WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2002
(CBS) The FBI has arrested what appears to be an active al Qaeda cell inside the United States, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart in an exclusive report. Agents detained five men in a Buffalo, N.Y. surburb - all graduates of Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan.
Authorities are also looking for possibly two other men overseas who were the group's handlers. Another member of the cell has been turned over to the United States by a foreign power.
In a separate arrest across the ocean, Ramzi Binalshibh, a high-profile fugitive al Qaeda member who is believed to have trained with the 9/11 hijackers, was captured in Pakistan nearly a year after he became one of America's top terror targets, U.S. officials said.
The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Binalshibh was captured earlier this week in a joint raid by Pakistani forces and U.S. intelligence officers in the southern coastal city of Karachi. The raid ended in a deadly shootout.
Sources tell CBS News the discovery of the New York-based cell -- and a recent spike in their overseas and internal communications -- was largely responsible for President Bush deciding to go to alert Condition Orange earlier this week. It is not known whether the cell had identified a specific target in the United States, or how close they were to acting.
All of the Buffalo suspects are U.S. citizens of Yemini descent. Four were born in the U.S, while the fifth was naturalized. All live within a block of each other in a Buffalo surburb known as Lackawanna. And all attended the same mosque. The cell's ringleader, also a U.S. citizen of Yemini background, is believed to be in Yemen and outside of U.S. reach for the moment.
The five Buffalo suspects will apparently be charged with providing material support and resources to terrorists. This apparently follows a debate within the White House itself over whether to treat the men as criminal defendants, or as nonmilitary combatants with no charges and no access to an attorney.
Sources say the men attended Al Qaeda camps prior to 9/11 and then returned to the United States. There is no indication they had any support role in that attack, or even had fore knowledge it would take place.
One senior government official said one of the men arrested in Buffalo is linked to Omar al-Farouq, a senior al Qaeda figure captured in Asia this summer, who has provided his interrogators specific information suggesting that terror cells in the region were planning attacks on U.S. facilities, the sources said.
A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Justice Department plans to charge the men with providing material support and resources to terrorists.
In a separate development, a suspected organizer of the Sept. 11 attacks was captured in Pakistan, U.S. officials said Friday.
U.S. officials say the newly-detained suspect, Binalshibh, belonged to a Hamburg-based cell led by the late Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian suspected of leading the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Binalshibh, 30, was born in Yemen. He was being sought by the German government for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks.
The arrest of Binalshibh was a major coup for U.S. authorities who have searched for him for months. Officials said he was not wounded during the capture.
Before Sept. 11, Binalshibh was frustrated in his attempts to receive a visa to enter the United States in 2000, where, U.S. officials allege, he planned to join the other 19 hijackers. Instead, he provided financial support to the other hijackers, officials said.
He is considered an aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings that left nearly 3,000 dead, officials said. Mohammed is still at large.
To catch him, police commandos fought a pitched battle with al Qaeda suspects holed up in an apartment Wednesday in Karachi, with combat spilling out onto adjoining rooftops, officials said. They said that two suspects were killed and several more captured in the fighting, as Pakistan stepped up pressure on the remnants of the terrorist movement a year after it made its mark on the world.
At least six officers were wounded when police stormed the top-floor apartment and the rooftop where the gunmen held out against hundreds of troops in the street and on the roofs of nearby apartment blocks, they said. Two of the wounded were reported in critical condition.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told CNN in an interview Friday that one Egyptian, one Saudi and eight Yemenis were captured in the raid.
U.S. personnel were not hurt in the raid, American officials said.
According to the U.S. grand jury indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, an alleged conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, Binalshibh applied four times for a visa to enter the United States from May to October 2000, but was rebuffed each time.
After being denied a visa for the third time, Binalshibh allegedly began funneling money to associates inside the United States. He wired money to Moussaoui, to at least two hijackers and to a Florida flight school at which one of the hijackers was training, the indictment said.
Authorities believe Binalshibh fled Germany for Pakistan before Sept. 11. German authorities had issued an international arrest warrant for Binalshibh, whose whereabouts until now were unknown.
A correspondent for the pan-Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera claimed to have interviewed Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, at a secret location in Pakistan. The men admitted being central figures in the Sept. 11 plot, and claimed the U.S. Congress had been another target that day.
