana möglich, das bereits von «Katrina» verwüstet wurde. «Katrina» war als starker Hurrikan der Stufe 4 auf das Festland geprallt und hatte vor mehr als drei Wochen New Orleans und ein Gebiet so groß wie Großbritannien verwüstet. Aus Furcht vor einer neuen Naturkatastrophe wie in New Orleans ordneten die Behörden am Mittwoch für zehntausende Menschen im Großraum Houston und der Küstenstadt Galveston für diesen Donnerstag Zwangsevakuierungen an. Auch die für die bemannte Raumfahrt zuständige NASA-Bodenzentrale, das Johnson Space Center, wurde geschlossen und die Kontrolle über die Internationale Raumstation ISS der «Mission Control» in Russland übertragen. Der texanische Gouverneur Rick Perry und die Gouverneurin von Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, erklärten den Notstand. US-Präsident George W. Bush rief die Bevölkerung in den bedrohten Gebieten auf, den Evakuierungsanordnungen zu folgen. «Wir hoffen, dass "Rita" nicht zu einem verheerenden Sturm wird, aber wir müssen uns auf das Schlimmste vorbereiten», sagte der Präsident. Auch Perry forderte die Menschen im gefährdeten Küstengebiet zum raschen Verlassen ihrer Häuser auf. «Häuser und Geschäfte können wieder aufgebaut werden, Leben nicht», sagte der Gouverneur in Austin. «Es ist jetzt Zeit, sich auf den Weg zu machen.» In Galveston an der texanischen Küste begann am Mittwoch die Zwangsevakuierung für 57 000 Einwohner. Die Polizei drohte allen in der Stadt bleibenden Bürgern an, ihnen in Notfällen keine Hilfe zu leisten. Der Bürgermeister der Millionenstadt Houston, Bill White, forderte alle Einwohner, die von einer Sturmflut getroffen werden könnten oder in mobilen Häusern leben, dazu auf, freiwillig zu gehen. White mahnte die Bürger zur Eile, weil die Bundesregierung nicht genügend Transportmittel zur Verfügung stellen könnte. Von Donnerstag an soll es in den gefährdeten Gebieten eine Zwangsevakuierung geben. Gouverneur Perry versetzte 5000 Nationalgardisten in Bereitschaft und rief weitere 1200 aus dem Katastrophengebiet um New Orleans zurück. Auf dem Zug des Hurrikans durch den Atlantik sind sowohl Kuba als auch die Inselkette Florida Keys mit dem Schrecken davongekommen. Nach Angaben des kubanischen Zivilschutzes kam niemand zu Schaden. 230 000 Einwohner in bedrohten Gebieten waren vorsorglich in Sicherheit gebracht worden. Auf Grund der Wetterlage wissen die Meteorologen noch nicht, ob «Rita» am Samstagmorgen über der Küstenstadt Galveston oder weiter südlich über Brownsville an der Grenze zu Mexiko auf das Festland treffen wird. In Galveston hatte am 8. September 1900 ein Sturm bis zu 8000 Menschen in den Tod gerissen. Im nur 80 Kilometer entfernten Houston sind über 100 000 Katastrophenflüchtlinge aus den vom Hurrikan «Katrina» verwüsteten Gebieten in Louisiana untergebracht. In New Orleans (Louisiana) bereiten sich die Behörden darauf vor, dass der Hurrikan möglicherweise nach Norden dreht und ein Wirbelsturm die Stadt zum zweiten Mal innerhalb eines Monats trifft. Die Bewohner, die in den vergangenen Tagen zurückgekehrt waren, wurden aufgefordert, die Stadt wieder zu verlassen, da die aufgeweichten Deiche neuen starken Regenfällen kaum Stand hielten. Die Zahl der Toten durch «Katrina» lag am Mittwoch nach Angaben des US-Katastrophenschutzes bei 1035. Die Erdölindustrie um die texanische Millionenmetropole Houston blickt sorgenvoll auf den heranziehenden neuen Hurrikan. Sollte er ähnliche Schäden anrichten wie «Katrina», sehe es noch schlechter für die Energieindustrie der USA aus, schreibt die Tageszeitung «Houston Chronicle» am Mittwoch. Zahlreiche Stars aus Musik, Film und Politik sind in der Nacht zum Mittwoch in New York bei zwei großen Benefiz-Konzerten zu Gunsten der Hurrikan-Opfer von New Orleans aufgetreten. Die Konzerte im ausverkauften Madison Square Garden und in der Radio City Music Hall standen unter dem Motto «From the Big Apple to the Big Easy». Zuschauer konnten sich per Bezahlfernsehen oder gegen eine Gebühr im Internet dazuschalten. Der Erlös soll zu 100 Prozent gespendet werden. Deutsche Jazz- und Swing-Größen wollen an diesem Sonntag mit Benefiz-Konzerten in Hamburg und Dresden Hurrikan-geschädigten Musikern aus New Orleans helfen. erschienen am 21.09.2005 um 23:01 Uhr "Rita" drückt Wall-Street-Kurse ins Minus New York (dpa) - Anlegerängste vor den Folgen des Hurrikans «Rita» an der Golfküste vor Texas haben den US-Aktienmarkt bei hohen Umsätzen ins Minus gedrückt. Es war der dritte Rückschlag in Folge. Der Dow-Jones-Index verlor 1 Prozent auf 10378 Punkte. Im Devisenhandel stieg der Kurs des Euro zum Dollar auf 1,2208 Dollar. erschienen am 21.09.2005 um 23:14 Uhr |
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| http://www.rense.com/general67/femmsec.htm FEMA - The Secret Government By Harry V. Martin with research assistance from David Caul Copyright FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995-2005 9-21-5 FEMA was created in a series of Executive Orders. A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress is by-passed. Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies, the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic. Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry. Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen: 1. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports. 2. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media. 3. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. 4. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms. 5. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision. 6. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions. 7. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons. 8. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft. 9. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations. 10. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities. 11. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis. 12. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President. |
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| Preparing for the Coming Influenza Pandemic By Grattan Woodson, MD, FACP Medical Director, The Druid Oaks Health Center Decatur, GA USA 404) 298-9951 www.DruidOHC.com Copyright 2005 Table of Contents Introduction......................................................................................................................................................................... Information about the Coming Avian Influenza Pandemic ......................................................................................... Epidemics and Influenza Pandemics...................................................................................................................... WHO International Influenza Pandemic Phases........................................................................................................ What Makes the H5N1 Avian Flu so Fearsome? ........................................................................................................... A Comparison of Estimates for Influenza Pandemic Mortality and Morbidity....................................................... Case Fatality Rate Prediction for Seasonal Flu for US and World......................................................................... Clinical Attack Rate Prediction for Seasonal Flu for the UK ................................................................................. US Case Fatality Rate Predictions for the 1918 Pandemic...................................................................................... US Case Fatality Rate Predictions for the 1958 Pandemic...................................................................................... Mortality Prediction for the UK and Worldwide for the Next Pandemic*.......................................................... US DHHS Mortality and Morbidity Estimates for the US and Worldwide for the Next Pandemic*.............. Osterholm’s Pandemic Case Fatality Rate Prediction for the US .......................................................................... Osterholm’s Pandemic Case Fatality Rate Prediction Worldwide ......................................................................... Case Fatality Rate Prediction for the 1918 Pandemic Using the 20,000,000 Worldwide Death Statistic Case Fatality Rate Prediction for the 1918 Pandemic Using the 40,000,000 Worldwide Death Statistic Case Fatality Rate Prediction for the 1918 Pandemic Using the 80,000,000 Worldwide Death Statistic Issues Affecting Medical Treatment of Avian Influenza............................................................................................. Vaccination.................................................................................................................................................................... Anti-Viral Drugs ........................................................................................................................................................... A Major Pandemic will Likely Disrupt Essential Public Services and Supplies ....................................................... Practical Pre-Pandemic Preparations for Individuals................................................................................................... Get Your Will in Order ............................................................................................................................... Life Insurance ............................................................................................................................................................... Get a Flu Shot............................................................................................................................................................... Food Security ................................................................................................................................................................ Electricity Service ......................................................................................................................................................... Water Service................................................................................................................................................................. Communications Services ............................................................................................................................... Find a Rural Refuge...................................................................................................................................................... Hospital and Healthcare Services....................................................................................................................... The Flu Survival Kit......................................................................................................................................................... Simple Medical Skills Required....................................................................................................................... OTC products to have on hand for home treatment of one person with severe influenza .............................. Prescription products for home treatment of one person with severe influenza ................................................ Symptoms of Influenza.................................................................................................................................................... Patient prognosis during pandemic influenza ........................................................................................................... Using scarce resources wisely ............................................................................................................................... Supportive Treatment of Influenza ............................................................................................................................... Home Flu Treatment Advice for the Laymen .......................................................................................................... The BFS Formula......................................................................................................................................................... Keep a record on every patient ............................................................................................................................... Diet Recommendations............................................................................................................................................... Advanced Home Treatment Considerations for Health Professionals..................................................................... How to Find Out More about the Avian Flu and Influenza Pandemics .................................................................. A Doctor’s Letter to a Friend During the Height of the 1918 Pandemic................................................................. Read more ... |
