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"You get America out of Iraq and
Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism."
- Cindy Sheehan
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P I C T U R E
O F T H E D A Y
Simon, a Red Panda, plays in a tree at Jerusalem's
Biblical Zoo.
On the fourth
anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Laura Knight-Jadczyk
announces the availability of her latest book:
In the years since the 9/11 attacks, dozens of books
have sought to explore the truth behind the official
version of events that day - yet to date, none of
these publications has provided a satisfactory answer
as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately
responsible for carrying them out.
Taking a broad, millennia-long perspective, Laura
Knight-Jadczyk's 9/11:
The Ultimate Truth uncovers the true nature of
the ruling elite on our planet and presents new and
ground-breaking insights into just how the 9/11 attacks
played out.
9/11: The Ultimate
Truth makes a strong case for the idea that September
11, 2001 marked the moment when our planet entered
the final phase of a diabolical plan that has been
many, many years in the making. It is a plan developed
and nurtured by successive generations of ruthless
individuals who relentlessly exploit the negative
aspects of basic human nature to entrap humanity as
a whole in endless wars and suffering in order to
keep us confused and distracted to the reality of
the man behind the curtain.
Drawing on historical and genealogical sources, Knight-Jadczyk
eloquently links the 9/11 event to the modern-day
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She also cites the clear
evidence that our planet undergoes periodic natural
cataclysms, a cycle that has arguably brought humanity
to the brink of destruction in the present day.
For its no nonsense style in cutting to the core
of the issue and its sheer audacity in refusing to
be swayed or distracted by the morass of disinformation
that has been employed by the Powers that Be to cover
their tracks, 9/11:
The Ultimate Truth can rightly claim to be THE
definitive book on 9/11 - and what that fateful day's
true implications are for the future of mankind.
Published by Red Pill Press
Scheduled for release on October 1,
2005, readers can pre-order the book today at our bookstore. |
The U.S. stock market rose last
week in response to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina.
Oil prices pulled back as well. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed on Friday at 10,678.56, up 2.2% from
the previous Friday's close of 10,447.37. The NASDAQ
closed at 2,175.51, up 1.6% from 2141.07 last week.
The yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury Note was 4.12%
at Friday's close, up 9 basis points from 4.03 a week
earlier. Oil closed at 64.08 dollars a barrel, down
5.4% from $67.57, which is even lower than it was pre-Katrina
(down 3.2% over two weeks from $66.13). The U.S. dollar
even gained ground after Katrina, closing at 0.8058
euros, up 1.3% from 0.7954 euros the week before. The
euro, then, closed at $1.2410 down from 1.2573 dollars
at the previous Friday's close. That puts oil in euros
at 51.64 euros a barrel, down 4.1% from the previous
week's close of 53.74 euros a barrel. Gold closed at
$453.40 an ounce, up 1.3% from last week's close of
$447.80. Gold in euros would be 365.35 euros an ounce
up 2.6% from 356.16 on the previous Friday. The gold/oil
ratio closed at 7.08 barrels of oil per ounce of gold,
up sharply (6.7%) from 6.63 a week before.
So why the strength in the dollar and U.S. stocks given
the real economic threat posed by Hurricane Katrina?
According to Wall Street observers, it was the thought
that maybe, given what happened, the Federal Reserve
Board might not raise interest rates again. No one mentioned
the fact that many corporations (especially Bush-connected
ones) stand to make a lot of money on reconstruction
and that oil companies have made out like bandits from
the sharp rise in gasoline prices.
Firms
with Bush ties snag Katrina deals
Sat Sep 10,11:03 AM ET
Companies with ties to the Bush
White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching
some of the administration's first disaster relief
and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina.
At least two major corporate clients
of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's
former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped
to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.
One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton
Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President
Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.
Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based
Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide
short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane.
Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and
put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of
the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Experts say it has been common practice in both Republican
and Democratic administrations for policy makers to
take lobbying jobs once they leave office, and many
of the same companies seeking contracts in the wake
of Hurricane Katrina have already received billions
of dollars for work in Iraq.
Halliburton alone has earned more
than $9 billion. Pentagon audits released by Democrats
in June showed $1.03 billion in "questioned"
costs and $422 million in "unsupported"
costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq.
But the web of Bush administration connections is
attracting renewed attention from watchdog groups
in the post-Katrina reconstruction rush. Congress
has already appropriated more than $60 billion in
emergency funding as a down payment on recovery efforts
projected to cost well over $100 billion.
"The government has got to stop stacking senior
positions with people who are repeatedly cashing in
on the public trust in order to further private commercial
interests," said Danielle Brian, executive director
of the Project on Government Oversight.
For the most part, though, the economic news related
to Katrina was bad. Increased budget deficits, higher
prices, and lower consumer confidence will probably
be the main consequences of the disaster. Take a look
at the airline industry, for example. In some ways that
industry is emblematic: it was already teetering on
the brink of multiple bankruptcies before Katrina:
US
airline losses could hit $10 billion
Fri Sep 9,10:11 PM ET
U.S. airline losses in 2005 could reach $10 billion,
due mainly to soaring fuel prices made worse by Hurricane
Katrina, the industry's chief trade group estimated
on Friday.
To try and stem the red ink, major carriers plan
to ask Congress next week for a one-year holiday from
the federal tax on jet fuel to save $600 million,
the Air Transport Association said.
"There simply is no rational business plan we
can continue to operate under with fuel at the price
it is today," Jim May, the association's chief
executive, said in an interview with CNBC.
Estimated losses for the year rose from $7 billion
to between $9 billion and $10 billion, the association
said.
…Mike Boyd, a Colorado-based industry consultant,
said fuel and fuel alone is driving substantial industry
losses just as traffic returned this spring and summer
to levels not seen since before the September 11,
2001, hijacked aircraft attacks.
"If oil prices had stayed where they were in
2004 we would be talking about how profitable the
airlines are," Boyd said.
Two carriers, United Airlines and US Airways, are
in bankruptcy while Delta Air Lines and Northwest
Airlines are weighing Chapter 11 filings. All have
cited high fuel prices for their woes. Battered by
fuel increases, low fare carrier Independence Air,
a unit of FLYi Inc., could also seek court protection.
The insurance industry will also be hit hard:
Katrina
may cost insurers $60 bln
Hurricane Katrina, already the most expensive storm
in U.S. history, may have gotten costlier.
Risk Management Solutions on Friday raised its estimate
of total damages caused by the hurricane to $125 billion
and said it expects insured losses of $40 billion
to $60 billion.
Previous estimates of economic costs of Katrina by
federal and state agencies had hovered around $100
billion, while expectations for the costs borne by
private insurers had been in the range of $25 billion.
Previously, the most expensive hurricane had been
Andrew, with $21 billion of insured losses in 1992.
RMS, based in Newark, California, assesses disasters
for more than 400 insurance firms, trading companies
and financial institutions. It now has the highest
estimate of any of the major catastrophe modeling
firms. It had expected $20 billion to $35 billion
of insured damages just last week.
In addition to these purely economic effects, the United
States also faces the prospect of bitter conflict within
the elite and between the elite and the public at large.
George Bush has been attacked surprisingly hard by the
elite media. Scathing editorials and newly sceptical
and outraged reporters seem to have the green light
to question Bush officials like never before. Bush's
overall approval rating has now fallen below 40% --
a level that usually foreshadows downfall and a change
of regime. Large segments of the population have lost
what little confidence in the government they had. There
is a sense of depression and powerlessness among the
people. The problem in this case is that the 35% or
so of the public that supports Bush still supports him
strongly and that the elements of the ruling class that
have thrown their lot in with the Bush gang are particularly
ruthless and Machiavellian. Political
instability like this has never been good news economically.
A certain bellwether of conventional moderate elite
opinion, the senior and well-respected columnist David
Broder, published the following last week in the Washington
Post:
A
Price To Be Paid For Folly
By David S. Broder
Sunday, September 11, 2005; B07
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, credible private
experts are forecasting a federal budget deficit of
$500 billion for this year, a sharp reminder of the
government's fiscal folly.
For all the deserved criticism the
Bush administration has received for its tardy and
ragged response to the storm's ravages on New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast, the long-term costs to the nation
of the reckless disregard both the president and Congress
have shown toward paying the nation's bills may be
even greater.
In time those forced from their homes in Louisiana
and Mississippi will be returned, and a degree of
order will be restored to their communities. Business
will recover. Mardi Gras will again be celebrated
in the French Quarter. But our children and grandchildren
will pay a continuing price for the refusal of our
leaders to face the reality of an out-of-control budget.
The scale of the failure is measured
by a set of numbers that Rep. John Spratt of South
Carolina, the senior Democrat on the House Budget
Committee, carries with him. They chart the annual
increases passed by Congress in the national debt
limit. In 2002 it was $450 billion; in 2003, $984
billion; in 2004, $800 billion; and this year, the
House has passed an increase of another $781 billion,
on which the Senate has yet to act. That
totals a stunning $3 trillion in additional debt in
four years -- a 50 percent increase in the cumulative
debt from all of America's previous history.
When you look at that record, the
self-congratulatory tone of the Republicans who have
been running Washington seems absurdly unjustified.