In Thursday's broadcast, al-Jazeera aired audio excerpts of the interview, in which two male voices attributed to Mohammed and Binalshibh revealed details about the buildup to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The voice purported to be Binalshibh's said the hijackers were instructed to take over the planes 15 minutes after takeoff. "That was the best time, and they were very brave," he said.
Two other members of the Hamburg cell, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, died in the suicide hijackings. Two additional members of the Hamburg cell did not take part in the hijackings and are still at large.
He also appeared in a videotape, released by the Justice Department several months ago, that was recovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the home of al Qaeda's slain military chief, Mohammed Atef.
9-13-2
(http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4063332.htm )
WASHINGTON - Few answers have been given to explain why more than 1,800 votes in Miami-Dade County were only found two days after Florida's primary election.
The votes were found when election officials reviewed four precincts with unusually low voter turnout Thursday. Many of those additional votes would likely go to Janet Reno, who won Miami-Dade by more than a 3-1 margin in the Democratic gubernatorial primary but trailed Bill McBride statewide. The votes have not yet been submitted to the state as part of Miami-Dade's vote total from Tuesday's primary.
McBride's unofficial victory margin was 8,196 votes, according to the state, while Reno needed a difference of 6,751 votes or less to qualify for an automatic machine recount.
Reno would need to cut McBride's margin by 1,445 votes to trigger the recount. The additional ballots from the four precincts would probably reduce the difference by several hundred votes, based on the margin of Reno's victory in Miami-Dade.
Reno will not concede the race because of balloting problems in her home county.
One of the four precincts was at Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church in Liberty City, with 1,633 registered voters. The first count showed 87 votes cast there, but the review found more than 610 votes.
"The first four (precincts) were just off the chart," said David Leahy, Miami-Dade's elections chief. "This is an indicator that the system did not work as it was designed to."
Leahy believes that in some cases poll workers failed to close down the touchscreen voting machines properly, leading the votes on those machines not to be collected Tuesday. But he added that it is possible some of the polling stations' low vote numbers are correct, reflecting delays and technical glitches that kept some machines from being used part of the day.
Dorothy Walton, precinct clerk at Pilgrim Rest church, said she wasn't told the proper closing procedures for the machines.
"I didn't know either that when they set them up, they didn't hook them all together," said Walton.
In her precinct, seven out of the 12 machines were working. But just two were linked, so results were only collected from those machines, she said.
Jaqui Colyer, a Democratic candidate for state Representative, also complained of voting problems in the precinct, which is in the district she ran in.
When elections officials first told her that less than 90 people voted in the precinct, she said she started calling her supporters. When she had talked to about 100 who said they voted for her, she became suspicious.
But when officials announced Thursday they had found 610 votes, she became incensed. "Were they under the bed?" she asked. "If they can lose 600 votes in that precinct, how many more did they lose?" She also complained that long lines at the polls sent home many potential voters.
One supporter told her: "I had to go to work. I love you Jaqui, but I don't love you enough to make a lifetime job out of voting."
Let's face it. There's no chance the Bush's are gonna give up Florida. As they teach in US Army Propaganda courses "the best disinformation is not lies but distraction". As the bad guy says in the movies "if you think I'm falling for that one" just before the guy behind him hits him on the head.
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/S4873/
09/12/2002
MAIMI -- An advisory has been sent out to police departments across the state. It's a warning about three men who may be putting together a dangerous plan involving Miami.
A woman at a Georgia restaurant says she overheard three men talking about coming to Miami and she didn't like what she heard. So tonight police are on the lookout for those men.
One day after America remembers September 11th, an alert is issued to police departments across the state about three men.
A woman overheard them talking Thursday morning at a Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Georgia. The woman claims the men said, "They (Americans) mourned on 9/11 and they are going to mourn again on 9/13." The men also discussed "running 5 hours behind schedule." One of the men reportedly said, "We do not have enough to bring it down." The men then left the restaurant, and headed south on I-75.
Miami-Dade County officials say they are not taking any chances.
Steve Shiver, Miami-Dade County Manager says, "At this point in time we have no reason... ...to be aware of our surroundings."
We have comprised some information about these men and police are asking for your help.
The description of the first car:
A Nissan Maxima: cream color with gold trim and a Carmax tag on the front of the vehicle.