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| http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9419053/ Experts blame flooding on faulty levees Katrina’s waters did not overtop New Orleans barriers, they say By Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser The Washington Post Updated: 9:34 a.m. ET Sept. 21, 2005 NEW ORLEANS - Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and that the city's flood-protection system should have kept most of the city dry. The Army Corps of Engineers has said that Katrina was just too massive for a system that was not intended to protect the city from a storm greater than a Category 3 hurricane, and that the floodwall failures near Lake Pontchartrain were caused by extraordinary surges that overtopped the walls. But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals — and the flooding of most of New Orleans. In the weeks since Katrina drowned this low-lying city, there has been an intense focus on the chaotic government response to the flood. But Ivor van Heerden, the Hurricane Center's deputy director, said the real scandal of Katrina is the "catastrophic structural failure" of barriers that should have handled the hurricane with relative ease. 'Never overtopped' "We are absolutely convinced that those floodwalls were never overtopped," said van Heerden, who also runs LSU's Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes. In an interview Tuesday, Corps spokesman Paul Johnston said the agency still believes that storm surges overtopped the concrete floodwalls near the lake, then undermined the earthen levees on which they were perched, setting the stage for the breaches that emptied the lake into the city. Johnston said the Corps intends to launch an investigation to make sure it is correct about that scenario. But he emphasized that Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it smashed into the Gulf Coast, whereas Congress authorized the Corps to protect New Orleans against a storm only up to Category 3. "The event exceeded the design," Johnston said. The center's researchers agree that Katrina's initial surge from the southeast overwhelmed floodwalls along the New Orleans Industrial Canal, flooding the city's Lower Ninth Ward as well as St. Bernard Parish. They believe that a little-used Army Corps navigation canal known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet helped amplify that surge, although they acknowledge that this surge was larger than the system was designed to control. But the researchers have strong evidence that Katrina's subsequent surge from the north was several feet shy of the height that would have been necessary to overtop the 17th Street and London Avenue floodwalls. It was the failures of those floodwalls that emptied the lake into the rest of the city, filling most of New Orleans like a soup bowl. On a tour Tuesday, researchers showed numerous indications that Katrina's surge was not as tall as the lakefront's protections. They showed a "debris line" that indicates the top height of Katrina's waves was at least four feet below the crest of Lake Pontchartrain's levees. They also pointed out how the breached floodwalls near the lake showed no signs of overtopping — no splattering of mud, no drip lines and no erosion at their bases. They contended that the pattern of destruction behind the breaches was consistent with a localized "pressure burst," rather than widespread overtopping. The center has also completed a computerized "hindcast" of Katrina, which has confirmed the evidence before their eyes. Their model indicates that most of the surge around the lake and its nearby canals was less than 11 feet above sea level, and that none of it should have been greater than 13 feet. The Army Corps' flood-protection system for New Orleans was designed to handle surges of more than 14 feet above sea level. "This should not have been a big deal for these floodwalls," said oceanographer G. Paul Kemp, a hurricane expert who runs LSU's Natural Systems Modeling Laboratory. "It should have been a modest challenge. There's no way this should have exceeded the capacity." The center's researchers said that it is too early to say whether the breaches were caused by poor design, faulty construction or some combination. But van Heerden said the floodwalls at issue— massive concrete slabs mounted on steel sheet pilings — looked more like the sound barriers found on major highways. He also suggested that the slabs should have been interlocked, and that the canals they were supposed to protect should have had floodgates to keep out water from the lake. Former representative Bob Livingston, (R-La.), who helped lead the charge for Corps projects in Louisiana when he chaired the House Appropriations Committee, noted that the earthen levees along Lake Pontchartrain had all held, while concrete floodwalls had failed. He was especially concerned about the 17th Street barrier, saying it "shouldn't have broken." Contractor 'has a problem' "I don't know if it's bad construction or bad design, but whoever the contractor is has a problem," said Livingston, now a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Former senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) said he remembers numerous briefings from Corps officials about the danger of a hurricane overtopping the New Orleans levees. But he says he never envisioned a scenario like this one. "This came as a surprise," he said. The Corps has not identified the contractors who built the floodgates that failed; Paul Johnston said there will be a full investigation into the breaches. John M. Barry — who criticized the Corps in "Rising Tide," a history of the Mississippi River flood of 1927 — said that if Katrina did not exceed the design capacity of the New Orleans levees, the federal government may bear ultimate responsibility for this disaster. "If this is true, then the loss of life and the devastation in much of New Orleans is no more a natural disaster than a surgeon killing a patient by failing to suture an artery would be a natural death," Barry said. "And that surgeon would be culpable." © 2005 The Washington Post Company |
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Work continues on a breach in a levee along the 17th Street Canal in New Orleans, La., on Tuesday. |
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| http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,375621,00.html 20. September 2005 PLÜNDERUNGEN Axa schickt Bewaffnete nach New Orleans Angesichts der prekären Sicherheitslage im durch den Hurrikan "Katrina" verwüsteten New Orleans greift der Versicherungskonzern Axa jetzt durch. Zum Schutz von versicherten Kunstobjekten hat die Assekuranz einen bewaffneten Trupp in die Stadt geschickt. New York - Die Kunstversicherungssparte Axa Art hat eine zwölf Mann starke Sicherheitstruppe in die Südstaatenmetropole geordert. Die mit Sturmgewehren und Pistolen bewaffneten Objektschützer sollen das Museum von New Orleans vor Plünderern und Kunsträubern schützen. Die Axa hatte das Museum mit 100 Millionen Dollar versichert. Museumsdirektor John Bullard schätzt den Wert der Bilder französischer Impressionisten, japanischer Gemälde, afrikanischer Kunst sowie mehrerer tausend Drucke und Kunstfotos auf insgesamt 250 bis 300 Millionen Dollar. Darunter befinden sich drei juwelengeschmückte "Fabergé"-Eier, Degas-Gemälde und andere Meisterwerke aus aller Welt. Das hoch gelegene Museum selbst war während der Hurrikan-Katastrophe nicht überflutet worden. In die Kellerräume war nur etwas Wasser durchgesickert, erläuterte Museumsleiter Bullard. "Die vorbeugenden Maßnahmen haben geholfen, unsere potenziellen Schäden zu reduzieren", sagt Christiane Fischer, Chefin der US-Kunstversicherungstochter der dpa in New York. Die derzeitige Schadenschätzung im Hurrikangebiet liege für die Axa Art bei 20 bis 30 Millionen Dollar. Gleichzeitig mit der Sicherung des Museums stellte die Einsatztruppe die Stromversorgung der Ausstellung durch einen eigens angelieferten Generator sicher. Damit sollten innerhalb weniger Tage drohende Schimmelschäden an den Kunstschätzen verhindert werden. |
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| aus den emails: Black Militants Travel to New Orleans To Fight Police "This is more of a racist occupation of subjugation rather than a relief effort." 9/7/2005 8:52:42 AM Discuss this story in the forum New Orleans, Louisiana -- A contingent of armed black militants from the New Black Panther Party has traveled to New Orleans to help local residents wage war against white policemen and soldiers who are trying to restore order to the flooded city. "This is more of a racist occupation of subjugation rather than a relief effort," Malik Zulu Shabazz announced in a press release today, "The police (sniper units) are using tactics to provoke attacks by Black residents as to substantiate their reasons of opening fire on groups of black males randomly and indiscriminately. " ...continues... |
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| http://www.nwz-online.de/nwz/index_2590.php?imgaddi=/nwz-bilder/klein/2005/09/20/&showid=749861&navpoint=1 20. Sept. 2005 Forscher geben Wählern Schuld BUNDESTAGSWAHL Institute erklären hohe Fehlerquote mit Kurzentschlossenen Alle Demoskopen lagen daneben. Die SPD holte viele Unentschlossene. Von Thomas Mader BERLIN - Der unerwartete Wahlausgang hat die Umfrageinstitute kalt erwischt. Sie lagen weit daneben – und erforschen nun die Grundlagen ihrer Arbeit. Die Wechselstimmung kurz nach Ankündigung der Neuwahlen sei rasch wechselnden Stimmungen gewichen. „Alternative Bauchgefühle“ nennt Klaus-Peter Schöppner diese Unentschlossenheit des deutschen Wählers, die nicht nur TNS Emnid Bauchgrimmen bereiten muss. Die Stärke des linken Blocks haben alle Institute relativ präzise berechnet, bei Schwarz und Gelb aber lagen sie voll daneben. 6,8 Prozentpunkte liegen zwischen Emnid-Diagnose und vorläufigem Unions-Ergebnis. Die besten Vorhersagen über alle Parteien traf TNS Infratest mit 10,7 Punkten Abweichung, die schlechteste lieferte Forsa mit 14,1 Fehlerpunkten. Bis 2002 betrug die Abweichung zwischen Umfrage und amtlichem Ergebnis maximal 1,9 Prozentpunkte, erklärte Renate Köcher vom Allensbach-Institut. Kein Institutschef stellt nun die eigenen Methoden in Frage. Alle führen „verändertes Wählerverhalten“ für die Fehlprognose an. Die Verunsicherung wird verschlüsselt: Manfred Güllner (Forsa) spricht davon, die Interpretation der Daten zu überdenken. Schöppner will wissen: „Was ist in der Woche vor der Wahl wirklich passiert?“ In den Fokus rücken die Kurz- beziehungsweise Unentschlossenen, die ihre Entscheidung immer länger hinauszögerten. Aus dieser recht großen Wählergruppe habe die SPD am meisten für sich gewinnen können. Bei diesen Wählern habe die Steuerpolitik wesentlichen Einfluss auf die Entscheidung gehabt. Aber es sei nicht nur Unions-Steuerfachmann Paul Kirchhof gewesen, der die Wähler irritiert habe, sondern auch die geplante Anhebung der Mehrwertsteuer. Nach Ansicht von Matthias Jung (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, ZDF) haben die Bindungen des Wählers an die großen Parteien nachgelassen. Die Frage der „Koalitionstaktik“ spiele eine größere Rolle. Entsprechend habe die FDP punkten können. Richard Hilmer von Infratest dimap nannte einen Widerspruch beim Wähler zwischen Partei- und Kandidatenpräferenz. |
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| http://prisonplanet.com/Pages/Sept05/210905Blair_revelations.htm Blair revelations reiterate elite occult obsession Remember the Aztec Re-birthing rituals and "channeling the light"? Steve Watson | September 21 2005 This week's revelations in the London Independent about the obsessive "new age" activities of the Blairs reveal nothing new but serve to reiterate how our leaders are fascinated by "bizarre practices", odd ceremonies and rituals that any right minded person would find eerily occultist, certainly beyond the level an elected so called "Christian" leader should be engaging in. Witchcraft and nail clippings: the weird world of Cherie Blair? Read the Independent article here. Such was the eyebrow-raising nature of the claims made in Tony And Cherie, A Special Relationship that Downing Street issued a forthright denial. Writes the Independent. So the Blairs are contending that all these claims are simply false, which is surprising given that in the past many mainstream media outlets have reported on their engagement in strange practices, were those all made up too? ... Read more ... |
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| http://indiadaily.com/editorial/4674.asp India, Russia and China to hold a trilateral Business Conference Babu Ghanta Sep. 22, 2005 India, China and Russia have decided to create the world’s biggest trade zone. The step starts with a trilateral conference between the three countries. It is estimated that India, China and Russia can be together self sufficient in all resources, talent pool and strategic defense. The trade zone will dominate world’s 65% of trade by 2025. According to media sources, India, Russia and China have agreed to hold a trilateral Business Conference next year to consider ways and means of strengthening and expanding cooperation in various areas among the three countries.... Read more ... |