In July, when the White House Office of Management
and Budget said the deficit for this year would decline
to $333 billion from $412 billion in 2004, President
Bush said, "It's a sign that our economy is strong,
and it's a sign that our tax relief plan, our pro-growth
policies are working."
In August, when the Congressional Budget Office lowered
the deficit forecast to $331 billion, Republican Rep.
Jim Nussle of Iowa, the chairman of the House Budget
Committee, said, "We're clearly on the right
track. The strong economy, higher revenues and falling
deficit projections are all results of the successful
leadership and policies of the Congress and the president."
These judgments were faulty at the time. They made
no provision for the continuing costs of the war in
Iraq, or for the Republican plan to end the estate
tax and make all the previous Bush tax cuts permanent.
And, most of all, they did not realistically calculate
the costs of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit
and the looming obligations to the millions of baby
boomers who are nearing retirement age.
Now those pre-Katrina estimates have been rendered
even more ridiculous. In the first 10 days since the
storm hit, the president asked Congress for emergency
appropriations of $62 billion -- and the bills are
just starting to come in.
The question is whether this will force the president
and congressional Republicans to suspend their obsessive
drive to reduce the revenue base of the federal government,
or whether they will finally start paying the bills
their government is incurring.
It is hard to be optimistic on that score. This
president may not literally be incapable of reversing
directions, but we have yet to see him do that on
any significant matter. Treasury Secretary
John Snow reportedly told congressional Republicans
in a closed meeting that Katrina strengthens the case
for making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Some Republicans
in Congress are appalled at the fiscal wreckage, but
the leadership on Capitol Hill has yet to assert its
constitutional power of the purse or do anything but
increase the damage by cutting taxes while simultaneously
boosting spending.
The warning signs of impending economic
calamity are every bit as evident as the forecasts
of ruin for New Orleans when a major hurricane hit.
The runaway budget deficits are compounded by the
persistent and growing imbalance in our trade accounts
-- jeopardizing the inflow of foreign funds we have
used to finance our debt.
At a private dinner the other evening
where many of the men and women who have steered economic
and fiscal policy during the past two decades were
expressing their alarm about this situation, one speaker
summarized the feelings of the group:
"I think it's 1925,"
he said, "and we're headed for 1929."
Phrases like "economic calamity" and "we're
headed for 1929" are not the type of alarmist language
you would normally ever hear from David Broder. He is
telling us that the economic policy insiders in private
conversation are telling him that we are headed for
complete economic collapse. And the fact that Broder
published this makes it more likely to take place. Just
last year the elite were united in presenting an optimistic
view of the economy to the public. The public may not
have bought it, but just the seeming confidence with
which that optimism was universally expressed by the
official culture helped prop up an adequate level of
consumer confidence. Any confidence and optimism is
now gone, however. Here is Newsweek:
Eye
of the Political Storm
A new NEWSWEEK poll suggests President Bush could
become Katrina's next casualty.
By Marcus Mabry
Updated: 1:31 p.m. ET Sept. 10, 2005
Sept. 10, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina claimed her first
political casualty Friday. Michael Brown, the head
of FEMA, the federal disaster readiness and response
agency, was sidelined from the largest disaster relief
project in the nation's history. Brown was recalled
to Washington by his boss, Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff. But a new
NEWSWEEK Poll suggests the post-Katrina political
storm may just be rising. And her ultimate casualty
could be President George W. Bush.
In Katrina's wake, the president's popularity and
job-approval ratings have dropped across the board.
Only 38 percent of Americans approve of the way Bush
is doing his job overall, a record-low for this president
in the NEWSWEEK poll. (Fifty-five percent of Americans
disapprove of his overall job performance.) And only
28 percent of Americans say they are "satisfied
with the way things are going" in the country,
down from 36 percent in August and 46 percent in December,
after the president's re-election. This is another
record low and two points below the satisfaction level
recorded immediately after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse
scandal came to light. Fully two-thirds of Americans
are not satisfied with the direction of the country.
But Katrina's most costly
impact could be a loss of faith in government generally,
and the president, in particular. A majority of Americans
(57 percent) say "government's slow response
to what happened in New Orleans" has made them
lose confidence in government's ability to deal with
another major natural disaster. Forty-seven percent
say it has made them lose confidence in the government's
ability to prevent another terrorist attack like 9/11,
but 50 percent say is has not. (Note: our question
asked about "government" in general, so
we cannot say whether respondents meant state, local,
federal or a combo of any of the three.)
More critical to President Bush - and the GOP's future
as the nation's majority party: most
Americans, 52 percent, say they do not trust the president
"to make the right decisions during a domestic
crisis" (45 percent do). The numbers are exactly
the same when the subject is trust of the president
to make the right decisions during an international
crisis.
Why the gloom? Forty percent of Americans say the
federal government's response to the crisis in New
Orleans was poor. Thirty-two percent say it was fair;
21 percent say it was good and five percent believe
it was excellent. Americans don't think much of the
local and state governments' responses either: 35
percent say state and local officials did a poor job
and 34 percent say they did a fair job; 20 percent
say they did a good job and five percent say an excellent
job after the storm hit.
The Katrina effect is evident in how Americans rate
the president personally. In every category, the view
of the president is at all-time lows for the NEWSWEEK
poll. Only 49 percent of Americans now believe the
president has strong leadership qualities. The same
percentage of registered voters feel that way, 49
percent - down from 63 percent the week before Bush's
reelection. Only 42 percent of Americans believe the
president cares about people like them; 44 percent
of registered voters feel that way - down from 50
percent the week before the election. And only 49
percent of Americans and the same percentage of registered
voters believe Bush is intelligent and well-informed
- down from 59 percent before the election.
Similarly, public approval of the president's policies
on issues from the economy (35 percent) to the war
in Iraq (36 percent) to terrorism and homeland security
(46 percent) have suffered. Demonstrating the widespread
havoc that Katrina has wrought on the president's
political fortunes - even far from issues of disaster
response - for the first time in the four years since
9/11, more Americans disapprove of Bush's handling
of terrorism and homeland security than approve of
it.
Reflecting the tarnished view of the administration,
only 38 percent of registered voters say they would
vote for a Republican for Congress if the Congressional
elections were held today, while 50 say they would
vote for a Democrat.
The president and the GOP's greatest
hope may be, ironically, how deeply divided the nation
remains, even after national tragedy. The president's
Republican base, in particular, remains extremely
loyal. For instance, 53 percent of Democrats say the
federal government did a poor job in getting help
to people in New Orleans after Katrina. But just 19
percent of Republicans feel that way. In fact, almost
half of Republicans (48 percent) either believes the
federal government did a good job (37 percent) or
an excellent job (11 percent) helping those stuck
in New Orleans.
…The deep partisan divide, evident in whom
Americans blame for the slow relief effort, could
act to brake any further fall in the president's support
levels, particularly if Bush's base feels the Democrats
or the media are piling on the president.
A more troubling finding of the NEWSWEEK Poll is
that as divided as we are by party, Americans are
even more divided by race. For instance, 66 percent
of those polled say a "major reason" for
government's slow response to the crisis in New Orleans
was poor communication between federal, state and
local officials. Fifty-seven percent say a major reason
was that the destruction was more than expected and
overwhelmed officials. Fifty-five percent believe
that the incompetence of federal officials was to
blame and 57 percent believe state and local officials'
incompetence led to the slow response.
But whites and non-whites disagree sharply on the
role of race and class in the tragedy. Fully 65 percent
of non-whites believe that government was slow to
rescue those trapped in New Orleans because they were
black, while 64 percent of whites say race was not
a cause at all of the government's slow response.
Overall, 22 percent of those polled say a "major
reason" government action was slow was that New
Orleans was "not a priority because the people
affected were mostly African-American." But 47
percent of non-whites believe race was a "major
reason;" only 13 percent of whites do. Meanwhile,
20 percent of whites and 53 percent of non-whites
believe a "major reason" the response was
slow was that most of those trapped were poor. (Overall,
29 percent of Americans believe the poverty of those
affected was a major reason for the slow response.)
In general, 35 percent say that the heads of federal
agencies such as FEMA and the Department of Homeland
Security are most to blame for not getting help quickly
enough to the people in New Orleans; just 17 percent
say President Bush himself is to blame.
The question now is whether any of this will matter
come the Congressional mid-term elections more than
a year from now. The White House is hoping it won't.
So Bush's survival strategy is clear: rally the fascist,
fundamentalist and white supremacist popular base (why
else would they send Barbara Bush out there but as a
wink and a nod to the racist base, just as Laura Bush
and Condolleeza Rice were presenting a different face?)
to provide enough of a safe haven to conduct smear campaigns
against critics, then implement creeping martial law.
Amazingly, a new disaster might
help Bush more than hurt him. As Jeff
Wells noted, Bush governs from disaster to disaster
and each new disaster blots out memory of previous ones.
How many people talk about Enron any more? Even
ongoing ones can get shoved aside. How many conversations
have people had about the Iraq War in the last week?
And, with each disaster, the rights of the people get
weakened or eliminated and the control of an unaccountable
power over the public grows stronger.