Now the second car:
A new Honda, black with Illinois plates.
Now for the suspects' descriptions;
First: A man of possible Middle Eastern descent, 5'10'', 200 pounds, 20-30 years old, black hair, brown eyes, set wide apart, thick beard that extends past his collar.
Second man: again, possible Mideastern descent, 5'7'', 130 pounds, black hair that comes down to his collar.
The third and final man, also of possible Mideastern descent, 5'7'' 130 pounds, shiny black hair.
Now we want to stress tonight, as we speak, the nation is still at an orange alert. (the second highest) This may be nothing, but they just want to talk to these men to make sure.
MIAMI HERALD
Fri, Sep. 13, 2002
A bomb squad member attaches a string to an item in one of the suspected cars on Alligator Alley where the two cars were stopped and three men were detained. A robot is at the back of the cars.
Investigators declared any terrorist threat made by three medical students of Middle Eastern descent ''a hoax'' Friday afternoon and called to end an investigation that shut down one of the Florida's busiest interstate highways all day.
The three students, investigators say, will soon be released, one day after they were overheard in a Georgia restaurant vowing to make America ``cry on 9/13.''
''Thank God it all turned out to be positive,'' Collier County Sheriff Don Hunter said. ``There were no explosives in the vehicles. We believe at this point it was all a hoax.''
Federal sources involved in the investigation said the three men - all U.S. citizens - were playing a stupid joke on another restaurant patron who gave them a suspicious look.
All three were on their way from Illinois to take medical training in South Miami.
The federal sources said the men could be released Friday evening with a ticket for blowing the I-75 toll booth near Naples.
''This is the most expensive traffic violation in Florida law enforcement history,'' said one federal source involved in the investigation.
The family of Ayman A. Gheith, 27, condemned the stop as racial profiling during a televised news conference from suburban Chicago.
Hana Gheith said her brother would not have joked about being a terrorist.
''I know for a fact that he would not do anything like that,'' she said from Palos Hills, Ill. ``He's a good man.''
Hana Gheith said she's enrolled in the same medical program as her brother and was scheduled to start the 9-week rotation at Larkin with him on Monday.
One of the cars is registered, police records show, to Ashfaq A. Butt, 41, of Chicago; authorities say the other students were Mohammed Kambiz Butt and Omer Chaudry.
All three students pulled over at a interstate rest stop to speak briefly with a caravan of reporters.
They denied making a derogatory statement in the Georgia restaurant, understood why police had to stop them, but did not say why one of them drove through the toll booth.
E.J. Picolo, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said the case would be referred back to Georgia, where the tip originated for possible prosecution.
He could not determine how much the investigation cost, one that made national headlines and sent hundreds of agents from local, state, adn federal law enforcement into the western edges of The Everglades.
Alligator Alley was closed to traffic all day Friday as explosives investigators searched for any kinds of devices in the two cars.
''It appears there isn't a terrorist threat as it relates to destrutive devices in the cars,'' Gov. Jeb Bush said at a Miami news conference Friday. ``If this was a hoax, my hope is these people would be prosecuted.''
One federal source said although there is a federal statute against making terrorist threats, it remained unclear on Friday exactly what transpired Thursday morning in a Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Ga.
Eunice Stone, a nurse, told authorities and Fox News Channel she was sitting in a booth next to the three men shortly about 10:30 a.m. when she overheard the men laughing about 9/11 and making comments like ''if we don't have enough to bring it down I have contacts'' and ``if they're mourning 9/11 what are they going to do about 9/13?''
In an interview on Fox News Channel on Friday, Stone said she thought they might be playing a hoax.
''We hesitated to call anyone because we thought, they're just playing us,'' Stone said. ``But then I thought what's the right thing to do? If it turns out it's nothing, then it's nothing.
''I hope I haven't done something wrong,'' she said. ``I hope I haven't caused someone problems that really didn't do anything because I wouldn't want to cause someone problems. But at the same time I thought what if they really are doing something and I caught them?''
Stone collected license tag numbers and called Georgia authorities, who issued an alert for the two cars.
The odyssey ended after midnight Friday morning when a Collier County sheriff's deputy pulled over both cars after they blew throught the Naples toll booth.