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| http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/koreas_nuclear;_ylt=AtTspFwFLo0pkGj86suPDAus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-- By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer 19. Sept. 2005 North Korea Agrees to End Nuclear Programs North Korea on Monday agreed to stop building nuclear weapons and allow international inspections in exchange for energy aid, economic cooperation and security assurances, in a first step toward disarmament after two years of six-nation talks. The chief U.S. envoy to the talks praised the breakthrough as a "win-win situation" and "good agreement for all of us." But he promptly urged Pyongyang to make good on its promises by ending operations at its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon. "What is the purpose of operating it at this point?" said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. "The time to turn it off would be about now." Despite the deal's potential to help significantly ease friction between the North and the United States after years of false starts and setbacks, Hill remained cautious. "We have to see what comes in the days and weeks ahead," he said. The agreement clinched seven days of talks aimed at setting out general principles for the North's disarmament. Envoys agreed to return in early November to begin hashing out details of how that will be done. Then, the hard work of ensuring compliance will begin, officials attending the talks said. "Agreeing to a common document does not mean that the solution to our problems has been found," said Japan's chief envoy, Kenichiro Sasae. Another Japanese official, who spoke on condition he not be named in order to discuss the issue more freely, noted that there was no common understanding among the participants about the nature of North Korea's nuclear program. The head of the U.N. nuclear nonproliferation agency welcomed North Korea's decision to allow inspections, saying he hoped his experts could take the country at its word as soon as possible. "The earlier we go back, the better," said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to a joint statement issued at the talks' conclusion, the North "committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date" to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. "The six parties unanimously reaffirmed that the goal of the six-party talks is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner," the statement said. Responding to Pyongyang's claims that it needs atomic weapons for defense, North Korea and the United States pledged to respect each other's sovereignty and right to peaceful coexistence, and also to take steps to normalize relations. |
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| "The United States affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons
on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade (North Korea) with
nuclear or conventional weapons," according to the statement, in assurances
echoed by South Korea. The talks, which began in August 2003, include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas. The negotiations had been deadlocked over North Korea's demand to keep the right to civilian nuclear programs after it disarms, and the statement acknowledges the North has made such an assertion but doesn't go beyond that. North Korea had also demanded that it be given a light-water nuclear reactor at the latest talks — a type less easily diverted for weapons use — but Washington had said it and other countries at the talks wouldn't meet that request. Putting aside the question for now, the statement said: "The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor" to North Korea. The North will have to build trust by fulfilling all its pledges before that issue would be discussed, said Sasae, who is director of the Asia and Oceania Bureau at Japan's Foreign Ministry. North Korea has also refused to totally disarm without getting concessions along the way, while Washington has said it wants to see the weapons programs totally dismantled before granting rewards. The statement, however, says the sides agreed to take steps to implement the agreement "in a phased manner in line with the principle of 'commitment for commitment, action for action.'" The other countries at the talks said they were willing give energy assistance to the North, including a South Korean plan to deliver electricity across the heavily armed border dividing the peninsula. "This is the most important result since the six-party talks started more than two years ago," said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, Beijing's envoy. North Korea was promised two light-water reactors under a 1994 deal with Washington to abandon its nuclear weapons. That agreement fell apart in late 2002 with the outbreak of the latest nuclear crisis, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a secret uranium enrichment program. The North is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs from its publicly acknowledged plutonium program, but hasn't performed any known nuclear tests to prove its capability. In February, the North claimed it had nuclear weapons. Japan and North Korea also said in the statement they would move to normalize relations regarding "the outstanding issues of concern." The reference appears to allude to Tokyo's concerns over its citizens that the North has admitted abducting. |
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Moscow is cracking down on the National Bolsheviks. Their leader, Eduard Limonov, shown here in Moscow, says, "We want to create a climate of political freedom and so we are very irritating to the Kremlin. We make the government crazy." |
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| http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002486682_bolsheviks11.html Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 12:00 AM Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail resale@seattletimes.com with your request. PETER FINN / THE WASHINGTON POST Moscow is cracking down on the National Bolsheviks. Their leader, Eduard Limonov, shown here in Moscow, says, "We want to create a climate of political freedom and so we are very irritating to the Kremlin. We make the government crazy." Reincarnated Bolsheviks rattle Russia's leaders By Peter Finn The Washington Post MOSCOW — The 39 defendants sat in cages lined up against the wall of a Moscow courtroom one day last month. The prisoners, most of them students in their teens and early twenties, were members of the National Bolshevik Party, a radical opposition group with a penchant for tossing eggs at officials, gate-crashing government buildings and generally thumbing their noses at authority. They are accused of creating a "mass disturbance" in December after they burst into a reception room at the public offices of President Vladimir Putin outside the Kremlin and waved a banner out the window that read, "Putin Quit Your Job!" But the prosecution of the political activists is part of a wider government crackdown on the National Bolsheviks, a party with ultranationalist roots that claims to have fashioned itself into a force for democratic change and economic justice, including redistribution of wealth. The National Bolsheviks, whose name recalls the revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin, who founded the Soviet Union, were banned in June by a Moscow court. Party lawyers said that was the first time a political party had been outlawed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The court held that the National Bolsheviks were intent on "a forceful change of the foundations of the constitutional regime." The Russian Supreme Court overturned the Moscow court ruling Aug. 16, but prosecutors said they planned to appeal. "We are the most courageous party, we are the most uncontrolled," said the National Bolsheviks' leader, Eduard Limonov, 62, an iconoclastic Russian writer who twirls his gray, Dali-esque moustache as he speaks. "We want to create a climate of political freedom and so we are very irritating to the Kremlin. We make the government crazy." Occasionally, they even infuriate the lawyers trying to keep them out of prison. "All of Russia is a jail" After their attorneys presented a motion calling for the release of the 39 defendants from their pretrial detention, the judge turned to the young prisoners and asked if any of them had anything to say. Up stood Julian Ryabtsev, a bespectacled skinhead wearing a T-shirt with the inflammatory insignia of his party, a parody of the Nazi banner with the Soviet Union's hammer and sickle substituted for the swastika on a white circle surrounded by red. "All of Russia is a jail," said Ryabtsev, 23, a former theology student at a Russian Orthodox Church seminary who holds U.S. citizenship. "It doesn't matter where we live." The defense attorneys groaned and rolled their eyes. One of the prosecutors smiled slightly. And the motion was quickly rejected. The party's ability to galvanize young people — it claims to have 22,000 members with hundreds more joining each month — has unsettled the Kremlin, which seems increasingly fearful of youth-driven rebellions of the kind that toppled governments in Georgia and Ukraine. "It's the only party that struggles for ordinary people, the only party that is not afraid," said Sergei Karamnov, 28, a landscape gardener who joined the party recently. To some political analysts, the Kremlin's attempt to crush the National Bolsheviks has been counterproductive. "Politically, it's very stupid," said Alexander Tarasov, a senior analyst at the New Sociology and Practical Politics Center in Moscow. "If they allowed them to register, I don't think they could get one candidate elected. But now they are a symbol of resistance and young people are turning to them." Food a favorite weapon The National Bolsheviks revel in political pranks. Activists have squirted mayonnaise at the head of the Russian election commission and dumped orange juice on the coach of the country's soccer team, among other acts of what they call "food terrorism." Another group of young people occupied offices in the Health Ministry last summer after forcing the building's evacuation when they arrived in fake uniforms and pretended to be a bomb squad. They then tossed a portrait of Putin out the window. The state has responded harshly. As many as 50 party activists are in prison. And the 39 defendants in the current trial face up to eight years in prison for their two-hour occupation, which ended when police stormed the building. The party was founded in 1994 by Limonov and draws its members from what he calls the cultural avant-garde. The party's flag was adapted from Limonov's books, and the group was initially regarded as a countercultural oddity with some neo-fascist and hard-line nationalist ideas. Limonov had returned to Russia after years in exile in the United States and France following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He worked in Manhattan as a housekeeper for a wealthy family and later turned his misadventures in the city and his scathing take on American life into semi-autobiographical novels, such as "It's Me, Eddie," that were acclaimed in Paris. Limonov now says the group has become a "classical left-wing party" that has shed its chauvinistic origins. His opponents in the government are unconvinced. "If chauvinist, pro-fascist forces provoke an upsurge of Islamic extremism, it would pose a serious threat to the integrity of our multicultural state," Vladislav Surkov, deputy chief of staff in the Putin administration, said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. And some members make little attempt to hide their xenophobia. At a party meeting in Moscow, an activist from Murmansk spoke bitterly about Chinese moving into his city and taking jobs from Russians. Limonov was sentenced to four years in prison in 2001 for his part in what the state said was an attempt to foment a coup in Kazakhstan. He was released after 2 1/2 years, a period in which he wrote eight books, including his reflections on 52 leading world figures, from Mao to Marilyn Monroe. "I became wiser and more tolerant," Limonov said of his time in prison. "Prison is a good school of life." |
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| http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/drucken/1,3733,2376668,00.html 19.09.2005 Im Wahlkreis 160 wird erst am 2. Oktober gewählt Nachwahl in Dresden ändert doch nichts Forschungsgruppe Wahlen: Union behält mindestens einen Sitz Vorsprung Auch nach der Wahl in Dresden I wird die Union mindestens einen Sitz Vorsprung behalten. Das haben Berechnungen der Forschungsgruppe Wahlen ergeben. Die CDU/CSU wird somit die stärkste Fraktion im Bundestag stellen. In Dresden I wird wegen des Todesfalls einer NPD-Direktkandidatin erst am 2. Oktober abgestimmt. Die Partei hat inzwischen als Ersatz den früheren Republikaner-Chef Franz Schönhuber nominiert, der nun auf den neuen Stimmzetteln steht. Rein theoretisch könnte der Ausgang der Wahl in Dresden nur den Vorsprung der Union verkleinern. In Dresden I sind rund 219.000 Bürger zur Bundestagswahl aufgerufen, das sind 6,1 Prozent der sächsischen Wahlberechtigten und rund 0,35 Prozent aller Wahlberechtigten in Deutschland. Der Wahlkreis umfasst die Ortsteile Altstadt, Blasewitz, Leuben, Prohlis und Plauen; ein erheblicher Teil davon gilt als gutbürgerliche Wohngegend. Bei der Landtagswahl im vergangenen Herbst landete die SPD in diesen Stadtteilen nur im einstelligen Bereich, während die CDU in Blasewitz sogar die 44 Prozent überschritt. Die PDS wurde zweitstärkste Kraft. Erneut Überhangmandat? Bei den vergangenen drei Bundestagswahlen holte die CDU in Dresden I stets das Direktmandat, allerdings mit zunehmend schrumpfendem Vorsprung gegenüber der SPD. Zugleich gewann bei der letzten Bundestagswahl jedoch die SPD nach Zweitstimmen. Den diesjährigen CDU-Kandidaten Andreas Lämmel sahen die Prognosen noch vor wenigen Tagen mit deutlichem Abstand vorn. Gewinnt er, dann könnte der CDU in Sachsen erneut ein Überhangmandat zufallen. Zehn Prozentpunkte hinter ihm lag die SPD-Kandidatin Marlies Volkmer. Bessere Chancen als Volkmer auf das Direktmandat hatte der Prognose zufolge Katja Kipping von der Linkspartei. |