What has been most depressing in the last two weeks
for people in the United States is the sick feeling
you get watching the footage of whole cities laid waste,
of federal troops taking a U.S. city by force and people
relocated to camps to serve as cheap, indentured labor
and to lose any property they may have had or, with
martial law declared, any civil rights they may have
had, and that this may be a foretaste of things to come
- that these people will stop at nothing to maintain
control.
The term "ethnic cleansing" has even been
used to describe plans within the borders of the United
States. Here's Xymphora:
If most of the victims weren't black, it simply wouldn't
be possible to do what Bush is now doing to New Orleans.
I've written about the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans,
and some people laugh. Here is a report
from the Wall Street Journal on the plans of the white
elites of New Orleans for the rebuilding (my emphasis
in bold; we all know what he means by 'poor people'):
The power elite of New Orleans - whether they are
still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves
such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. - insist the
remade city won't simply restore the old order.
New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming
underclass, substandard schools and a high crime
rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.
The new city must be something very different,
Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer
poor people. 'Those who want to see this
city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely
different way: demographically,
geographically and politically,'
he says. 'I'm not just speaking for myself here.
The way we've been living is not going to happen
again, or we're out.'
The plan is to use the ethnic
cleansing to return the city to Republican party control.
Remember these rebuilding plans when you keep hearing
how 'uninhabitable' the city will be. Apparently,
it will only be uninhabitable for blacks. With all
the money that is going to be pouring into the pockets
of local bigwigs to realize their grandiose white
plans, it should be possible for the government to
fund the return of all displaced residents. As Glen
Ford states:
"Displacement based on race is a form of genocide,
as recognized under the Geneva Conventions. Destruction
of a people's culture, by official action or depraved
inaction, is an offense against humanity, under
international
law. New Orleans – the whole city, and
its people – is an indispensable component
of African American culture and history. It is clear
that the displaced people of New Orleans are being
outsourced – to everywhere, and nowhere. They
are not nowhere people. They are citizens of the
United States, which is obligated to right the wrongs
of the Bush regime, and its unnatural disaster.
Charity is fine. Rights are better. The people of
New Orleans have the Right to Return – on
Uncle Sam's tab."
It would be a real shame if, on top of all the corruption,
negligence, stupidity and malfeasance, the Bush regime
also got away with destroying the culture of New Orleans
in order to ethnically cleanse it into a Dixieland
theme
park that votes Republican. The Right of Return
is not only for Palestinians!
Commenting on the same article, Kurt Nimmo wrote:
Christopher Cooper's War Street Journal article (Old-line
families plot the future) is worth excerpting
at length because it so shamelessly reveals how the
rich elite "business" sociopaths of New
Orleans think and operate:
…A few blocks from Mr. O'Dwyer, in an exclusive
gated community known as Audubon Place, is the home
of James Reiss, descendent of an old-line Uptown
family. He fled Hurricane Katrina just before the
storm and returned soon afterward by private helicopter.
Mr. Reiss became wealthy as a supplier of electronic
systems to shipbuilders, and he serves in Mayor
Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's
Regional Transit Authority. When New Orleans descended
into a spiral of looting and anarchy, Mr. Reiss
helicoptered in an Israeli security company to guard
his Audubon Place house and those of his neighbors.
Obviously, if you're going to hire ruthless killers
to protect your property from people driven insane
by hunger and thirst, you may as well hire the best
- and for killing people, the Israelis are right up
at the top of the list, having spent the last fifty
years or so killing desperately poor Palestinians.
…In short, rich sociopaths
such as Mr. Reiss are fed up with poor people, even
though they profitably exploit them as janitors and
food servers and cashiers at Wal-Marts. Reiss believes
there should be a manageable number of poor minimum
wage workers in the new New Orleans - just enough
to clean the toilets and sweep the floors at the new
casinos and luxury hotels he envisions. Incidentally,
Bush has set the tone by suspending the minimum pay
scale requirements for federal contractors in New
Orleans under the Davis-Bacon Act. It appears Reiss
and the "business elite" would like to set
up isolated Bantustans of impoverished workers and
have them shipped in to serve tourists and middle
class fun seekers. Sort of reminds you of South Africa
under apartheid.
Is it possible the "business
elite" in New Orleans deliberately sabotaged
the levees, thus flooding poor areas of the city and
ethnically cleansing thousands of poor people, most
of them African-American? It wouldn't be the first
time.
In 1927, the so-called Great Mississippi Flood was
used to ethnically cleanse African-Americans. "As
the flood approached New Orleans, Louisiana 30 tons
of dynamite were set off on the levee at Caernarvon,
Louisiana," explains Wikipedia.
"This prevented New Orleans from experiencing
serious damage but destroyed much of the marsh below
the city and flooded all of St. Bernard Parish…
During the disaster 700,000 people were displaced,
including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved
to 154 relief camps. Over 13,000 refugees near Greenville,
Mississippi were gathered from area farms and evacuated
to the crest of an unbroken levee, and stranded there
for days without food or clean water, while boats
arrived to evacuate white women and children. Many
African-Americans were detained and forced to labor
at gunpoint during flood relief efforts… The
aftermath of the flood was one factor in the Great
Migration of African-Americans to northern cities."
(Emphasis added.)
It is becoming clear that dominant elements in the
ruling class are out to make the United States a military
dictatorship. The techniques developed in Iraq are now
being used on citizens of the United States!
New Orleans: the specter of military dictatorship
Statement of the World Socialist Web Site Editorial
Board
10 September 2005
The appalling incompetence and negligence that characterized
the government's response at the outset of the human
tragedy unleashed by Hurricane Katrina have now given
way to ruthlessly efficient methods of military occupation
and repression in the ravaged city of New Orleans.
For four critical days, Washington proved incapable
of mounting any credible effort to rescue the tens
of thousands of largely poor and working class New
Orleaneans who were left to their fate in the city's
flooded streets, many of them losing their lives not
to the surging waters, but to the lack of food, water
or medicine.
Now the city has been inundated
with troops, federal agents and cops of all descriptions,
turning it into one of the most heavily armed camps
on the face of the globe. Combat-equipped soldiers
and police wearing helmets and flak jackets are going
door to door in the city to enforce a mandatory evacuation
at the point of a gun.
City authorities claimed Friday that they have yet
to order forced removal of residents and would do
so only with "minimum force." In many cases,
demands by armed troops have proven sufficient to
drive people from their homes. "When
you get 15 M16s pointed at you and they line you up
against the wall, it's kind of scary," one New
Orleans resident told the Washington Post, explaining
why she was leaving.
In other cases, however, the official
assertions are belied by televised images of cops
and troops kicking in the doors of homes and dragging
people away in plastic cuffs. The New Orleans Police
Department acknowledged Friday that it had arrested
200 people that day.
With an estimated 10,000 residents still in the city,
far worse is yet to come. Many justifiably fear that
if they leave they will have no homes to come back
to. "They are trying to
get this neighborhood for the rich people," one
man told the New Orleans Times-Picayune Thursday.
The first 11 days of the disaster have revealed two
political truths about present-day America. First,
for all the talk about beefing up "homeland security"
against an alleged terrorist threat, the US government
has developed no serious civil defense plans to protect
the American people from mass disasters, either natural
or man-made.
Second, in the wake of September
11, 2001, Washington has exploited the terrorist attacks
to concentrate ever-growing power in its military-police
apparatus, while elaborating extensive preparations
for martial law nationwide.
…Confronted with the inability of FEMA and
other civilian agencies to organize a relief effort,
the government had no option but a military one. Once
it decided to use it, there were definite consequences.
While there was no adequate planning for disaster
relief, the military and the Homeland Security Department
had well developed and rehearsed blueprints for imposing
martial law and the suppression of civil unrest. These
have been the key focus of planning at both the Pentagon
and the Homeland Security Department in the four years
since the September 11 attacks.
Once these plans were taken off the shelf and the
military was called in, its own protocols and doctrines
drove the intervention, with deadly consequences.
First, the city was effectively
sealed off, with residents seeking to flee the disaster
turned back at gunpoint and those trying to bring
in relief supplies turned back. The Red Cross, which
has played the leading role in countless previous
disasters, was never allowed to enter the city. This
took place as a horrified world watched people dying
in the hungry crowds that waited outside the New Orleans
Convention Center and amid the squalor of the Superdome.
The order for the military to go
in came only after the Pentagon was assured that it
could intervene with overwhelming force. Senior commanders
spoke in terms of a "combat operation" and
"storming" the convention center, where
people were waiting to be evacuated.
Now the city is bristling with automatic
weapons and is patrolled by troops in armored vehicles
fresh from Iraq. The obvious question is what is this
massive armed force doing in New Orleans, a city that
is largely submerged under water and nearly deserted?
This level of military occupation is on its face absurd,
but it has been executed according to existing plans
for martial law that are the product of protracted
secret deliberations.
The central focus of this military operation has
been the establishment of law and order, the protection
of private property and, to those ends, the forced
evacuation of the remaining residents of the city.
The most chilling revelation coming
out of New Orleans is that for America's ruling elite
and its state apparatus, the lives of ordinary Americans
count for nothing. This has found its most grotesque
expression in the failure of the authorities for a
full 10 days to make any effort to recover the bodies
of the storm's victims, which lie rotting in the streets.