However, several other things conspired to escalate the incident even further.
According to police sources, all three men at first were uncooperative - denying consent to search the car.
''It was probably not the right time for them to be copping an attitude with police,'' said one federal law enforcement source who was up all night monitoring the investigation. ``But that's exactly what happened.''
Then, two separate police dogs alerted to the presence of incendiary materials in both cars, and the license tag on one of the cars wasn't registered to the vehicle.
It turns out the tag on one of the car was a temporary Illinois tag, but since agents did not know this, they believed it was a permanent tag and went chasing after the wrong suspects -- two brothers who were still living in Illinois and had no clue what was happening until swarms of federal agents and news reporters showed up.
As of late Friday, agents do not suspect the three in a terrorist plot.
The Miami-Dade Police Department's explosives robot has been called in to further examine the cars and their contents.
According to investigators, all three men -- a Lebanese, a Jordanian and an Iranian - are U.S. citizens - one U.S. born.
September 12, 2002
(FOXNEWS)
NEWARK, N.J. — Pentagon officials confirmed to Fox News Thursday that Navy SEALs had been, and were still, involved in the inspection of a possibly radioactive container ship off the coast of New Jersey.
The Liberian-flagged M/V Palermo Senator was ordered back to sea by the Coast Guard Wednesday after traces of radioactivity were found in the hold during a routine inspection at the Port of Newark.
The 708-foot freighter, owned by a German subsidiary of South Korea-based Hanjin shipping, was anchored in an exclusion zone six miles from shore.
The Pentagon sent a team, including demolition experts, to try to determine if there are radioactive materials on a ship detained off the coast of New Jersey, officials said Thursday.
The specialists were sent after one test earlier in the week showed traces of radioactivity in the cargo of the M/V Palermo Senator-- and a second test turned out inconclusive, defense officials said.
The Liberian-flagged container ship was ordered to remain in a security zone six miles offshore while the inspection continues, the Coast Guard said.
Authorities were alerted to a possible concern about the ship's cargo as it made its way to the United States with stops in Asia and the Middle East, top trouble regions in the Bush administration's war on terrorism, two officials said.
The ship is believed to have made stops in Indonesia, Malaysia and Egypt, one defense official said on condition of anonymity.
Defense Department spokesmen declined to say what the Pentagon team went to do on the ship Thursday, offering only that a team with special capabilities was sent to assist the FBI, which is in charge of the investigation.
But another official, asking not to be identified further, said that the team included experts in detecting and disposing of explosive ordnance.
The ship was directed to a berth at the Port Newark/Elizabeth Marine Terminal after a Coast Guard team boarded the vessel Tuesday. Team members reported hearing suspicious sounds in several of the ship's cargo holds, but found no evidence of stowaways and said they could not determine the source
But trace radiation could come from a number of sources, such as clay, pipes that have been used for a long time underground in oil excavation, defense officials said.
Sep 13, 2002 1:25 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS)-NEWARK, N.J. -- A shipping container in which radioactivity was detected during an inspection on Tuesday poses no threat to the public, the ship's crew or inspectors, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday.
"They don't believe that it poses any concern to the crew, the public at large or agents conducting the tests," said Sandra Carroll, an FBI spokeswoman in Newark.
But as a precaution, she said, agents from the federal Department of Energy were continuing to test the 655 containers onboard the M/V Palermo Senator, which remained moored offshore Friday.
It had been ordered out to sea from a berth in Elizabeth. Carroll declined to give the ship's precise location.
Officials initially feared that the ship might be carrying material for a nuclear weapon, and on Thursday it was tested by weapons experts from the Pentagon's special operations unit.
It now appears that the radiation came from clay tiles in the ship's cargo, a Defense Department official said Friday.
ABCNEWS' Brian Ross traveled across Europe by train, carrying a suitcase packed with 15 pounds of depleted uranium. The suitcase was never inspected.
(ABCNEWS)
Sept. 11 2002— On July 4, in a train station in Europe, a suitcase containing 15 pounds of depleted uranium, shielded by a steel pipe with a lead lining, began a secret 25-day, seven-country journey. Its destination was the United States.
It was the kind of uranium that — if highly enriched — would, by some estimates, provide about half the material required for a crude nuclear device and more than enough for a so-called dirty bomb — a nightmare scenario for U.S. authorities.