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| http://www.zeit.de/online/2005/38/alice_4-99 Wahlen 2005 Gedanken eines Neuwählers Ich bin froh, dass der Wahlkampf vorbei ist. Und ich habe ein paar Vorschläge für den kommenden Von Wladimir Kaminer ... Die Mehrstaatlichkeit würde bedeuten, dass alle Kandidaten ihren eigenen Staat auf dem freiem Markt anbieten, wie es zum Beispiel die Telefongesellschaften mit ihren DSL-Angeboten längst machen. Auch die Politiker würden ihre Kunden in harter Konkurrenz erkämpfen müssen. Und wenn sie klug genug sind, werden sie ihren Staaten nicht solche blöden Kürzel wie „BRD“ oder „DDR“ geben, stattdessen hübsche Frauennamen. Dann wird man auf Wahlkampfplakaten lesen können: „Der Staat „Alice“ mit Schwerpunkt Ökologie, Bildung und Kultur! Dafür ohne Grenzschutz und ohne Armee, für nur 4.99 im Monat!“ mehr lesen ... |
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| http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/625040.html Thu., September 15, 2005 Elections / For Germany's Jews, the past is no less important than the future By Avner Shapira BERLIN - Evening descends slowly upon the streets of Berlin. The unseasonably warm weather seems to have lulled the city into drowsy disinterest over next Sunday's Bundestag elections. The atmosphere in the offices of the city's Jewish community is equally calm. The eternal question regarding all world affairs - "Is it good for the Jews?" - is slightly superfluous in German politics, since the vast majority of German politicians express their commitment to nurturing ties with the Jews and reject anti-Semitic behavior. No significant change is expected if, as predicted, Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union replaces Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder as chancellor. Advertisement "There is no doubt that if Merkel heads the next government, her relationship to the Jews, to the commemoration of the Holocaust and to Israel will be no less favorable than that of Schroeder's government. And since Merkel supports closer relations with the United States, some observers think she is preferable in terms of Jewish interests," said Michael May, executive director of the Jewish community in Berlin. May notes that Merkel forced a member of parliament out of the CDU after he compared the responsibility of the German people for the crimes of the Nazis with the involvement of many Jews in the Soviet Communist government. If Merkel is elected, she will be not only the country's first chancellor from East Germany but also the first born after World War II. Jewish community activists say that if Schroeder's coalition is beaten, they will be sorry to see Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer go. During his seven-year term, Fischer of the Green Party has been one of Israel's best friends in the international arena and has played a key role in German and European involvement in the Middle East. Even Merkel, in an interview with Adar Primor that appears in Friday's Haaretz Magazine, promised that her policy regarding Israel will stick to the course Fischer set. Historic irony With only a few thousand potential voters out of a total electorate of about 62 million, German's Jews will have a negligible impact on the election, but the problems they face are major issues for all voters. These include the high unemployment rate, expected cuts to the welfare budgets and xenophobia. On one hand, the number of Jews in Germany continues to rise. On the other hand, about 75 percent of the immigrants are welfare recipients. Much has already been written about the historic irony in the fact that Germany has the fastest-growing Jewish population in the world, and about the fact that the main agent lobbying to reduce the benefits given to Jewish immigrants is Israel. Before the Berlin Wall fell, Germany had about 30,000 Jews, but when Germany was reunited in 1990, the government decided to give Jews from the Soviet Union special humanitarian status. As a result, between 150,000 and 170,000 people who were recognized as Jews immigrated to Germany and received these benefits. However, half of them are not part of the Jewish community, whose number currently stands at 105,000. "Most of them do not come because they love Germany," May said, "they come because of the economic benefits and not out of a desire to integrate culturally - not into the German community and not into the Jewish community." Earlier this year the government decided to make it harder for Jews to emigrate from the former Soviet Union to Germany, after bowing to pressure from Israel, the Jewish Agency and the umbrella organization for Germany's Jewish communities. Israel was horrified at the fact that more Jews have been going to Germany than to Israel in the past few years. Senior German Jewish leaders feared that the huge increase in the country's Jewish population could provoke anti-Semitism as well as cause the government to reduce its support for the community. Under the new regulations, which go into effect in January 2006, emigrants from the former Soviet Union can immigrate to Germany only if they are under 45 and can prove proficiency in the German language and a willingness to integrate into German society. The new conditions will not apply to 27,000 prospective immigrants whose immigration applications have already been approved and who plan on moving to Germany in the next few years. Changing national memory Michael May, 60, who was born in Israel and moved with his family to Germany when he was a boy, said he is not concerned about the possibility that the public debate over the German national memory is about to undergo significant changes. He believes that the current focus on the suffering endured by German civilians during the Nazi era is not necessarily anti-Jewish. "It's obvious that the analysis of German history is developing, and this is happening not only within the extreme right wing but also among intellectuals and artists, such as the latest book by Gunter Grass, `Crabwalk,' or Oliver Hirshbiegel's `Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich,' which depicts Hitler's final days. "It's not a film that makes a hero out of Hitler and it is definitely a sign of the times that such a film could be made in Germany today. It can be seen as a normal development that doesn't detract from the memory of the Holocaust," May said. Berlin's Jewish community has initiated various programs to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust, even though the German capital sometimes seems full to bursting with memorials. Even now, when the Jewish community is growing and looking to the future, its leaders are looking backward too. In recent weeks they have proposed asking UNESCO to declare the Jewish cemetery in the Weissensee area a world heritage site. The cemetery, where more than 115,000 Jews were buried before the Nazi rise to power, is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Neither the Jewish community nor the German government have the funds needed to restore and maintain the cemetery. "This place is part of the cultural history of Berlin, not only of the Jews, and if we don't get help for its preservation immediately, it will be completely ruined," May said. |
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| jf 38/05 16. September 2005 Die Fassade der Radikalität Opportunismus: Die Führungskader der Grünen können sich nicht mit Rudi Dutschke schmücken Bernd Rabehl Nun ist es amtlich. Ein Teil der Kochstraße in Berlin-Kreuzberg wird auf Betreiben der tageszeitung (taz), die hier ebenso ihren Sitz hat wie der Axel Springer Verlag, nach Rudi Dutschke umbenannt. Die Bezirksverordnetenversammlung in Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain stimmte Ende August mehrheitlich für den von der Linkspartei.PDS mit Unterstützung der Grünen eingebrachten Antrag. Eine leicht verschlammte Regierungszeitung bessert ihren Teint über diesen Namen auf und gibt ihrer Partei, den Grünen, einen Hauch von Tradition. Dutschke, der unrasierte Jungmann mit seinen flammenden Augen, soll Radikalität suggerieren, Aufrichtigkeit und Unbestechlichkeit mitteilen, Tugenden, die die Macher dieser Partei längst aufgegeben haben und die sich in Relikten vielleicht beim Fußvolk finden lassen. Um von Erstwählern oder dem verbitterten Mittelstand der Lehrer, Sozialarbeiter, Richter und Staatsanwälte gewählt zu werden, ist Romantik gefragt. Sie soll an grüne Pflanzen, saubere Luft, Lebensqualität, Gleichberechtigung, Kinderlachen und junge Frauen und Männer erinnern, die ihren Weg gehen und deshalb die Grünen wählen. Rudi Dutschke allerdings hatte mit den Leuten, die sich heute mit seinem Namen schmücken wollen, nichts gemeinsam. Nach seiner Genesung von dem Attentat am 11. April 1968 bezog er zu Beginn der siebziger Jahre eindeutig Front gegen sie. Doch kaum jemand wird sich heute an die Positionen und Ziele Dutschkes erinnern. Nun demonstrieren die Parteilenker, die Minister und Staatssekretäre, daß sie auf ihre Ursprünge nicht verweisen wollen und daß ihnen der „antiautoritäre“ Aufbruch von damals verhaßt bleibt. Die Funktionsträger aus den oberen Stockwerken der Partei kommen großenteils aus dem kommunistischen Lager von KBW, KPD und Putztruppe. Sie wehrten sich in den siebziger Jahren gegen eine „Jugendrevolte“, indem sie auf Hierarchien, Patriarchat, Disziplin, Parteikult, Gehorsam und Gefolgschaft setzten, um diesen „antiautoritären Aufbruch“ von innen durch die Maßstäbe der chinesischen Revolution zu brechen. Für sie war Rudi Dutschke schon deshalb Feind und politischer Gegner, weil er auf Selbstbewußtsein und die demokratische Selbstbestimmung der Jugend setzte. Die Jungkommunisten damals waren angetan von einem Pol Pot, der in Kambodscha die alten Generationen zu Millionen morden ließ, um Platz zu schaffen für die jungen Leute. Kulturelle Erneuerung und die Demokratisierung wurde von den Kadern bewußt mißverstanden und verwechselt mit „Säuberung“ und Massenmord. Ansprüche auf gutbezahlte Posten Sie besetzten zu Beginn der achtziger Jahre durch Masseneintritte die grüne Partei, um dem eigenen Bankrott ihrer Gruppen zu entgehen, und drängten die Radikalökologen und Basisdemokraten hinaus. Ökologische Fragen blieben ihnen so gleichgültig wie die Vorstellungen von Demokratie und Mitbestimmung. In dem Maße, wie diese Partei Wähler erhielt und bündnisfähig wurde, gaben die Hauptakteure auch die ursprünglich antikapitalistischen und anti-imperialistischen Ziele auf. Heute haben sie Kriege und Interventionen zu verantworten und überholen in einzelnen Fällen sogar die CDU/CSU in einer proamerikanischen Gesinnung. Dieser Prozeß der machtpolitischen Anpassung war verbunden mit einer „geheimnisvollen Amnestie“, denn einige der Spitzenpolitiker waren in antisemitische Aktionen, in Brandanschläge auf Polizeiautos, Widerstand gegen die Staatsgewalt und illegale Demonstrationen verwickelt. Ihr geheimnisvoller „Freispruch“ stand ohne Zweifel in Verbindung mit dem späteren Opportunismus der grünen Staatspartei. Der Umschwung dieser ehemaligen Maoisten und Stadtkämpfer hatte noch andere Konsequenzen. Zu verstehen wäre noch, daß die „Pol-Pot-Leute“ die Generationsfrage für sich lösten, indem sie Ansprüche auf die gutbezahlten Jobs in Partei und Staatsapparat anmeldeten. Aber die ideologische Abrüstung kannte keine Grenzen und verlor sich in einem lärmenden Opportunismus, den Mächtigen dieser Welt zu Munde zu reden. Die ehemaligen Linken hatten es eilig, sich in eine „politische Klasse“ einzufädeln, die alle nationalen Traditionen verleugnete. Sie gefielen sich in Selbstzufriedenheit und Prasserei und wurden Teil von Stimmungen und Meinungen, den sozialen oder nationalen Zusammenhalt eines Volkes zu verleugnen und nur an die eigenen Vorteile zu denken. Die grünen „Realpolitiker“ betrachteten ihre Position in Parlament und Staat als eine Art „Fürstentum“, das ihnen zustand. Ein solcher Opportunismus mußte seinen Ursprung verbergen, und er besaß deshalb keinerlei Tradition. Als Kostüm, Gesicht, Parole oder Symbol mußte eine derartige Vergangenheit ausgeliehen werden. Für Dutschke bestand keinerlei Zweifel darüber, daß sich eine entstehende radikaldemokratische und ökologische Partei grundsätzlich von den etablierten Parteien oder von einer marxistisch-leninistischen Partei unterscheiden mußte. Durch das Parteienprivileg des Grundgesetzes und die Nähe der Bundesparteien zum öffentlichen Dienst fand nach seiner Überzeugung hier eine Negativauslese von Aufsteigern und Karrieristen statt, die ihre Parteimitgliedschaft nutzten, um lukrative Staatsstellen zu erhalten. Sie gehörten deshalb zu den Seilschaften aufstrebender Politiker, die als Minister oder Verwaltungschefs