The storm's survivors complained bitterly about the
media's referring to them as "refugees,"
understandably bridling over a term that suggests
that the largely poor and black masses of newly homeless
are foreigners in their own land. Yet, the reality
is that many of them have been treated more as criminals
than victims.
Those loaded onto trucks in the mandatory evacuation
are not told where they are going. As the Salt Lake
Tribune reported, one planeload of evacuees was informed
that they were being shipped off to Utah only after
their plane had taken off from New Orleans International
Airport. There also were multiple reports that those
being dispersed across the country are in many cases
subjected to restrictions on their movements and behavior
that come close to penal confinement.
Both the lack of preparation in terms of civil defense
or humanitarian relief and the turn towards martial
law have deep roots in the social structure and political
system of the United States.
For more than a quarter century, both Democratic
and Republican administrations have pursued a policy
designed to transfer wealth from the vast majority
of working people to the financial elite. They have
systematically slashed every program aimed at ameliorating
conditions of poverty in order to award ever fatter
tax cuts to those at the top of the economic pyramid.
In the process, the ruling elite has created conditions
of profound social inequality and instability that
have erupted to the surface with the disaster in New
Orleans.
The deepening of social inequality has been accompanied
by an unprecedented attack on basic democratic rights
- conducted under the pretext of a "war on terrorism"
and "homeland security" - and an increasing
reliance on military force, both at home and abroad.
The events in New Orleans provide
a sobering warning of the immense dangers posed by
these developments. The assumption of extraordinary
and unconstitutional powers by the president, the
development of a secret shadow government, revealed
in the aftermath of September 11, the passage of the
Patriot Act, the establishment of the Homeland Security
Department, and the creation of a US Northern Command,
the first such military command to prepare and conduct
nationwide operations on US soil, have together established
the framework for a police-military dictatorship.
In New Orleans, such a regime is being given a dry
run.
What all this tells us is that the driving force now
is not economics or politics; it is pure military power.
It tells us that they have been developing techniques
to deal with the consequences of an economic collapse
or true political opposition, and they will have no
reluctance to use these techniques in the most ruthless
manner on anyone.
These people do not care about "markets"
or "economic growth." They care only about
their own power. Economic growth has served its purpose
and now only destroys their environment and crowds their
planet with undesirables.
|
DETROIT, United States - Even before
Hurricane Katrina tore through the southern United States,
hampering a big chunk of the US oil industry, consumers
were having second thoughts about gas-guzzling sport
utility vehicles.
Katrina could now hasten the demise of the SUV, at
least in its current guise, after years in which it
has ruled the roost over the world's biggest auto market,
analysts believe.
With gasoline prices surpassing three dollars a gallon
(3.78 liters), it now costs 100 dollars to fill up the
tanks of large SUVs such as the Chevrolet Suburban used
by President George W. Bush's Secret Service escort.
"Potentially, Katrina could signal the death knell
of the SUV in as much as consumers are going to find
themselves once burned, twice shy to buy such vehicles,"
Wachovia economist Jason Schenker said.
"High gas prices and the perceived fragility of
the US energy sector are all likely to weigh on consumers'
choices for years," he said.
Sales of big SUVs dropped dramatically
in August, hurting both American and Japanese manufacturers,
which have been trying to edge into the segment over
the past five years.
The decrease came despite a fierce
price war among the Detroit Big Three -- General Motors,
Ford and Chrysler -- which have offered customers the
same price on autos that their own employees pay.
"Hurricane Katrina was definitely a catalyst for
gas prices but even before that we were facing an upward
trend in prices," said Mike Chung, market analyst
at auto website Edmunds.com.
"In response to that, consumers were beginning
to look at other vehicles outside of large SUVs. The
SUV boom has definitely changed. The whole segment has
thinned out into several different segments," he
said.
GM reported that despite its elite
credentials, the Chevrolet Suburban saw sales drop 28
percent during August. Ford said sales of the full-size
Ford Expedition plunged 40 percent.
Toyota Motor said sales of its
heavily promoted Sequoia dropped 32 percent in August.
Nissan reported sales of the Armada, which is built
in a portion of Mississippi spared by Hurricane Katrina,
fell seven percent.
Reviewing the August sales figures, analysts at Merrill
Lynch said that Katrina could accelerate "consumers'
natural migration away from large SUVs".
The big auto makers can see the writing
on the wall. Ford plans to halt production of the giant
Ford Excursion at the end of September.
"There is no question that the demand for traditional
sport utility vehicles has been affected by rising gas
prices," Steve Lyons, group vice president in charge
of Ford sales and marketing in North America, said recently.
[...] |
Some people have referred to it
as the "secret government" of the United States.
It is not an elected body, it does not involve itself
in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret
budget in the billions of dollars. [...]
Not only is it the most powerful
entity in the United States, but it was not even created
under Constitutional law by the Congress. It was a product
of a Presidential Executive Order. No, it is
not the U.S. military nor the Central Intelligence Agency,
they are subject to Congress.
The organization is called FEMA, which stands for the
Federal Emergency Management Agency. Originally conceived
in the Richard Nixon Administration, it was refined
by President Jimmy Carter and given teeth in the Ronald
Reagan and George Bush Administrations.
FEMA had one original concept when it was created,
to assure the survivability of the United States government
in the event of a nuclear attack on this nation. It
was also provided with the task of being a federal coordinating
body during times of domestic disasters, such as earthquakes,
floods and hurricanes. Its awesome powers grow under
the tutelage of people like Lt. Col. Oliver North and
General Richard Secord, the architects on the Iran-Contra
scandal and the looting of America's savings and loan
institutions. FEMA has even been given control of the
State Defense Forces, a rag-tag, often considered neo-Nazi,
civilian army that will substitute for the National
Guard, if the Guard is called to duty overseas.
The Most Powerful Organization In The United States
Though it may be the most powerful organization in
the United States, few people know it even exists. But
it has crept into our private lives. Even mortgage papers
contain FEMA's name in small print if the property in
question is near a flood plain. [...]
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:
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take
over all modes of transportation and control of highways
and seaports.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize
and control the communication media.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take
over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and
minerals.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take
over all food resources and farms.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize
civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take
over all health, education and welfare functions.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General
to operate a national registration of all persons.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take
over all airports and aircraft, including commercial
aircraft.
* 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.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take
over railroads, inland waterways and public storage
facilities.
* 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.
* 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.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness
function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating
21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen
year period.
* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency
Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control
over the mechanisms of production and distribution,
of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow
of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined
national emergency. It also provides
that when a state of emergency is declared by the President,
Congress cannot review the action for six months.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers
in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo,
chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a
1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new
frontier in the protection of individual and governmental
leaders from assassination, and of civil and military
installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as
prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to
U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis."
FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter
to incorporate:
* the National Security Act of 1947, which allows
for the strategic relocation of industries, services,
government and other essential economic activities,
and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources
and production facilities;
* the 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the
President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy;
* the Act of August 29, 1916, which authorizes the
Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession
of any transportation system for transporting troops,
material, or any other purpose related to the emergency;
and
* the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act, which enables the President to
seize the property of a foreign country or national.
These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping
consolidation in 1979.
Hurricane Andrew Focused Attention On FEMA
FEMA's deceptive role really did not come to light
with much of the public until Hurricane Andrew smashed
into the U.S. mainland. As Russell R. Dynes, director
of the Disaster Research Center of the University of
Delaware, wrote in The World and I, "...The eye
of the political storm hovered over the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. FEMA became a convenient target for
criticism." Because FEMA was accused of dropping
the ball in Florida, the media and Congress commenced
to study this agency. What came out of the critical
look was that FEMA was spending 12 times more for "black
operations" than for disaster relief. It
spent $1.3 billion building secret bunkers throughout
the United States in anticipation of government disruption
by foreign or domestic upheaval. Yet fewer than 20 members
of Congress , only members with top security clearance,
know of the $1.3 billion expenditure by FEMA for non-natural
disaster situations. These few Congressional
leaders state that FEMA has a "black curtain"
around its operations. FEMA has worked on National Security
programs since 1979, and its predecessor, the Federal
Emergency Preparedness Agency, has secretly spent millions
of dollars before being merged into FEMA by President
Carter in 1979.
FEMA has developed 300 sophisticated mobile units that
are capable of sustaining themselves for a month. The
vehicles are located in five areas of the United States.
They have tremendous communication systems and each
contains a generator that would provide power to 120
homes each, but have never been used for disaster relief.
FEMA's enormous powers can be triggered easily. In
any form of domestic or foreign problem, perceived and
not always actual, emergency powers can be enacted.
The President of the United States
now has broader powers to declare martial law, which
activates FEMA's extraordinary powers. Martial law can
be declared during time of increased tension overseas,
economic problems within the United States, such as
a depression, civil unrest, such as demonstrations or
scenes like the Los Angeles riots, and in a drug crisis.