"I would say that the single largest, most urgent threat to Americans today is the threat of nuclear terrorism," said Graham Allison, an expert on nuclear terrorism. Allison is the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a former assistant secretary of defense.
This suitcase's journey was not part of a terrorist plot, but rather part of an ABCNEWS investigation into whether American authorities could, in fact, stop a shipment of radioactive material. The depleted uranium packed in the suitcase was not highly enriched and therefore not dangerous, but similar in many other key respects.
In other words, to the to the human eye or to an X-ray scanner, the depleted uranium would look the same as an actual radioactive shipment.
ABCNEWS' project was designed with the help of three of the world's leading authorities on nuclear terrorism: Dr. Thomas Cochran, senior scientist and nuclear weapons expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that lent the depleted uranium to ABCNEWS for the investigation; Dr. Fritz Steinhausler of Stanford University in California and the University of Salzburg in Austria; and Allison of Harvard's Belfer Center.
"It is a perfect mockup," said Cochran. "It replicates everything but the capability to explode.
Shielded by a steel pipe with a lead lining, 15 pounds of depleted uranium was packed in a suitcase that sailed through customs.
"This is what [customs is] looking for, or should be looking for," he added, "and this is what they absolutely have to stop."
"What I hope your program will help people do, is say, 'My God, this could really happen.' And this could really happen," said Allison. "There [are] things we could do to prevent it."
Route Well-Traveled by Smugglers
Starting in Austria on July 4, the suitcase began its journey by rail, traveling first across the border to Hungary, where the ABCNEWS team's passports were checked — but there was no inspection of the suitcase. From there, it was on to Romania, through the Transylvanian Alps, across the fields of Bulgaria and into Turkey — all without even one inspection of the suitcase.
This is precisely the route and the method authorities say has been used in the past to transport radioactive material smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. But throughout the 47-hour European rail trip, the suitcase, packed with depleted uranium, sat untouched on a rack in the cabin. ABCNEWS saw no evidence of radiation detectors in use anywhere.
"Well, that's a pretty good test," said Allison. "I would have wished or hoped that you would have at least gotten some look."
But there was nothing. The suitcase traveled all the way to Istanbul, Turkey, which is considered a hub of the world's nuclear black market. Steinhausler, an expert in weapons trafficking who has compiled a database of nuclear-smuggling incidents, described it as "a crossroad between a leaking Central Asian region and possibly a receptive Middle East."
Turkish authorities report they have detected more than 100 cases of such attempted smuggling in the last few years.
ABCNEWS was doing what some law enforcement officials say al Qaeda terrorists have known how to do for years.
"For a decade, they've sought nuclear weapons," said Allison."[Osama] bin Laden has said it is his and al Qaeda's religious duty … to acquire nuclear weapons."
Documents in Arabic seized from one of bin Laden's top aides five years ago show how he apparently planned to use shipping containers packed with sesame seeds as part of a plan to smuggle high-grade radioactive material to the United States.
Allison is concerned that what ABCNEWS did as a test may have already been done for real. "There's no reason to think that they haven't," he said.
Suitcase Labeled ‘Depleted Uranium’
Hours after the ABCNEWS team arrived in Istanbul, the suitcase of radioactive material was prepared for shipment by sea to the United States. The suitcase was placed inside an ornamental Turkish chest that was carefully marked as containing depleted uranium, in case inspectors discovered it.
Then, in the middle of a busy Istanbul street, the chest itself was crated and nailed shut. The crate containing the suitcase was then nestled alongside crates of huge vases and Turkish horse carts in a large metal shipping container that was ordered from a company that arranges shipments to the United States.
"If it were a real weapon, you know, that you'd managed to get out of the Soviet inventory, [it] would fit in this container," said Allison. "A battlefield nuclear weapon, an artillery shell would fit fine in there."
The company hired to handle the shipping did not know, nor did its workers check to see, what was inside the crate. The company told ABCNEWS this week that it is re-evaluating its practices in light of this report.
The container, with the suitcase inside, left Istanbul on July 10, bound for the Port of New York, where U.S. Customs Service officials have very publicly claimed they've made huge improvements to prevent anything radioactive from getting through.