ihre Leute im Staatsapparat unterbringen würden. Ein derartiger Zuschnitt von Organisation konzentrierte die Parteiarbeit auf weinige „Führer“ und ihre Gefolgschaften. Eine innerparteiliche Demokratie konnte unter diesen Bedingungen keine Kontrollfähigkeit erzielen oder eine Korrektur von Politik erreichen. In den Parteien entstanden Kreise vonBerufspolitikern und Oligarchen, die ihre Macht abschirmten. Sie benutzten die Wahlen lediglich zur Inszenierung ihrer „Politik“. Dadurch gewann die parlamentarische Demokratie Ähnlichkeiten mit einer populistisch aufgezogenen Diktatur, in der „Parteidiktatoren“ sich nur selbst darstellten. Die ML-Parteien waren per definitionem Macht- und Kaderparteien, die die innerparteiliche Demokratie nicht akzeptierten, sondern auf ihre „Avantgarden“ als Willensträger setzten. Die Wähler oder das „Volk“ waren für sie dumm und manipulierbar. Dutschke dagegen wollte den „grünen“ Parteiaufbau mit der Demokratisierung vor Ort in den Kommunen und Ländern verbinden und radikale und plebiszitäre Ziele in das Grundgesetz einbringen. Das imperative Mandat sollte sicherstellen, daß Politiker nicht käuflich wurden und ihren sozialen Bezug zur Partei nicht zerstörten. Dadurch sollte eine „Zirkulation“ der Bonzen und Eliten unterlaufen und langfristig die Macht der Oligarchien gebrochen werden. Er hatte außerdem ein Interesse daran, die ausländischen Einflüsse auf die Politik zurückzudrängen. Für Dutschke war das westliche Deutschland über die Oligarchiendemokratie ein besetztes Land. Er fand Unterstützung bei Petra Kelly und Gerd Bastian. Ihr Projekt der verfassungsmäßigen und politischen Demokratisierung der Bundesrepublik konnte nicht durchgesetzt werden. Dutschke ertrank Weihnachten 1979 unter kuriosen Umständen in der Badewanne. Der alte Panzergeneral Bastian, so die Legende, erschoß im Oktober 1992 aus Eifersucht die „jugendliche Geliebte“ und anschließend sich selbst. Machtreserve der Sozialdemokratie Erst nach dem Tode dieser drei „Erneuerer“ grüner Politik konnten sich die Rottenführer und Kader der K.-Gruppen und der Stadtkämpfer in dieser Partei durchsetzen. Über einen „Putsch“ besetzten sie die Organisation, drängten die Gegner heraus und polten die Partei in eine Machtreserve der Sozialdemokratie um. Inzwischen entstanden über diese Partei „grüne Fürstentümer“ und die Einkommensmilieus ihrer Aufsteiger und Nutznießer. Kein Wunder, daß „Dutschke“ als Legende von Tradition und Anstand heute genutzt werden muß. Über ihre Villen in der Toskana, über ihre Eigentumswohnungen und Luxuslimousinen würden diese Machtpolitiker kaum reden wollen. Prof. Dr. Bernd Rabehl, Jahrgang 1938, war einer der engsten Weggefährten und Vertrauten Rudi Dutschkes. Bis 2003 lehrte er Soziologie an der Freien Universität Berlin. In der Edition Antaios, Schnellroda, veröffentlichte er 2002 die Monographie „Rudi Dutschke. Revolutionär im geteilten Deutschland“. Wachablösung: 1734 nach einem preußischen Hofrat, künftig nach dem Studentenführer Dutschke benannt Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979) |
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| http://www.nzz.ch/2005/09/13/al/newzzEDJNKG6H-12.html 13. September 2005, 14:40, NZZ Online Machtwechsel in Norwegen Rot-grünes Oppositionsbündnis gewinnt Parlamentswahlen Nach den Parlamentswahlen steht Norwegen vor einem Machtwechsel. Das Links-Bündnis des sozialdemokratischen Herausforderers Jens Stoltenberg ist als klarer Sieger aus der Wahl hervorgegangen. (sda/afp/dpa/ap) "In Norwegen hat das rot-grüne Oppositionsbündnis die Parlamentswahl gewonnen und die Mitte-Rechts-Koalition von Ministerpräsident Kjell Magne Bondevik von der Macht verdrängt. Laut dem am Dienstagmorgen veröffentlichten vorläufigen amtlichen Endergebnis errang die siegreiche Drei-Parteien-Allianz unter der Führung des Sozialdemokraten Jens Stoltenberg 87 der 169 Sitze. ... ... Er wolle Norwegen «in die richtige Richtung bringen», sagte Stoltenberg am Dienstag am Fernsehen.... ... Bondeviks Minderheitskabinett aus seiner Christlichen Volkspartei (KrF), den Konservativen (H) und den Liberalen (V) wurde bislang von der rechtsgerichteten Fortschrittspartei (FrP) toleriert. Diese hat ihre Unterstützung aber aufgekündigt, unter anderem, weil Bondevik den Rechten einen Kabinettsplatz verweigerte. Dem vorläufigen Ergebnis zufolge konnte die FrP bei der Parlamentswahl 37 Mandate für sich verbuchen...." Mehr lesen ... |
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| http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/14/201055.shtml Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005 8:06 p.m. EDT Louis Farrakhan: Levees Were 'Blown Up' Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is telling his followers that the levees in New Orleans may have been deliberately "blown up" to kill the city's black population. The influential preacher was in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday, where he detailed his Hurricane Katrina conspiracy theory. "I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach," Farrakhan explained. "It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry." Farrakhan didn't say who he thought was behind the plot to blow up New Orleans' levees. The Muslim minister also blasted both FEMA and the Red Cross, saying their response to Katrina victims after the levees were blown up was inadequate. |
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| http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1349783.html Fri, 09 Sep 2005 Black Activist Group Claims Media Not Reporting True Conditions in New Orleans Melanie Hunter Senior Editor (CNSNews.com) - A black activist group which spearheaded a search and rescue mission in New Orleans for victims of Hurricane Katrina said the media has not been accurately reporting the conditions in the region. The New Black Panther Party and its attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz sent buses and relief supplies to the areas so over 500 people could be rescued. The group said despite what is being reported about how much aid is being sent to the area, the number of people rescued and reports that angry black residents are retaliating justifying the need for a "shoot to kill order," Shabazz spoke to an Army personnel who told a different story. "Wholesale police brutality is being waged against the victims of this natural disaster," Shabazz said in a statement. He claimed police sniper units are provoking attacks by blacks to substantiate their reasons for firing on "groups of black males randomly and indiscriminately." The federal government is refusing to let people leave "as if they were hostages or slaves," Shabazz said. "This is more of a racist occupation of subjugation rather than a relief effort." The group said that while rescuing those displaced by the storm, they encountered many obstacles seven days after the hurricane hit, including bodies laying on benches, roadsides, and in the water, while children and the elderly are without food. The New Black Panther Party accused the government - local, state and federal - of using race as a factor in the recovery efforts. The group said government officials knew "since the 1980s that the levies would fail if a scale four or five hurricane was to hit" the Gulf coast. The group pointed to a 2005 request for $17 million in flood control funds, which was rejected by the government "because they believed it was not an adequate use of funds." Also, the New Black Panther Party said state officials knew "that if a hurricane of this magnitude was to reach the New Orleans area which is 67 percent Black residents, that over 100,000 people would not be able to evacuate due to socio-economic status." The group pointed to remarks made by former First Lady Barbara Bush on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Oberman," quoting her as saying "the conditions in the Dome are sufficient enough for those people since they were underprivileged anyway." "This very statement reflects the mentality of the systemic structure of white supremacy which determines its function as it relates to its non-white citizens," the group said, criticizing the United States' rejection of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's offer to send 1,586 doctors carrying 27 pounds each of medicine to the U.S. "because they see him as an adversary." The ew Black Panther Party said the system is designed "to keep non-white people in state of subjugation on all levels and they are viewed as expendable in order to protect the interest of the system." The group then compared the condition of the black community in New Orleans to its condition in the rest of the nation, saying "other areas affected by this natural disaster exist as a microcosm of the condition of black people all over the world." |
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| http://www.click2houston.com/news/4975025/detail.html# FBI Issues Warning About Gangs Transplanted From N.O. More Security Sent To School After Brawl POSTED: 5:30 pm CDT September 14, 2005 HOUSTON -- Houston could have a new crime wave in the wake of Hurricane Katrina brought in by New Orleans gangs, the FBI warned Wednesday. The FBI intelligence memo obtained by KPRC Local 2 warned other law enforcement agencies that gang member evacuees might bring an "us versus them" mentality that could lead to shootings and other violence all over Houston. On Tuesday, a group of Louisiana evacuees and students from a southeast Houston high school were involved in a fight, which escalated into a riot that closed school early. "Yesterday took away the opportunity to pretend there was no problem," said Gayle Fallon, with the Houston Federation of Teachers. Up to 25 students were involved in the 8 a.m. fight at Jesse Jones High School, located at 7414 St. Lo. Fallon said the bloody brawl may be the first of many unless the troublemakers are removed to disciplinary schools. "There are no second chances on this or we could see our schools out of control," Fallon said. The FBI said gangs will emerge as a sense of security wherever evacuees gather. The memo said gangs would steal guns and set up new drug connections as they take hold of the turf of Houston gangs. "They may not have specific colors. They may have tattoos, they may not," said Chuck Brawner, with the Spring Branch Independent School District. Brawner said there have been no problems within Spring Branch ISD but his officers are watching for clashes with existing gang members or anything else that happens. "On the other hand, they could bond together and become one unit, which would make it a larger population of gang members than we're used to seeing," Brawner said. The FBI would not comment on the warning to police agencies. It listed the names of 15 gangs. Only one of those gangs wears colors to identify themselves, which officials said would make it more difficult to track. Students at Jones High School had more police and security on hand when they arrived at class Wednesday morning. Officials said Tuesday's brawl started when a student threw an unopened soda can at a group of evacuees, which was retaliation for a fight the day before. Ministers were also at the campus to ease tensions. "We want our citizens of Houston and our citizens from New Orleans to know that we've got to come together as one and we do that by communicating, by sharing," said James Nash, with Houston Ministers Against Crime. Five students were arrested in the brawl. Three others were treated for minor injuries at |
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| http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/09/10/britain.liberties.reut/index.html MI5: Terror threat to liberties Saturday, September 10, 2005 Posted: 1039 GMT (1839 HKT) MI5 "disappointed" they had not thwarted the London bombings. LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The head of Britain's security services has warned that civil liberties across the world may have to be sacrificed to prevent future terrorist attacks. Read more ... |