These Presidential powers have increased with successive
Crime Bills, particularly the 1991 and 1993 Crime Bills,
which increase the power to suspend the rights guaranteed
under the Constitution and to seize property of those
suspected of being drug dealers, to individuals who
participate in a public protest or demonstration. Under
emergency plans already in existence, the power exists
to suspend the Constitution and turn over the reigns
of government to FEMA and appointing military commanders
to run state and local governments. FEMA then would
have the right to order the detention of anyone whom
there is reasonable ground to believe...will engage
in, or probably conspire with others to engage in acts
of espionage or sabotage. The
plan also authorized the establishment of concentration
camps for detaining the accused, but no trial.
Three times since 1984, FEMA stood on the threshold
of taking control of the nation. Once under President
Reagan in 1984, and twice under President Bush in 1990
and 1992. But under those three scenarios, there was
not a sufficient crisis to warrant risking martial law.
Most experts on the subject of FEMA and Martial Law
insisted that a crisis has to appear dangerous enough
for the people of the United States before they would
tolerate or accept complete government takeover. The
typical crisis needed would be threat of imminent nuclear
war, rioting in several U.S. cities simultaneously,
a series of national disasters that affect widespread
danger to the populous, massive terrorist attacks, a
depression in which tens of millions are unemployed
and without financial resources, or a major environmental
disaster. [...]
On July 5, 1987, the Miami Herald published reports
on FEMA's new goals. The goal was to suspend the Constitution
in the event of a national crisis, such as nuclear war,
violent and widespread internal dissent, or national
opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad. Lt. Col.
North was the architect. National Security Directive
Number 52 issued in August 1982, pertains to the "Use
of National Guard Troops to Quell Disturbances."
The crux of the problem is that FEMA has the power
to turn the United States into a police state in time
of a real crisis or a manufactured crisis. Lt. Col.
North virtually established the apparatus for dictatorship.
Only the criticism of the Attorney
General prevented the plans from being adopted.
But intelligence reports indicate that FEMA has a folder
with 22 Executive Orders for the President to sign in
case of an emergency. It is believed those Executive
Orders contain the framework of North's concepts, delayed
by criticism but never truly abandoned. [...]
The first targets in any FEMA emergency would be Hispanics
and Blacks, the FEMA orders call for them to be rounded
up and detained. Tax protesters, demonstrators against
government military intervention outside U.S. borders,
and people who maintain weapons in their homes are also
targets. Operation Trojan Horse
is a program designed to learn the identity of potential
opponents to martial law. The program lures potential
protesters into public forums, conducted by a "hero"
of the people who advocates survival training. The list
of names gathered at such meetings and rallies are computerized
and then targeted in case of an emergency.
The most shining example of America to the world has
been its peaceful transition of government from one
administration to another. Despite crises of great magnitude,
the United States has maintained its freedom and liberty.
This nation now stands on the threshold of rule by non-elected
people asserting non-Constitutional powers. Even Congress
cannot review a Martial Law action until six months
after it has been declared. For the first time in American
history, the reigns of government would not be transferred
from one elected element to another, but the Constitution,
itself, can be suspended.
The scenarios established to
trigger FEMA into action are generally found in the
society today, economic collapse, civil unrest, drug
problems, terrorist attacks, and protests against American
intervention in a foreign country. All these
premises exist, it could only be a matter of time in
which one of these triggers the entire emergency necessary
to bring FEMA into action, and then it may be too late,
because under the FEMA plan, there is no contingency
by which Constitutional power is restored.
Written by Harry V. Martin with research assistance
from David Caul |
New Orleans - Heavily armed paramilitary
mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm,
infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling
the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries
say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana
governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state
law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater
photo identification cards on their arms. They say they
are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security
and have been given the authority to use lethal force.
Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served
in Iraq on the personal security details of the former
head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former
US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.
"This is a totally new thing to have guys like
us working CONUS (Continental United States),"
a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood
on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. "We're
much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq."
Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared
professional killers in the world and they are accustomed
to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their
presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause
for serious concern for the remaining residents of the
city and raises alarming questions about why the government
would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places
like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some
of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans
returned from Iraq as recently as 2 weeks ago.
What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater
mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract
from the federal and Louisiana state governments.
Blackwater is one of the leading private "security"
firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
It has several US government contracts and has provided
security for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries
and corporations. The company rose to international
prominence after 4 of its men were killed in Fallujah
and two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge
in March 2004. Those killings
sparked the massive US retaliation against the civilian
population of Fallujah that resulted in scores of deaths
and tens of thousands of refugees.
As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New
Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered
weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater
patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault
weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass'
claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to
have weapons."
Officially, Blackwater says
its forces are in New Orleans to "join the Hurricane
Relief Effort." A statement on the company's website,
dated September 1, advertises airlift services, security
services and crowd control. The company, according
to news reports, has since begun taking private contracts
to guard hotels, businesses and other properties. But
what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim,
made to us by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are
actually engaged in general law enforcement activities
including "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting
criminals."
That raises a key question: under what authority are
Blackwater's men operating? A spokesperson for the Homeland
Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington
Post he knows of no federal plans to hire Blackwater
or other private security. "We believe we've got
the right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the
federal government to meet the demands of public safety."
he said.
But in an hour-long conversation with several Blackwater
mercenaries, we heard a different story. The
men we spoke with said they are indeed on contract with
the Department of Homeland Security and the Louisiana
governor's office and that some of them are sleeping
in camps organized by Homeland Security in New Orleans
and Baton Rouge. One of them wore a gold Louisiana state
law enforcement badge and said he had been "deputized"
by the governor. They told us they not only had
authority to make arrests but also to use lethal force.
We encountered the Blackwater forces as we walked through
the streets of the largely deserted French Quarter.
We were talking with 2 New York
Police officers when an unmarked car without license
plates sped up next to us and stopped. Inside were 3
men, dressed in khaki uniforms, flak jackets and wielding
automatic weapons. "Y'all know where the Blackwater
guys are?" they asked. One of the police officers
responded, "There are a bunch of them around here,"
and pointed down the road.
"Blackwater?" we asked.
"The guys who are in Iraq?"
"Yeah," said the officer.
"They're all over the place."
A short while later, as we continued down Bourbon
Street, we ran into the men from the car. They wore
Blackwater ID badges on their arms.
"When they told me New
Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?,'" said
one of the Blackwater men. He was wearing his
company ID around his neck in a carrying case with the
phrase "Operation Iraqi Freedom" printed on
it. After bragging about how he drives around Iraq in
a "State Department issued level 5, explosion proof
BMW," he said he was "just trying to get back
to Kirkuk (in the north of Iraq) where the real action
is." Later we overheard him
on his cell phone complaining that Blackwater was only
paying $350 a day plus per diem. That is much less than
the men make serving in more dangerous conditions in
Iraq. Two men we spoke with said they plan on
returning to Iraq in October. But, as one mercenary
said, they've been told they could be in New Orleans
for up to 6 months. "This
is a trend," he told us. "You're going to
see a lot more guys like us in these situations."
If Blackwater's reputation and record in Iraq are
any indication of the kind of "services" the
company offers, the people of New Orleans have much
to fear.
Jeremy Scahill, a correspondent for the national
radio and TV program Democracy Now!, and Daniela Crespo
are in New Orleans. Visit www.democracynow.org for in-depth,
independent, investigative reporting on Hurricane Katrina.
Email: jeremy@democracynow.org. |
WASHINGTON - Military housing,
airport hangars, equipment and power lines were heavily
damaged at six military bases across Louisiana and Mississippi,
forcing nearly $1 billion in emergency repairs, according
to base personnel and other defense officials.
A Navy facility in New Orleans is partially flooded
and all but essential personnel are still evacuated.
Hurricane winds and heavy rain slammed other bases,
but many are up and running now.
Several bases in the region - particularly in Florida
- received little to moderate damage, and did not have
to evacuate. There have been no reported military casualties.
A federal base closing commission had voted earlier
to shut down one of the damaged bases, Naval Station
Pascagoula, as well as the inpatient care facility at
the hard-hit Keesler Air Force Base. It is unclear how
possible future closure of those facilities, both in
Mississippi, would affect any repair plans.
Although Defense Department officials say they still
have no exact estimates of damage for most of the facilities,
the Pentagon is getting $1.9 billion in the two supplemental
budget packages for Hurricane Katrina relief. Of that,
$960 million is for initial emergency repairs, engineering
assessments and power restoration at the bases.
Meanwhile, members of Louisiana's 256th Brigade Combat
Team who were most affected by the hurricane are beginning
to arrive home from Iraq, and most of the unit should
be home in the next two weeks. Army Brig. Gen. John
Basilica Jr., commander of the unit, said Friday about
800 of the troops volunteered to work with the relief
effort in the region, while about 1,500 will return
to their civilian jobs.
The brigade, which numbers about 2,500, had finished
its duties in Iraq but the return flights have been
expedited, particularly for those most needy, he said.
At Gulfport Naval Station in Mississippi, one of the
hardest hit bases, about 400 Seabees - members of naval
construction battalions - were brought in immediately
after the storm to remove debris, clear road, get generators
working and begin repairing roofs and other building
damage. [...]
Two New Orleans naval facilities were heavily damaged,
but sailors at Naval Air Station New Orleans got the
airfield cleared and flights have been going in and
out of the base all week with supplies. Most of the
planes were flown out before the storm, but some aircraft
and equipment that remained at the base were damaged,
according to Navy spokesman Lt. j.g. Sean Robertson.