"We're doing everything we possibly can to keep terrorists and terrorists weapons out of this country," said Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner.
At 2 a.m. on July 29, the ship carrying this suitcase cleared the Verrazano Bridge and entered New York Harbor. At this point, no one had asked a single a question about what was in the container.
A Dangerous Delivery Device
This scenario was too close for comfort for Allison, who explained that a weapon smuggled in this way could be armed in advance and ready to fire — and the ship could be the delivery device.
"The ship, I think, is one of the most dangerous delivery devices," said Allison. "A weapon or material in the belly of a ship has been one of the nightmare scenarios for people that think about how nuclear weapons might arrive in the U.S."
The ship carrying the container was tied up at the Staten Island dock in New York, where the Customs Service says it has a state-of-the-art system in place to detect even a small, low-level amount of radioactive material.
"We're doing whatever it takes to screen the high-risk containers," said customs inspector Kevin McCabe, the chief of the contraband enforcement team, who did not know about the test when he demonstrated the screening measures to ABCNEWS.
During an interview in August, he gave ABCNEWS the same demonstration he said he had given to President Bush when he visited the port. McCabe displayed the small radiation pager used by inspectors, which he said could detect even a shielded, low-level radiation shipment — like depleted uranium.
In addition, the customs inspector demonstrated a second screening device, an X-ray scanning machine on wheels, used on suspect containers to detect even small items.
"The inspector should see [that] even if it's something small, [of] unusual density, unusual something … would lead us to strip that container and look," said McCabe. "If we can't tell exactly what is in that container by those screenings, we're going to get into that container and find out for ourselves."
And while the shipping container holding ABCNEWS' suitcase was selected by customs for this kind of screening, it sailed right through the inspection and left the port without ever being opened by customs inspectors. And a few days after its arrival in the United States, the container was on the back of a truck headed for New York City.
Customs Defends Detection Capabilities
Bonner, the customs commissioner, says his inspectors correctly singled out the container for screening and would have detected anything truly dangerous.
"We ran it for radiation detection and we also did a large-scale X-ray," he said. "Nothing appeared that would indicate that there was a potential for a nuclear device to be in the container."
When asked why a large piece of metal in the shipment of Turkish horse carts didn't stand out, Bonner responded, "Well, look I'm not gonna get into it … We have the X-ray pictures."
Bonner refused to show ABCNEWS what the Customs Service saw on the X-ray scans taken by its equipment. But when ABCNEWS later put the suitcase through a much less sophisticated X-ray machine, the outline of the depleted uranium in its shielded casing was clear. It looked like a pipe bomb was inside.
The experts ABCNEWS consulted say that with the screening devices custom officials said they used on the shipping container, without opening the crate there would be no way for customs inspectors to know whether the material was the low-level, safe, depleted uranium of the kind used by ABCNEWS in this investigation, or the highly enriched, dangerous uranium that could be used in nuclear weapons.
"If you didn't detect this, you wouldn't have detected … the real thing," said Cochran. "[Bonner] missed it and he's covering up."
Cochran says the ABCNEWS test demonstrated an important shortcoming of the customs screening process — that the radiation pagers are essentially useless unless the pager is placed right on top of the radioactive material. "U.S. Customs absolutely … missed it," he said.
‘We Are Not Safe’
Finally, the container was taken to a New York Port Authority warehouse on Pier No. 1, just across the river from lower Manhattan, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.
When the crate was pulled out, it was easy to see it had never been opened since leaving Istanbul.
Port Authority police are assigned to this warehouse facility, but there are no radiation detectors there and no one asked about the unusual shipment in a container full of Turkish horse carts.
"If that were a weapon and you blew it up, you would have very, very substantial consequences," said Allison.
The material ABCNEWS moved was not dangerous and entirely legal to transport.
"You provided an illustration, a vivid illustration of the fact that this could happen tomorrow," Allison said. "We are not safe. Not safe from that."
Wed Sep 11, 2002
AP World Business
CHICAGO - In an ironic twist, the September Standard & Poor's 500 futures contract closed Tuesday at 911.00 — a day before the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
There was some buzz on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange stock index futures trading floor Wednesday about why that happened, but there were no reports of collusion or price-fixing.