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| http://www.manoramaonline.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=manorama/MmArticle/FullText&c=MmArticle&cid=1126843806811&p=1002194839100 Belarus leader defends Saddam, mourns loss of USSR Sep 19, 2005 10:16 hrs. IST United Nations: The President of Belarus on Thursday mourned the dissolution of the Soviet Union, defended former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and said the United States was causing chaos in the world. President Alexander Lukashenko, described by the Bush administration as the last dictator in Europe, also told world leaders at a U.N. summit that Iran and North Korea were only "looked at through gun sights." "Fifteen years have passed since the break-up of my country, the USSR," Lukashenko said. "The Soviet Union, despite all mistakes and blunders of its leaders, was the source of hope and support for many states and peoples." He said the former Soviet Union provided a balance in the global system, now dominated by the United States which acts unilaterally and sees crises in "black and white." Turning to the Balkans, he said the "once prosperous Yugoslavia was devastated and disappeared from the map of Europe," while its former leader, Slobodan Milosevic's trial by a U.N. tribunal had turned into a "caricature." In Iraq, Lukashenko said, former President Saddam Hussein was "abandoned to the winner's mercy, like in barbarian times." The real weapons of destruction, he said, were not in Iraq but in the misery afflicting billions of people. "Poverty and deprivation have become a real and not a virtual weapon of mass destruction, moreover, a racially selective one," he said. In Afghanistan, he said, U.S.-led forces "ravaged" the country with rockets and bombs to find Osama bin Laden, held responsible for the 2001 attacks on the United States. "Where is he now?", Lukashenko asked. "He is at large but Afghanistan and Iraqi territories began to generate hundreds and thousands of international terrorists." Belarus, however, is free from war, being rebuilt by using its "own wits" and marked by 10 million "highly educated and tolerant people" and diverse nationalities and religions, Lukashenko said. He recalled that Belarus, wedged between Russia and Poland, was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 after it lost a third of its population in World War II. But now the United Nations, particularly its human rights bodies, is used "to control other countries." Lukashenko, in power since 1994, is accused of crushing Belarus's small, disunited liberal and nationalist opposition, cracking down on independent media and manipulating elections. He is expected to run for a new term in 2006 after a referendum last year amended the constitution to enable him to stay in power. |
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| jf 38/05 16. September 2005 "Die Lüge vom ewigen Krieg für ewigen Frieden" Interview: Der Publizist Günter Maschke über die Aktualität von Carl Schmitts Völkerrechtsdenken und den tödlichen Mythos vom Weltfrieden Sven Beier Herr Maschke, Sie haben soeben eine umfangreiche Sammlung der völkerrechtlichen Schriften Carl Schmitts unter dem paradox klingenden Titel "Frieden oder Pazifismus?" herausgegeben (JF 25/05). Wollen die Pazifisten etwa keinen Frieden? Maschke: Alle Varianten des Pazifismus streben nicht nach dem Frieden als Enthaltung von einem Kriege und auch nicht nach dem Frieden, der nach vorhergegangenem Kriege mit einem anzuerkennenden Feind zu schließen ist; sie wollen den Krieg – dessen Existenzberechtigung sie verneinen – abschaffen. Sie bezeichnen den Krieg als Verbrechen und verbieten ihn juristisch; der das Völkerrecht seit dem Versailler Diktat von 1919 prägende bewaffnete Pazifismus ermöglicht Sanktionen, friedenserhaltende Maßnahmen, friedliche Besetzungen, robuste Mandate, humanitäre Interventionen und wie die Tarnbegriffe heißen mögen: militärische Aktionen gegen "Friedensbrecher" und "Angreifer". Folglich muß jeder vermeiden, als Angreifer zu gelten; der Angreifer muß konstruiert, bzw. der Feind muß zu Angriffsakten provoziert werden. Dabei kann doch der wirkliche Angreifer der sein, welcher aufgrund seiner Stärke und geographischen Lage zum Angriffsakt provozieren kann. "Der Angreifer ist derjenige, der seinen Gegner zwingt, zu den Waffen zu greifen", wußte schon Friedrich der Große. Ein nicht nur juristischer Strick wird dann aber nur dem gedreht, der sich provozieren läßt und, der Folgen seiner Niederlage (Stichwort: bedingungslose Kapitulation) eingedenk, bis zum Weißbluten kämpft. Damit verbunden ist die Tendenz, das Kriegsrecht zu beseitigen: Gegen den, der zum Kriege schreitet, soll so ziemlich alles erlaubt sein. Zumindest werden seine Verbrechen im Kriege nicht zum Thema. Der Weg vom Pazifismus als der Negation des Rechts zur Kriegführung hin zum totalen und gerechten Krieg kann also sehr kurz sein: perpetual war for perpetual peace – "ewiger Krieg für ewigen Frieden". Krieg und Frieden sind jedoch korrelative Begriffe, und der Frieden setzt stets eine vorhergegangene Feindseligkeit voraus. Wer diese jedoch als Verbrechen und den Feind als Verbrecher ansieht, kann überhaupt nicht zum Frieden gelangen. Gerade die Diskriminierung von Krieg und Feind – das Basieren des Völkerrechts auf nur einem seiner "Standbeine", den Frieden – macht den Frieden unauffindbar. Man kann nur mit einem anzuerkennenden Feinde Frieden schließen. Der Frieden als Rechtszustand kann nur erreicht werden, wenn der Krieg einen rechtlichen Status besitzt. Der Pazifismus erweist sich also als Hindernis des Friedens, während eine Welt ohne Krieg nicht eine des Friedens wäre, sondern zur Selbstbeschreibung einen gänzlich neuen Begriff finden müßte. Würden Sie behaupten, daß Carl Schmitt ein für das moderne Völkerrecht "anschlußfähiger" Theoretiker der internationalen Beziehungen ist? Maschke: Das moderne Völkerrecht sollte sich eher darum kümmern, gegenüber Carl Schmitt anschlußfähig zu werden; es ist an dem Desaster seit 1919 nicht unschuldig. Nach jeder Katastrophe haben seine Doktrinäre die Diskriminierung des Krieges verschärft und der fortbestehenden Machtpolitik immer subtilere Täuschungsmanöver und Verschleierungen ermöglicht; man denke nur an die Ausdeutungspotentiale des Kellogg-Paktes (1928) und der Stimson-Doktrin (1932). Die Kriegführung wurde auch deshalb stets brutaler, weil nicht zuletzt die Folgen einer Niederlage immer schrecklicher zu werden drohten. Zwischen 1919 und 1939 wurde das Kriegsverbot unterlaufen, man fürchtete Sanktionen und betrieb deshalb "friedliche Okkupationen", "Repressalien" etc.; typisch dafür der chinesisch-japanische Konflikt. Die Ablösung des Kriegsbegriffes durch den des "bewaffneten Konflikts" und das allgemeine Gewaltverbot haben nichts gebessert; nunmehr wurde die "Selbstverteidigung" ins Maßlose gesteigert. Die USA betrieben sie angeblich gegenüber dem Irak, der sie angeblich akut bedrohte. Die mögliche Ohnmacht des Völkerrechts vor gewissen Realitäten ist eines, diesen Realitäten den Schein des Rechts zu verleihen oder technisierte Massaker als "Vorgriff" auf ein Weltbürgerrecht zu feiern – so der Großbewahrer der Humanität, Jürgen Habermas – ist ein anderes. Wie realistisch ist es eigentlich, von einem Zusammenhang von Raum und Recht auszugehen, wie Schmitt das tut, so daß sich Krieg und Frieden um die Realisierung einer "natürlichen Ordnung" drehen? Im Zeitalter der Migranten- und Warenströme, der multikulturellen "Bevölkerung", scheint man damit doch wenig anfangen zu können, um die noch staatlich organisierte Koexistenz solcher "Bevölkerungen" zu regeln? Maschke: Migranten- und Warenströme richten sich auf bestimmte, politisch organisierte Räume, sie fluten ja nicht beliebig auf einer nicht unterteilten Erde herum. Notfalls baut man auch Zäune, sei es an der Grenze zu Mexiko oder zu Palästina. Gerade wegen dieser Ströme ist die politische und militärische Kontrolle von Räumen heute eher wichtiger als früher. Dies belegen auch der stets schärfer werdende Kampf um den Zugang zu Rohstoffen, die Militarisierung des Weltraums, die Versuche, Rußland einzukreisen oder mittels Menschenrechtsideologie bestimmte Staaten in ihre Bestandteile zu zerlegen. Man spricht längst von einer "Wiederkehr des Raumes", und die Tage der Politischen Geographie und der Geopolitik sind noch keineswegs gezählt, auch wenn dies der akademische Mittelbau deutscher Universitäten wähnt. "Das Völkerrecht Schmitts liegt jenseits des Etatismus" Ist Schmitts völkerrechtliches Ordnungsmodell mit seiner Fixierung auf den Boden und das den Boden einteilende und nutzende homogene Volk nicht doch mehr als nur archaisch, nämlich, wie Schmitt häufig vorgehalten wird, "völkisch" und damit theoretisch heute obsolet? Maschke: Schmitts Völkerrecht wurde während des Nationalsozialismus gerade wegen seines völkischen Defizits kritisiert; im übrigen wird das Völkische nicht obsolet sondern, aufgrund der Aggressivität der Globalisierung, stets wichtiger. Die Tendenz zur Bildung immer neuer, kleinerer – möglichst nur eine Ethnie umfassender – Staaten ist bezeichnend. Man vermeidet nur das für Angepaßte belastete Wort "völkisch", verficht aber lebhafter als früher die Sache. Schmitt ging es jedoch nicht um diese Frage, sondern um den Aufbau von Großräumen gegen die idealisierte "Eine Welt" (One World), die nicht die Welt gleichberechtigter Völkerrechtssubjekte wäre, sondern die einer imperialistischen Supermacht. Das Völkerrecht des vermeintlichen Etatisten Schmitt liegt jenseits des Etatismus und beruht vor allem auf der in Washington ignorierten Erkenntnis, daß die Welt stets größer sein wird als die Vereinigten Staaten und nicht nach deren seltsamen Vorstellungen zugerichtet werden darf. Schmitts völkerrechtliches Ideal scheint in der europäischen Staatenwelt zwischen Westfälischem Frieden und Erstem Weltkrieg zu liegen: souveräne Staaten, die gegeneinander begrenzte, gehegte Duellkriege führen und zu milden Friedensschlüssen fähig sind. Ist das nicht ein Privatmythos Schmitts, mit dem er gegen den totalen Krieg des 20. Jahrhunderts zu Felde zieht? Vorausgesetzt, es hätte den Duellkrieg wirklich gegeben – ein Zurück zu ihm hätte doch auch Schmitt nicht ernsthaft für möglich gehalten? Und sehen Sie darin mehr als eine historische Reminiszenz, eine Alternative zu dem Versuch, Frieden durch den Universalismus jener "demokratischen Weltrevolution" zu stiften, die George W. Bush im November 2003 ausgerufen hat? Maschke: Den gehegten Krieg hat es doch gegeben, und er beruhte auf klaren Unterscheidungen: Krieg/Frieden, innen/außen, Kombattant/Nicht-Kombattant etc. Selbst wenn man zu solchen Unterscheidungen nicht mehr kommen kann, darf man dann den totalen Krieg und den perpetual war for perpetual peace unterstützen, indem man die Lüge von der Unteilbarkeit des Friedens propagiert und behauptet, ein jeder Krieg ginge "alle" an, nämlich die angeblich existierende Völkergemeinschaft, die in Wirklichkeit eine Staatengesellschaft ist? Darf man auf diese Weise helfen, eine Art soft law für imperialistische Interventionstitel bereitzustellen? Äußert einer den törichten Satz, die deutsche Freiheit (über deren Wesen bzw. Vorhandensein zu sprechen uns hier die Höflichkeit verbietet) werde auch am Hindukusch verteidigt, oder erklärt einer gar, die Lage der Vereinigten Staaten würde sicherer, werde der Irak gerettet, indem er zerstört wird, so sind derartige Verlautbarungen nur möglich, weil inzwischen an das Völkerrecht von 1919 ff. geglaubt wird – das tun heute sogar die Kritiker dieser Sätze! Diese Leute mögen Versailles kritisieren, Nürnberg bezweifeln, den Vietnam-Krieg verurteilen, gleichzeitig feiern sie die Durchsetzung der Menschenrechte und die Vorwärtsverteidigung westlicher Werte und ähnlicher erhabener Entitäten! Jene, die sich wohlfeil erregen über den Bruch des Völkerrechts durch die Vereinigten Staaten, vergessen, daß dieser Bruch nur die logische Konsequenz der Entwicklung ebendieses um 1880 allmählich einsetzenden, 1919 zum Erfolg kommenden Völkerrechts ist. Was aber soll "Weltdemokratie" oder ähnliches heißen? "Demokratie" kann nur der Kratos – die Herrschaft – eines Demos – eines Volkes – sein und kann sich weder auf "Welt" noch auf "Menschheit" beziehen. Zudem ist sie nur eine Methode der Rechtserzeugung ohne jeden Inhalt; der muß erst hinzutreten. Was dem Westen die "Demokratie" wert ist, das zeigt sich, wenn sie zu für ihn unangenehmen Resultaten kommt – man denke nur an den Sieg der Islamischen Heilsfront bei den algerischen Wahlen im Dezember 1991: Da schaute der Westen dem Putsch gegen die Heilsfront mit klammheimlicher Freude zu; man denke auch an die Wahlen im Iran 2005. – Eine "demokratische Weltrevolution", forciert von skrupellosen Erdöllobbyisten, die in ihrer Freizeit Leo Strauss lesen? Und die nach der Devise Schumpeters verfahren: "Demokratie ist Herrschaft durch Lüge"? Angesichts des "Eine Welt"-Strebens der einzig verbliebenen Supermacht USA: Wirkt da nicht auch Schmitts letztes Wort zum "Nomos der Erde", seine Aussicht auf ein Pluriversum der Großräume, auffällig antiquiert? Maschke: Die USA mögen die "Eine Welt" anstreben, aber es ist längst klar, daß ihnen dies nicht gelingt. Die Versuche zum Aufbau von Großräumen sind unübersehbar, selbst in Lateinamerika. Der Verlust der US-Dominanz im Produktions- und selbst im Finanzsektor ist unbestreitbar. Dazu kommt die absurde US-Auslandsverschuldung und ihre Risiken. Militärisch kommen die Vereinigten Staaten immer dann rasch an das Ende ihrer Möglichkeiten, fehlen ihnen fremde Truppen mit entsprechender Sterbebereitschaft. Man käme dem Weltfrieden näher, würden die Vereinigten Staaten eingedämmt und ihren Versuchen, den arabischen Raum zu kontrollieren (und damit einen Teil der Ölversorgung Europas), das "Herzland", den eurasischen Raum, zu durchdringen und Rußland einzukreisen, ein Ende bereitet. Aussichtslos ist das nicht. Ist der Versuch, den Weltstaat mit allen Mitteln aufzuhalten, angesichts der "Globalisierung" genannten Dynamik ökonomischer und kommunikationstechnischer Vernetzung nicht schon zu Lebzeiten Schmitts ein Kampf gegen Windmühlen gewesen? Maschke: Um den "Weltstaat" kann es nicht gehen, allenfalls um eine subsidiäre Weltförderation, die utopisch genug ist. Kommt es zur "Einheit der Welt" in irgendeiner Form, wäre das einzig sichere Ergebnis, daß aus Kriegen bzw. "bewaffneten Konflikten" Bürgerkriege würden. Was das bedeutete, zeigen schon die heutigen Fingierungen einer Welteinheit, als deren uneigennützige Polizisten die USA posieren. Steigende ökonomische Vernetzung ist kein Unterpfand des Friedens, die ökonomische Integration Europas war um 1914 höher als