The east side of the Naval Support Activity base in
New Orleans, however, is still underwater, and the west
side was torn up by heavy winds and rain. There is still
no power and only essential personnel are on the base.
In addition to the $1.9 billion,
the Pentagon is expected to get about $2.5 billion to
cover orders that the Federal Emergency Management Agency
has made through the Defense Department, such
as contracts to use several ships as emergency housing
for evacuees. [...] |
NEW YORK - Former New York mayor
Rudy Giuliani said an inquiry like that which probed
the September 11 attacks may need to investigate the
slow official response to Hurricane Katrina.
But Giuliani, who was widely hailed for his handling
of the attack on New York's World Trade Center, quickly
added that any probe should be deferred until after
rescue and recovery operations end.
"Plenty of people have had their opportunity to
explain what they think went wrong. People responding
are in the middle of it and they need all the help we
can get," the former New York Mayor told NBC's
"Today Show" on the fourth anniversary of
the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
"We're going to learn alot from Katrina ... That'll
be the key thing that comes out of this, which is maybe
we'll figure out how to respond to these things better,"
Giuliani said.
He added that unlike the current barrage of criticism
of the federal government, the public and politicians,
for the most part, held their fire after 9/11.
"The criticisms came later and many of them were
correct ones, many of the things that were done right
on September 11, things that were done wrong, and the
September 11 Commission ...gave us a very, very interesting
and helpful critique. That's what we should do here,"
Giuliani said. |
WASHINGTON - A suspected American
member of Al-Qaeda threatened attacks against Los Angeles
and the Australian city of Melbourne in a videotape
shown by ABC television on the
fourth anniversary of September 11.
The threat was made by Adam Gadahn, a US national who
converted to Islam and became a radical supporter of
Osama bin Laden, ABC said Sunday.
It said the 11-minute tape was sent to the network's
office in Pakistan.
"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles
and Melbourne, God willing," said the warning.
"At this time, don't count on
us demonstrating restraint or compassion," the
speaker added.
"We are Muslims. We love peace, but peace on our
terms, peace as laid down by Islam, not the so-called
peace of occupiers and dictators."
As in other recent Al-Qaeda tapes,
the main threats were made against the United States
and Britain.
"Don't believe the lies of the liars at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue and 10 Downing Street," the speaker said.
"They have dispatched your sons and daughters to
die lonely deaths in the burning deserts of
Iraq and the unforgiving mountains of Afghanistan."
ABC said US intelligence believed the man who appears
on the tape is Gadahn, who comes from Orange County,
California. He made a similar
tape last year that US intelligence said was authentic. |
Attacks'
Legacy: Simmering Fear
Nagging Feelings of Vulnerability and Unease About the
Future Remain |
By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; C01 |
Diane Rokos of Rosslyn still eyeballs
inbound jetliners to make sure their landing gear are
down. The hijacked airplanes, she seems to recall, were
bound for destruction with their wheels up.
Scott Smit of Falls Church still has a two-week stash
of food and water in his garage, an escape plan and
a family rendezvous point in the Blue Ridge mountains.
Dawn Caskie of McLean still checks out every person
boarding the airplane when she flies and keeps a road
atlas in her car in case she has to flee an attack.
Four years and multiple catastrophes
after Sept. 11, 2001, mental health experts and area
residents say that although 9/11 might seem eclipsed
by other events and forgotten by the public, its complex
of fear remains just beneath the surface -- ready to
trigger instantly.
Shoes still must come off in airport security lines,
although booties often are available for those who don't
want their feet to get dirty.
Metro riders who once abided by an unspoken code to
keep their eyes straight ahead now scan one another
warily, urged by disembodied announcements to watch,
mostly in vain, for sinister activity and packages.
"I hate it," said Sandy Green
of the District. "It is very un-Metro. Everybody
[usually] sticks to themselves very, very carefully.
And we have to be nosy now."
Signs along the interstates command:
"Report Suspicious Activity." False
alarms proliferate. Fighters are scrambled to
pursue stray Cessnas. The Capitol is evacuated. The
threat level is adjusted up, then down.
And real disasters, such as Hurricane
Katrina, seem to trigger the anxiety anew.
Forty-eight months after terrorists hijacked four airliners
and crashed them into the Pentagon, the World Trade
Center and a field in rural Pennsylvania, the Washington
area remains haunted by calamity, experts say -- reminded
of its possibility and still struggling to find context
for something that is unresolved.
Four years seems like a fitting span for a human event
to run its course, to have a start, a middle and an
end. It's the time it takes to get a degree, serve a
term in public office. World War I and the Civil War
lasted four years. Michelangelo painted the majestic
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in four years.
Indeed, so much else has happened
in the past four years. Anthrax. The snipers. The wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. The tsunami. The London and
Madrid train bombings. The hurricane.
Memorials to Sept. 11 have been built, pledged and
sometimes even vandalized. The Pentagon, where 184 died,
was repaired three years ago.
Ground was broken last week on the first reconstruction
project at the World Trade Center, where about 2,750
people perished. And a design was unveiled Wednesday
to memorialize the plane that was
crashed in Pennsylvania, killing 40 passengers
and crew members.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, many a commentator
suggested that the nation had been "changed forever."
Whether the national psyche was permanently altered
is a matter for future historians, but experts say there
is no question that the imprint of that day remains
vivid in the minds of Americans four years later.
"Americans can't ever know that
it's going to be over," said Alan Lipman, a clinical
psychologist at George Washington University. "And
so it creates a kind of continuing low level of threat
for which there is no clear answer. And I think we see
that bubbling under American society over the last four
years."
Arie W. Kruglanski, a professor of psychology at the
University of Maryland, said Sept. 11 anxiety might
be temporarily "buried under the barrage of events
that assert their priority" -- such as the war
in Iraq, the price of gas and now the hurricane.
People cannot worry about all these things all the
time, he said. "We would go insane."
But the anxiety is there and ready
for reactivation by events such as the recent London
train bombings.
After that, Kruglanski said, "we thought: 'How
about us? Is Washington next? What about the Metro?
Are we doing all we can?' " [...] |
The Pentagon has drafted a revised
doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions
commanders requesting presidential approval to use them
to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group
using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes
the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy
stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs
staff but not yet finally approved by Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures
governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a preemption
strategy first announced by the Bush White House in
December 2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail
at the time in classified national security directives.
At a White House briefing that year,
a spokesman said the United States would "respond
with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons
of mass destruction against the United States, its forces
or allies, and said "all options" would be
available to the president.
The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative
guidance for commanders to request presidential approval
for using nuclear weapons, and represents the Pentagon's
first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the Bush
preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in
1995 during the Clinton administration, contains no
mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively or specifically
against threats from weapons of mass destruction.
Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations"
and written under the direction of Air Force Gen. Richard
B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
draft document is unclassified and available on a Pentagon
Web site. It is expected to be
signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton
A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according
to Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer
in Myers's office. Meanwhile, the draft is going
through final coordination with the military services,
the combatant commanders, Pentagon legal authorities
and Rumsfeld's office, Cutler said in a written statement.
A "summary of changes" included in the draft
identifies differences from the 1995 doctrine, and says
the new document "revises the discussion of nuclear
weapons use across the range of military operations."
The first example for potential nuclear
weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that
is using "or intending to use WMD" against
U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian
populations.
Another scenario for a possible nuclear
preemptive strike is in case of an "imminent attack
from adversary biological weapons that only effects
from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."
That and other provisions in the document appear to
refer to nuclear initiatives proposed by the administration
that Congress has thus far declined to fully support.
Last year, for example, Congress refused to fund research
toward development of nuclear weapons that could destroy
biological or chemical weapons materials without dispersing
them into the atmosphere.
The draft document also envisions the use of atomic
weapons for "attacks on adversary installations
including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical
or biological weapons."
But Congress last year halted funding of a study to
determine the viability of the Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator warhead (RNEP) -- commonly called the bunker
buster -- that the Pentagon has said is needed to attack
hardened, deeply buried weapons sites.
The Joint Staff draft doctrine explains that despite
the end of the Cold War, proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction "raises the danger of nuclear
weapons use." It says that there are "about
thirty nations with WMD programs" along with "nonstate
actors [terrorists] either independently or as sponsored
by an adversarial state."
To meet that situation, the document says that "responsible
security planning requires preparation for threats that
are possible, though perhaps unlikely today."
To deter the use of weapons of mass
destruction against the United States, the Pentagon
paper says preparations must be made to use nuclear
weapons and show determination to use them "if
necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use."
The draft says that to deter a potential adversary
from using such weapons, that adversary's leadership
must "believe the United States has both the ability
and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses
that are credible and effective." The draft also
notes that U.S. policy in the past has "repeatedly
rejected calls for adoption of 'no first use' policy
of nuclear weapons since this policy could undermine
deterrence." [...]
Kristensen, who has specialized for more than a decade
in nuclear weapons research, said a final version of
the doctrine was due in August but has not yet appeared.
[...] |
KARACHI - Two bombs exploded within
minutes of each other at two international fast food
franchises in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi late
on Thursday, injuring at least two people, police said.