heute! Aus steigender ökonomischer und juristischer Integration erwächst noch keine politische Ordnung. Bei abnehmender Legitimität des Staates wirken ökonomische Integration und wachsende Interdependenz destabilisierend und sogar kriegsfördernd. Man darf behaupten, daß das gegenwärtige internationale Recht das blasse Kind einer Verbindung von Französischer Revolution und englisch-maritimen Auffassungen ist: Menschenrechtsimperialismus und Umerziehung hier, Pan-Interventionismus, verbunden mit Haßpropaganda, Erdrosselung der Ökonomie des Feindes und Verwischung des Unterschiedes Krieg/Frieden dort. Auf diesen zwei Prinzipien, welche die Instabilität der Welt zur Folge hatten, soll die Stabilität der Zukunft beruhen. – Sie werden sagen, daß das eine Vereinfachung ist. Dann gucken Sie sich aber mal Ihre Fragen an! Der noch amtierende Außenminister Joschka Fischer hat gerade eine Prognose für die Entwicklung der neuen Weltordnung gewagt: Entweder gelinge es den USA, im Rahmen der Uno eine von ihnen und der EU als ihrem Partner dominierte "Weltrepublik" zu schaffen, oder es stehe eine sich verschärfende Konkurrenz mit China ins Haus, was eine "zukünftige hegemoniale Konfrontation" nicht ausschließe. Ist nicht auch deshalb die "Eine Welt" unter US-Dominanz der Weg in die friedlichere Zukunft? Maschke: Im Rahmen der Uno zu handeln, interessiert die USA bekanntlich wenig, und das von ihnen kontrollierte und gespaltene Europa wäre kein Partner, sondern nur ein nützlicher Idiot. Die sich verschärfende Konkurrenz mit China ist so oder so unabwendbar. Eine "Weltrepublik" von US-Gnaden: Heißt das, die Fortsetzung der US-Verbrechen à la Irak zu unterstützen? Heißt das, sich an Raubkriegen, pardon, Privatisierungen zu beteiligen? Heißt das, den westlichen Werten so zugeneigte Staaten wie Ägypten, Pakistan, Saudiarabien oder Kolumbien zu stützen, dort allenfalls als Menschenrechtsfassadenputzer zu amtieren? Heißt das, "vorbeugende" atomare Erstschläge plausibel zu finden? Ist nicht der Zeitgeist, gebündelt in den kosmopolitischen "Weltstaats"-Entwürfen eines David Held oder Otfried Höffe, auch ein mächtiger Verbündeter aller Projekte, die den "Weltfrieden" versprechen? Ist dann nicht selbst eine an Carl Schmitt orientierte Kritik ohnmächtig, die nachweist, daß solche Friedensversprechungen lediglich die völkerrechtlich-ideologischen Umhüllungen eines imperialistischen Interventionismus sind? "Der Raubkrieg, pardon, die Privatisierung" Maschke: "Wer sich mit dem Zeitgeist vermählt, wird bald Witwer sein", pflegte Kierkegaard zu sagen. Der "Weltfrie-den", der "Weltstaat", die "subsidiäre Weltföderation" und wie die – nicht einmal schönen – Träume heißen, deren Unterschiede wir hier beiseite lassen, das sind wohl Unmöglichkeiten – die zudem sittlich abwegig sind. Le futur, c’est le massacre: "Die Zukunft ist das Massaker" – und das Massaker wird nicht dadurch geadelt, daß es high-tech und im Namen der "Demokratie" geschieht. In der Politik sollte man es mit Wahrscheinlichkeiten halten, nicht mit Wunschbildern. Und die Wahrscheinlichkeit ist, daß wir uns nach dem 20. Jahrhundert noch die Finger lecken werden. Anstatt aber vom "Weltstaat" und ähnlichen längst wurmstichigen Derivationen zu phantasieren, sollten wir Deutschen daran denken, daß wir nach 1991 13 Milliarden Mark gezahlt haben, damit 150.000 Iraker getötet werden konnten und anschließend 300.000 Kinder infolge des Embargos verhungerten – als wenn der Irak uns oder auch nur den "Westen" jemals bedroht hätte. Im Bewältigen kennen wir uns doch aus – und hier wären wir sogar zu klaren Folgerungen und Handlungsanweisungen gelangt. Mag eine sich an Schmitt orientierende Kritik gegenüber bestimmten Realitäten ohnmächtig sein, so ist sie es doch nicht gegenüber der sie deckenden Ideologie. Und: Die Zerstörung einer Realität beginnt immer mit dem Angriff auf ihren Überbau! – Sie suggerieren mit Ihren Fragen, daß gegen einen imperialistischen Interventionismus kein Kraut gewachsen sei. Wie kommen Sie denn auf so was? Zum Sterben findet sich übrigens immer noch Zeit, während bestimmte Formen des sacrificio dell’ intelletto – der intellektuellen Selbstaufgabe – unheilbar werden können. Günter Maschke: Jahrgang 1943, der "einzige echte Renegat der 68er" (Jürgen Habermas), lebt als Schriftsteller und Privatgelehrter in Frankfurt am Main. Er gilt als einer der profundesten Kenner und Interpreten des Werkes von Carl Schmitt. Günter Maschke (Hrsg.): Carl Schmitt. Frieden oder Pazifismus? Arbeiten zum Völkerrecht und zur internationalen Politik 1924–1978. Mit einem Vorwort und mit Anmerkungen versehen. Duncker&Humblot, Berlin 2005, XXX und 1.010 Seiten, gebunden, 98 Euro Carl Schmitt, Günter Maschke (links), 1981: "Massaker werden nicht dadurch geadelt, daß sie im Namen der Demokratie geschehen" |
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| http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=3425 JINSA Behind Drive To Cover-Up Israel Spy Scandal: JINSA (Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs) is the same cabal of Israel Firsters (of whom chicken hawks Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz are associated) which has hijacked the Bush regime and is driving us to the coming war on Islam (beginning with the invasion of Iraq) for greater Israel and oil (as the JINSA Israel First agenda is going to increase the risk of US experiencing further terror attacks in the UK and USA as well as in Europe): Zionist JINSA Group in Bush Regime Pushing Iraq Attack: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=332011 JINSA Zionist Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' before Bush Presidency: http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=1970 Israeli sources say Iraq war imminent; Iran and Syria next: http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=3378 JINSA Behind Drive To Cover-Up Israeli Spy Scandal http://www.rense.com/general18/JINSA.htm JINSA Behind Drive To Cover-Up Israeli Spy Scandal Executive Intelligence Review News Service 1-6-2 (EIRNS) - One of the "Mega" agencies that mobilized to quash the Fox TV pick-up of our Israeli spy scandal was JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. JINSA President and CEO David Steinmann is also a director of CAMERA (Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America), the group that actually staged the e-mail, fax, letter, and phone call mobilization that squeezed Fox TV, to the point that they removed the transcripts of the four Carl Cameron segments from their own web site. To find out more about the Carl Cameron segments on Israeli espionage against America (to include how Israeli Mossad agents were detained after they were seen videotaping each other as they were celebrating with each other as the World Trade Center burned in the background), please access the following URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring.html Isn't it interesting to note below that the "dancing" Israeli Mossad intelligence agents (who celebrated with each other and videotaped each other in the process with the World Trade Center burning in the background) were indeed Mossad agents as the article from the Jewish "Forward" magazine (out of New York) conveys below (as the JINSA Zionist extremists worked hard for their release, it would not be surprising if the JINSA Zionists had an association with these Mossad agents prior to the tragic World Trade Center attack in order to get their war on Islam agenda underway which will come soon with the coming invasion of Iraq which the radical JINSA Zionists have wanted for years): http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.03.15/news2.html Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage By MARC PERELMAN FORWARD STAFF Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned. However, far from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities, as reported in Europe last week, the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism. In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI's counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel. Other allegations involved Israelis claiming to be art students who had backgrounds in signal interception and ordnance. (See related story, Page 8.) Sources emphasized that the release of all the Israelis under investigation indicates that they were cleared of any suspicion that they had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks, as some anti-Israel media outlets have suggested. The resulting tensions between Washington and Jerusalem, sources told the Forward, arose not because of the operations' targets but because Israel reportedly violated a secret gentlemen's agreement between the two countries under which espionage on each other's soil is to be coordinated in advance. Most experts and former officials interviewed for this article said that such so-called unilateral or uncoordinated Israeli monitoring of radical Muslims in America would not be surprising. In fact, they said, Israeli intelligence played a key role in helping the Bush administration to crack down on Islamic charities suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups, most notably the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation last December. "I have no doubt Israel has an interest in spying on those groups," said Peter Unsinger, an intelligence expert who teaches justice administration at San Jose University. "The Israelis give us good stuff, like on the Hamas charities." According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front. After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations. However, a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives, according to the former American official, who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two separate law enforcement officials. "The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it," he said. "The conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs but that they could leave because they did not know anything about 9/11." However, he added, the bureau was "very irritated because it was a case of so-called unilateral espionage, meaning they didn't know about it." Spokesmen for the FBI, the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to discuss the case. Israeli officials flatly dismissed the allegations as untrue. However, the former American official said that after American authorities confronted Jerusalem on the issue at the end of last year, the Israeli government acknowledged the operation and apologized for not coordinating it with Washington. The five men ï¿1/2 Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel ï¿1/2 were arrested eight hours after the attacks by the Bergen County, N.J., police while driving in an Urban Moving Systems van. The police acted on an FBI alert after the men allegedly were seen acting strangely while watching the events from the roof of their warehouse and the roof of their van. In addition to their strange behavior and their Middle Eastern looks, the suspicions were compounded when a box cutter and $4,000 in cash were found in the van. Moreover, one man carried two passports and another had fresh pictures of the men standing with the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background. The Bergen County police immediately handed the suspects to the INS, which turned them over to a joint police-FBI terrorism task force set up after September 11 to deal with all possible links with the attacks. The five Israelis were detained in the high-security Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in solitary confinement until mid-October. On September 25, they all signed papers acknowledging violations of Uimmigration law. At the end of October, the INS issued a deportation order which was enforced a month later after a review by the Justice Department and prodding by Jewish and Israeli officials. However, the former official said, this is just the official story. In fact, he said, the nature of the investigation changed after the names of two of the five Israelis showed up on a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives, he said. At that point, he said, the bureau took control of the investigation and launched a Foreign Counterintelligence Investigation, or FCI. FBI investigations into possible links to the September 11 attacks are usually carried by the bureau's counterterrorism division, not its counterintelligence division. "An FCI means not only that it was serious but also that it was handled at a very high level and very tightly," the former official said. That view was echoed by several former FBI officials interviewed. Steven Gordon, an American lawyer hired by the families to help secure their release, said he could not confirm which FBI division was in charge of the investigation. However, he acknowledged that "there were a lot of people involved, including counterintelligence officials from the FBI." The men all underwent at least two polygraph tests each, the lawyer added. He said one of the Israelis took the test seven times, a very unusual total according to several polygraph experts interviewed by the Forward. After the men were arrested, FBI agents searched the warehouse of Urban Moving Systems in Weehawken, N.J., seizing computer hard drives and documents. The warehouse was closed on September 14, said Ron George, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs. On December 7, a New Jersey judge ruled that the state could seize the goods remaining inside the warehouse. The state also has a lawsuit pending against Urban Moving Systems and its owner, Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen. The FBI questioned Mr. Suter once. However, he left the country afterward and went back to Israel before further questioning. Mr. Suter declined through his lawyer to be interviewed for this article. Earlier this year, the New York State Department of Transportation revoked Urban Moving System's license after discovering that the company's midtown Manhattan base was only a mailing address. After they returned to Israel at the end of November, the five men told local media that they were kept in solitary confinement, beaten, deprived of food and questioned while blindfolded and in their underwear. Mr. Ellner, one of the five Israelis, said on two occasions in recent weeks that the five men had decided not to grant any interviews right now "because we went through a very difficult period and we are not ready for this." Their Israeli lawyer, Ram Horwitz, told the Forward he was still waiting for the results of the medical tests undertaken by the men in Israel to make a decision on an eventual lawsuit in the United States for mistreatment. Mr. Horwitz insisted the men were not intelligence officers. Irit Stoffer, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said the allegations were "completely untrue" and that there were "only visa violations." "The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11," Ms. Stoffer said. Charlene Eban, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Washington, and Don Nelson, a Justice Department spokesman, said they had no knowledge of an Israeli spying operation. "If we found evidence of unauthorized intelligence operations, that would be classified material," added Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI in New York. One leading expert in American intelligence operations, Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the Boston-based Political Research Associates, explained that there "is a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always a visa violation." |
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| http://www.alternet.org/story/24044/ Rumsfeld's Ray Gun By Kelly Hearn, AlterNet. Posted August 19, 2005. A non-lethal -- but potentially harmful -- crowd control weapon that heats human skin is bound for Iraq, and possibly to a police department near you. [Image:17092005_144427_0.jpg] A tough-talking Texan named Edward Hammond has to be a key element of any accurate study of the spooky history of what the military calls the "Active Denial System." The head of The Sunshine Project, a Texas-based group opposing biological weapons, Hammond shows his disdain for military excesses through swear words and federal disclosure suits that seek to lift a window on military science projects. Two times now, he says, Marine Corp staff handling his Freedom of Information Act claims have mailed him the wrong envelope, mistakenly sending him materials meant for another military office, envelopes that contained classified information. One of those times, he says, was in May when he received 112 pages of files on the Active Denial System, or ADS, a crowd control weapon built by Raytheon Corporation and slated for military deployment in Iraq in 2006. The documents included descriptions of tests conducted on volunteer subjects at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. Hammond, who had requested the documents, noticed something odd. "I saw some of the documents that were marked classified should have been redacted," he said in a telephone interview. The Secrets of 'Active Denial' The Active Denial System is a Pentagon-funded, $51 million crowd control device that rides atop a Humvee, looks like a TV dish, and shoots energy waves 1/64 of an inch deep into human skin. It dispenses brief but intolerable bursts of pain, sending bad guys fleeing but supposedly leaving no lasting damage. (During a Pentagon press briefing in 2001, this reporter felt a zap from an ADS prototype on his fingertip and can attest to the brief but fleeting sensation that a hot light bulb was pressing against the skin). ADS works outside the range of small arms fire. After a decade-long development cycle, the ADS is field ready but not free of controversy. Military leaders, as noted in a recent USA Today article, say it will save lives by helping U.S. troops avoid bombs and bullets in urban zones where insurgents mix with civilians. Temporary pain beats bullets and bombs, but Edward Hammond's files have rekindled scientific questions about how the classified system works, what it does to the body and how it will be used in the streets of Basra or Baghdad or, one day, Boston. As key scientific questions go unanswered, a version of the Active Denial System is being developed by the Justice Department for use by U.S. police departments. The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, has issued a half-million dollar grant to Raytheon Corporation for a "Solid-State Active Denial System Demonstration Program," according to the NIJ website. Alan Fischer, a Raytheon spokesperson, said the company is "working on a number of active denial projects, with various ranges. ADS may some day be miniaturized down to a hand-held device that could be carried in a purse or pocket and used for personal protection instead of something like Mace. The potential for this technology is huge." The DOJ isn't the only one excited. The Department of Energy is experimenting with ADS as a security device that would "deny access" to nuclear facilities. For most Americans, zapping Iraqi insurgents in Baghdad with a potentially unsafe weapon is one thing; cooking political protestors in Boston or Biloxi will surely be another. Against this backdrop, observers say, Hammond's files become particularly important. "Right now the press really isn't on this," says Hammond. "But that will change when the first videos are released showing this thing being used on people." Far from a national security breach, Hammond's documents do offer a small but worrisome glimpse inside a weapon that appears to be slipping beneath the scrutiny of a lethal world with bigger priorities. In July, New Scientist magazine reported on the files, citing red flags that troubled some scientists. Though the ADS, for example, will be facing chaotic, unruly situations, the reports said volunteers were banned from wearing glasses and contact lenses to prevent possible eye damage. In other tests, volunteers were told to remove metallic objects such as keys to avoid "hot spots" that might burn skin. Neil Davison, an expert in non-lethal weapons at Bradford University in England, reviewed the files and questions how ADS would perform in live conditions. In email interviews with AlterNet, Davison, a social researcher with biology training, pointed out that one section on medical risk analysis states that "exposure levels [of energy waves] may exceed permissible exposure limits specified by the relevant safety standard by as much as 20-fold." What millimeter waves (MMW) do to the body depends on the dose. And about that, Davison and other experts have questions, lots of them. How do operators control the dose that an individual receives? What is the safety margin, rather, the difference in exposure time between it being an effective weapon and it being harmful? Does the weapon cut out after a certain time to prevent overexposure? What about people targeted at different distances? How do operators avoid unintentionally overexposing people at short ranges when aiming at long range? And what of individual differences in health, age, and sensitivity to MMW? "What public information will be required before it is deployed to control riots on the streets of Seattle or Boston?" Davison asked. Military spokespeople are silent about the weapon's specifications but dismiss claims that glasses and other everyday objects present dangers. Rich Garcia, press officer at Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, said he was safely zapped by the weapon while wearing contact lenses and clothes with zippers. When asked about the weapon's safety margin, Garcia said he could not give specific times or exposure levels but added that "the safety margin is determined by a variety of factors, including the power of the system and the amount of time for each exposure. The operator is key to ensuring that a person is not over exposed." But what about the eyes? The military's fact sheet for ADS cites a low risk for blindness. Experts such as Dr. Henry Lai, a bioengineer at The University of Washington in Seattle, agree the possibility exists. "Hitting the eyes of a subject and causing corneal damage could be a concern," he said. "I doubt very much a subject once hit can close his or her eyes fast enough to prevent extensive damage, since the reflex is triggered by pain. That means the response would be too late." Long Term Problems Aside from thermal injuries like blindness or burns, could a protestor who got zapped by an overzealous ADS controller eventually wind up with disease such as cancer? Another way of stating it: Do millimeter waves at the frequency of 95 gigahertz cause long term biological changes unrelated to heat? The military says no. Others aren't so sure. And these things are often hard, if not near impossible, to prove. In 2004, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization report on non-lethal weapons raised warnings. "The long-term physiological effects of the microwaves received by an individual are still being studied (maximum acceptable dose, cumulative effect of successive exposures)," the report states. "The absence of definitive results is the main obstacle to the use of radio frequencies." The report goes on to note that "excessive power levels can have serious consequences for human targets." These concerns were already being voiced in 2001. Days after ADS was unveiled, Professor Ross Adey, one of the world's leading bio-electromagnetic researchers, told UPI (in an article written by this reporter) that he believed the device could lead to cancer or cataracts, especially if the subject already carried an illness made worse by the beams. Adey, who died last year, was a professor of physiology at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, Calif, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former professor of the Royal Society of Medicine. He said Russian studies in 1980s, as well as his own research, showed that millimeter waves at some frequencies have a non-heat-related impact on white blood cells. Adey noted that Soviet researchers have used millimeter waves in experiments designed to treat diseases including skin disorders, heart disease and cancer, suggesting that therapeutic benefits raises the specter of potential hazards if a subject is overexposed. Specifically, Adey said his work showed that radio frequency and the lower microwave range effected enzyme systems that regulate growth and division of white blood cells. He added that while the ADS does not employ those specific wavelengths, no scientific evidence exists to prove that millimeter waves could not cause similar damage. Marvin Ziskin, a medical doctor and researcher at Temple University who studies the bio-effects of millimeter waves of different frequency said the weapon's 94 GHz "could affect enzyme systems within the skin on a short term basis," adding, however, that there are no known long term effects. Ziskin said the military can't say for certain that the device has no long term bioeffects, adding, however, that "this could be said about anything. Science can not rule our the possibility of future harm from any environmental stress. Nothing can be claimed to be absolutely 'safe.'" Ziskin also said it is "probably true" that the vast majority of the scientific literature on bioeffects research on 94 GHz comes from researchers associated with the Pentagon's weapon development program. He says, she says. Who can know? Can the Pentagon's claims be verified? Davison, for one, says not likely. That's because the majority if not all literature detailing research on the bioeffects of the weapons' specific wavelength (95 gigahertz) appears to have been conducted by researchers linked to the Pentagon's weapon development program. In an ADS fact sheet, the Air Force says a panel of non-governmental scientists and medical experts reviewed bio-effects tests on humans. When asked for the names of those experts, a press official at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate at Brooks City Base, Texas, said experts were not immediately available to answer. The Air Force's Garcia said he knows of no independent research. A Marine Corp spokesman said the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, the military organization in charge of ADS, is "unaware of any release of classified documents or information relating to Active Denial System." Kelly Hearn is a former UPI staff writer who lives in Washington DC and Latin America. His work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, American Prospect, and other publications. |
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