The first blast occurred at the mezzanine floor of
a KFC franchise in the city's upscale Defense area,
injuring at least two people and damaging three cars,
police said. The blast also inflicted a considerable
damage to the franchise.
Minutes later, another explosion hit outside a McDonald's
outlet, a franchise of the U.S. restaurant chain, in
the same neighbourhood, but caused no injuries.
Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel said the devices
used in both the incidents were locally made.
The blasts came ahead of a strike
call made by the country's opposition parties, who are
urging President Pervez Musharraf to step down.
Earlier this year, six KFC employees were killed when
their restaurant was burned down in riots following
a suicide attack on a Shi'ite mosque. |
Islamabad - Two blasts in the
main power supply tower in the Pakistani port city of
Karachi has caused partial damage to the tower, which
may cause power suspension in the city for the next
ten days, a spokesman for Karachi Electricity Supply
Corporation (KESC) said on Sunday.
One kilo explosive was used under the high voltage
power line between the night of Saturday and Sunday,
KESC spokesman Sultan Hasan said.
He said the experts are of the view that it was an
act of sabotage to destroy the tower and that the tower
fell down on the main highway to block the main traffic,
Hasan said.
Luckily the tower did not fell down but they bent a
large parts of the tower, he said.
No one was injured in the blasts.
He said it will take eight to ten days to erect the
tower and there is possibility of power supply problem
during this period.
There was no other objective of the blasts but to destroy
it and cause power suspension in the city as well as
block traffic, the spokesman said.
Non one has claimed responsibility for the blasts.
Two blasts rocked American fast food restaurants in
Karachi on Thursday, injuring eight people. |
BELFAST - Tension remained high
in Belfast on Sunday as Northern Ireland's police chief
blamed a Protestant group loyal to British rule for
the worst violence to hit the province in many years.
Thirty-two police officers were injured, at least four
seriously, while two civilians found themselves in hospital,
after a night in which shots were fired at police and
soldiers, firebombs thrown, and cars stolen then set
alight.
The trouble grew out of Saturday's annual Whiterock
parade, part of a series of processions held in Northern
Ireland every year during the so-called "marching
season" by members of the Protestant Orange Order.
"Police officers and soldiers have come under
sustained attack," said Hugh Orde, chief of the
Police Service of Northern Ireland, who said seven weapons
and a bomb factory were discovered during raids Sunday.
"They have been attacked with missiles, petrol
bombs, blast bombs, and pipe bombs. They have been shot
at."
Orde added: "The Orange Order must bear substantial
responsibility for this. They publicly called people
onto the streets. I think if you do that you cannot
then abdicate responsibility. That is simply not good
enough."
In Belfast on Sunday, burnt-out car wrecks and rubble
were strewn over roads in a chilling reminder of Northern
Ireland's darkest days, which many thought ended with
the 1998 Good Friday peace accords.
While a big clear-up operation got under way, police
stood ready for any further outbreaks of trouble, with
a stretch of the West Circular Road sealed off at one
point after a suspicious object was found.
The Orange Order's Belfast grand lodge
rejected what it called Orde's "intemperate, inflammatory
and inaccurate remarks", saying its members and
supporters had been victims of "brutal and heavy-handed
police action".
"At this stage, all we would say is that if what
we saw today was policing, it was policing at its worst."
Britain's Secretary for Northern Ireland affairs, Peter
Hain, called the violence "totally unacceptable...
Attempted murder cannot in any way be justified. There
can be no ambiguity or excuse for breaking the law."
Police on Sunday showed reporters video images, taken
from the air, clearly showing two men with handguns
firing as many as 15 shots. They also put on show two
police Land Rovers riddled with 20 and 30 bullet holes
respectively.
Orde said police and soldiers fired 450 plastic bullets,
and seven live rounds, before order was restored.
"This was more like the violence of 20 or 30 years
ago, although I wasn't here then," he said.
The Orange Order -- which takes its name from Protestant
King William of Orange, who defeated James II's Catholics
in Ireland in 1690 -- represents hardline opinion in
the Northern Ireland's Protestant, or loyalist, community,
which wants to keep British rule.
Marchers were angered by a decision by Northern Ireland's
Parades Commission to reroute the Whiterock march to
keep it out of areas dominated by Catholics, who generally
favour a united Ireland.
The Orange Order responded by calling on Protestants
to take to the streets to protest at the decision.
Catholic activists and marchers taunted each other
as the march passed near the sectarian divide, before
demonstrators clashed with police.
Veteran Protestant politician Ian Paisley, leader of
the Democratic Unionist Party, while appealing for calm,
blamed the parades commission for "the mess that
has been created". |
TOKYO - Japan plans to demand a
cut in its contributions to the United Nations budget
from 2007 after the failure of its high-profile campaign
to win a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council,
a leading newspaper said on Sunday.
Tokyo had stepped up a decades-old
drive for a permanent seat in recent months, but met
with lukewarm support from the United States
and hostility from China, which cites what it perceives
as Japan's failure to atone for its wartime past.
With little prospect of a seat, the government believes
it will no longer be able to ensure public support for
shouldering almost 20 percent of the UN budget, the
Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing government sources.
Japan is set to demand that permanent Security Council
members should make financial contributions to match
their status, an argument that is likely to face opposition
from China and Russia, whose contributions would rise,
the paper said.
Assuming that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wins
Sunday's election, which polls indicate he is likely
to do, his foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura, would
make a speech on the need to review U.N. contributions
at a General Assembly meeting in New York starting on
September 19, the Yomiuri said.
The government plans to submit a formal resolution
on U.N. contributions in the spring, and to try to enlist
the support of other countries that contribute relatively
large amounts, such as
South Korea and Germany, the report said.
The U.N.'s total 2005 budget was $1.83
billion, of which Japan provided 19.47 percent and the
United States 22 percent, the Yomiuri said.
Assuming an election win, Koizumi is likely to attend
a U.N. summit beginning on September 14, which is set
to discuss expansion of the Security Council, among
a range of other topics.
The director for United Nations policy at the Foreign
Ministry, Kazutoshi Aikawa, told Reuters in an interview
on Friday that Japan would forge ahead with its bid
for a permanent seat, but might need to find a new approach.
|
NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - Jubilant
Palestinians planted flags on the rubble of Jewish settlements
and set synagogues ablaze on Monday as Israeli troops
pulled out of the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation.
"This is a day of happiness and joy that the Palestinian
people have not witnessed for a century," President
Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in Gaza City.
Palestinian forces waving victory signs took over while
tanks and armored vehicles trundled out in the dark,
for the first time giving up settlements on land claimed
by Palestinians and leaving them a volatile testing
ground for statehood.
"The mission has been completed," said Brigadier
Aviv Kochavi after the gates closed at the main crossing
point. "Israel's presence of 38 years has come
to an end."
But rancor over the fate of synagogues
clouded hopes the pullout would help revive peacemaking
as Washington wants.
Attacking what they saw as symbols of hated occupation,
youths set ablaze several of the houses of worship left
behind in 21 settlements evacuated last month under
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to disengage from
conflict.
Palestinians were furious when Sharon's cabinet decided
to leave synagogues intact, under pressure from rabbis
whose support could be key in a power struggle. Adding
to tensions, Israel demanded on Monday that the buildings
be preserved.
ACCOLADES
Removing Gaza's 8,500 settlers has won Sharon international
accolades. The final stage of the pullout was compressed
into less than 24 hours instead of the four days officials
predicted.
But while Palestinians welcome the
withdrawal, they fear Sharon is trading Gaza, home to
1.4 million Palestinians, for a permanent hold on larger
areas of the occupied West Bank where 245,000 Jewish
settlers live isolated from 2.4 million Arabs.
Palestinians were also angry that
Israel, citing security reasons, will continue to control
Gaza's border crossings, air space and waters and say
the occupation is far from over.
Celebratory gunfire overnight gave way to festive scenes.
Thousands of Palestinians brought their families to
nose around former settlements, licking ice creams and
sucking on sweets.
"Before, this was a symbol of fear and evil. Today
it's a place to visit and a source of happiness,"
said building worker Abdullah Salah, 35, in the biggest
settlement of Neve Dekalim.
In demolished enclaves in north Gaza, Palestinians
scavenged for everything from roof tiles to bathtubs,
carrying away their finds by car, bicycle and cart.
SOLDIERS CHEER
Israeli troops cheered and hugged one another as they
crossed out of Gaza, scene of some of the worst bloodshed
since the uprising blew up in 2000 after peace talks
failed.
Israeli commanders had first planned to bypass poor
and densely populated Gaza in the 1967 war. Even after
capturing it, some Israeli leaders expressed reservations
about ruling a territory seen by many Israelis as a
costly liability.
President Abbas's first task will be to enforce order
and rein in militant groups which refuse to disarm.
Israel has threatened massive retaliation if attacks
from Gaza continue.
"They can wave any flag they want, but we expect
the
Palestinian Authority to take full responsibility,"
said the general commanding the pullout, Dan Harel.
Abbas told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that
by year end: "I will be able to control the chaos
in Gaza."
Militants were among the first to scramble into the
settlements, trying to plant their faction's flags on
the highest ground. At Abbas's behest, militants kept
to a seven-month-old ceasefire to smooth the Israeli
pullout.
"Four years of our resistance have done more than
10 years of negotiations," said one masked militant
from the Islamic Hamas group, posing
a growing political challenge to Abbas.
Rightist Israeli opponents of the withdrawal had called
the evacuation of Gaza's 8,500 settlers a capitulation
to the militants. Many settlers saw Gaza as a biblical
birthright, but most Israelis were happy to see the
back of it.
"There is no doubt our
stay in Gaza was a historic error, and I am proud we
found the strength to rectify this error,"
said Israeli Vice-Premier Shimon Peres.
But settlers said they hoped to return one day and
build on the ruins.
Only synagogues and public buildings were left standing.
Palestinians were angry at Israel's decision to leave
the synagogues, torn between wanting to erase emblems
of Israel and uncomfortable at being seen destroying
places of worship.
Israelis expressed anger at the destruction of the
synagogues. A Sharon adviser, Dore Gold, said: "Setting
them on fire isn't a way of creating a new environment
for a hopeful future."
Palestinian officials said all would be demolished.
But David Baker, an official in Sharon's office, said:
"We expect the Palestinians to leave the structures
intact, untouched and preserved." |
The Israeli government is embarking
on an effort to develop an AIDS vaccine using patented
biological material in the state's possession.
According to a report in Red Herring, Israel's Finance
Ministry has set up a tender committee to select a scientific
institution to charge with the task of developing an
AIDS vaccine based on an active pharmaceutical ingredient
discovered in Israel several years ago by a team in
the Agriculture Ministry's Veterinary Institute.
At the time, researchers working on another project
found that the ingredient showed promising results in
repairing the immunological system and helping in the
fight against AIDS. After animal
tests, the researchers claimed the agent protected cells
against penetration by the HIV virus, while blocking
its propagation.
The Finance Ministry, operating under a new strategy
aiming to utilize intellectual property rights held
by the Israeli government, wants to promote research
on the ingredient to develop an effective drug. The
ingredient is registered as property of the Israeli
government in both Israel and the United States.
"There is tremendous significance to regulating
intellectual property rights in the government sector
in order to better utilize the unique patents and assets,"
Finance Ministry Accountant General Yaron Zalika told
Red Herring, adding that the initiative will hopefully
lead to greater foreign investment in Israeli research
and development.
Institutions both in Israel and abroad wishing to perform
the research and development mission are supposed to
apply with the Finance Ministry's tender committee by
October 6th. |
Shanghai's Meteorological Bureau
issued a warning and said it expects Typhoon Khanun
to hit the nation's biggest commercial city tonight
as more than 900,000 people in the region were evacuated
or asked to seek safety.
Khanun, moving northwest at a speed of 25 kph (16 mph)
with winds gusting as high as 144 kph, made landfall
at Taizhou in Zhejiang Province at 2:50 p.m. local time
and will bring heavy rain as it approaches Shanghai,
the bureau said today in a statement on its Web site.
The typhoon will probably head northeast tomorrow morning,
the bureau said.
Chinese authorities evacuated 814,267 people in Zhejiang
and asked that more than 100,000 working outdoors in
Shanghai move to safety as coastal towns and cities
prepared for the typhoon, the official Xinhua News Agency
said, citing local governments.
Both the Shanghai and Zhejiang meteorological bureaus
issued warnings and recommended that people stay home.
Khanun, the 15th typhoon of the year, is named after
a fruit in the Thai language.
Typhoon Talim, which hit mainland China early this
month, left 82 people dead and 28 missing, according
to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The storm caused about
$1.3 billion of damage. |
WILMINGTON, N.C. - Coastal residents
took precautions as Hurricane Ophelia sat nearly stationary
off the coast on Monday, its outer bands of rain not
quite reaching land. Ophelia was more than 200 miles
from Wilmington on Monday with sustained wind of 75
mph, strong enough to be classified a hurricane. A tropical
storm warning and a hurricane watch were in effect from
Cape Lookout south to Edisto Beach, S.C., the National
Hurricane Center said.
At 8 a.m. EDT, Ophelia was centered 215 miles east-southeast
of Charleston, S.C., and 275 miles south-southwest of
Cape Hatteras, the hurricane center said. The storm
was nearly stationary but a very slow turn toward the
northwest was expected later Monday, forecasters said.
Concerned about possible coastal flooding, Gov. Mike
Easley ordered 200 National Guard soldiers to report
to staging centers in eastern North Carolina. The governor
also ordered a mandatory evacuation of nonresidents
from fragile Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks, reachable
only by ferry.
At Wrightsville Beach, lifeguards ordered swimmers
out of the surf Sunday.
"They are saying they don't want anyone to even
touch the water," said Kathy Carroll, 37, of Wilmington.
"Now I know how a flounder feels. I was getting
tossed all over the place."
Despite the warnings, there were no long lines at Roberts
Grocery in Wrightsville Beach, where customers bought
chips and beer - not bottled water and batteries.
"Usually, they are buying all the bread and milk,"
said store manager Teresa Hines. "Some of the regulars
have told me they have their hammers and nails ready
just in case."
With a history of destructive storms, New Hanover County
has a well-rehearsed disaster plan. But Katrina, which
was a powerful Category 4 hurricane before it made landfall
in Louisiana and Mississippi, was on residents' minds
even though Ophelia was only Category 1 and had been
waxing and waning in strength.
"If it was a Category 4 barreling down here, I
would get out if I had a chance," Lee said. "The
structures just can't take that kind of wind. We're
cautiously watching (Ophelia). We're not giving up until
it's north of us."
Ophelia has been following a wandering course since
it became a tropical storm Wednesday off the coast of
Florida.
It is the 15th named storm and seventh hurricane in
this year's busy Atlantic hurricane season, which began
June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Peak storm activity typically
occurs from the end of August through mid-September. |
KARACHI: Another nine people were
killed in weather-related accidents on Sunday as heavy
rains lashed Karachi for a third consecutive day.
Five people died in the wake of rains on Saturday.
Khadim Hussain, 40, died of electric shock when he
touched the main gate of the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular
Diseases. A 30-year-old man died of electrocution in
North Karachi Industrial Area, and an unidentified man
died of electrocution in Pirabad. The driver of a dumper
was electrocuted in Razzakabad when his truck hit an
electric pole. Mohammed Sadiq died of electric shock
in Al-Falah.
A girl who was injured when the roof of her house collapsed
died at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). An
unidentified man drowned in the Lyari river in New Karachi.
Many families were shifted from their houses in the
Lyari river bed on Sunday as the river’s water
level continued to rise.
On Sunday, 56mm of rain was recorded at University
Road, 30mm at the airport, 7mm at Baldia, 24mm at North
Karachi and 2mm at Masoor airbase. |
AURORA WATCH: A strong geomagnetic
storm sparked beautiful auroras on Sept. 11th. "I
saw them from my bedroom window--without my contacts,"
says Chris Schierer...
Elsewhere, in Park City, Utah, "the auroras were
so intense, everyone at our star party was jumping and
cheering," says Brian Jolley.
September
11th Aurora Gallery
Although the storm is subsiding, it could be re-energized
at any time by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) propelled
in our direction from active sunspot 798. Sky watchers
everywhere should remain alert for auroras tonight.
ACTIVE SUN: Solar activity is high. Earth-orbiting
satelites have detected seven X-class solar flares since
Sept. 7th, including an X17-class monster-flare.
NOAA forecasters say there's a
75% chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours,
possibly causing radio blackouts and radiation storms.
The source of all this activity is giant sunspot 798,
shown above flaring brightly on Sept. 9th. The sunspot
has grown so large, you can now see it with the unaided
eye--but never look directly at the sun. Try these safe
solar observing tips. |
Scientists have built a molecular
machine that can move objects millions of times larger
than itself. The machine, 80,000 times smaller than
the width of a human hair, is a world first.
The new nanomachine could control the movement of drugs
around the body so that they reached the exact point
where they were needed. Or it could be employed in smart
materials that could change their size or electrical
conductivity at the flick of a switch.
David Leigh, a chemist at the University of Edinburgh,
built the machine by covering a gold surface with engineered
rod-like molecules with rings that slide up and down
on them.
When bathed in UV light, the ring changes its position
on the rod, affecting the surface tension of a droplet
of water on the gold surface enough to move the droplet.
"That's the equivalent of a piston
moving a millimetre in the macroscopic world but being
able to lift an object more than twice the height of
the CN tower," said Professor Leigh, speaking yesterday
at the festival of science.
Every single biological process from photosynthesis
to replication is controlled by mechanical movements
at the molecular level.
"Learning how to do that with artificial molecules
is really difficult because the way machines work at
the molecular level is completely different to the way
that machines work in the macroscopic world," said
Prof Leigh.
"If you connected these rings in series so that
they moved when you shine a light on them, you could
produce a material that changes its shape and size,"
he said.
"It would be a muscle-like material."
Looking ahead, Prof Leigh said his technology could
be used to perform all sorts of physical tasks.
"You could imagine in the future being able to
move objects around using surfaces coated with molecular
machines." |
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