"It was bizarre, it was strange, but it wasn't manufactured," said Richard Canlione, vice president of institutional financial futures at Salomon Smith Barney. "It was just the rules of coincidence ... That's just where the market was."
"It just proves the market God was with us, remembering the day, too," said one CME trader.
The start of trading was delayed Wednesday in honor of those killed in the attacks.
Market players noted prices were already moving higher throughout Tuesday after two prior up days, so it wasn't as if an abrupt change in direction took place to achieve the numerical equivalent of Sept. 11.
Some thought perhaps suspicious activity could have taken place, but most brushed it off as a "patriotic rally" and didn't see the harm in it.
"I'm always kinda paranoid, and I find the fact that we settled there kind of eerie, but I don't think we should dwell on it or read too much into it," said Tim Haefke, a stock index futures trader and president of Top-Notch Trading.
The futures contract is an obligation to buy or sell a basket of stocks composing the Standard & Poor's stock index at a set date for a fixed price.
Wed Sep 11,2002
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - On the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, a date known as 9-11, the evening numbers drawn in the New York Lottery were 9-1-1.
"The numbers were picked in the standard random fashion using all the same protocols," said lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman. "It's just the way the numbers came up."
Lottery officials won't know until Thursday morning how many people played those numbers or the total payout, she said.
For the evening numbers game, the New York Lottery selects from balls numbered zero to nine circulating in a machine at the lottery office. Three levers are pressed, and three balls are randomly brought up into tubes and then displayed.
Wed Sep 11, 2002
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists in the United States have come up with news that may help millions of men -- they have succeeded in growing major parts of penises in the laboratory.
The test tube penile parts were successfully used to rebuild the members of rabbits who -- after rest and recuperation -- put them to the use that rabbits are famous for.
"They were able to copulate, penetrate and produce sperm," Anthony Atala, whose team at Harvard Medical School carried out the experiments, told New Scientist magazine.
He said the researchers were now trying to grow entire penises in the test tube.
But he also said the technique was at an early stage and that it would be a while before the technique was tried with human tissue.
The scientists had only been successful in growing the erectile tissues of rabbit penises -- not the entire organ -- and in all cases the erect member had the reduced firmness of a 60-year-old against that of a more virile 30-year-old.
Oh my God, here we go. I'll have the super-size please.
11 September 02
(NewScientist)
In a remarkable feat of tissue engineering, major parts of the penises of several rabbits have been replaced with segments grown in a lab from their own cells. The animals were able to use the reconstructed organs to mate.
Researchers have grown lengths of the corpus cavernosum in the lab
The next step is to try to recreate the entire organ from scratch. The technique could make it possible to reconstruct the penises of men who have suffered injuries or those of children born with genital abnormalities.
"If you have a child born with ambiguous genitalia, it's a life-changing event," says Anthony Atala of Harvard Medical School, whose team carried out the work.
It could also provide an alternative to the crude methods currently used to enlarge the organ, such as injecting fat cells or cutting the penis's suspensory ligament and "pulling out" more of the internal part. Instead, a patient would have penile cells removed by a doctor and, a few weeks later, the organ or parts of it grown using the cells could be surgically implanted.
More complex
While the particular nature of the research is likely to attract much attention, it is also one of the most impressive attempts at tissue and organ engineering to date. "The penis is more complex than any of the organs we have engineered so far," says Atala, whose team has already created fully functional bladders that may soon be implanted in people.
The penis is more difficult to recreate because it has more functions and, unlike the bladder, is also a solid organ.
It consists of three main cylinders, encased in an outer layer of connective tissue, skin, blood vessels and nerves. The two biggest cylinders, made of spongy material that swells during an erection, are the corpora cavernosa. The third tube encases the urethra.
Of those structures, the corpus cavernosum is the most challenging to replace or reconstruct. It contains specialised muscle and endothelial cells - the cells that line blood vessels - and its structure is hard to mimic. Yet this is the part that Atala has been able to grow.
Half pressure
His team first extracted three-dimensional scaffolds of collagen from the erectile tissue of rabbits. They also took samples of the specialised muscle and endothelial cells from penises of each of the rabbits destined to receive the implants.
These cells were grown separately at first, and then added to the collagen matrix in the appropriate proportions. After a few days more growth, the result resembled real erectile tissue.
Next, Atala removed the corpora cavernosa from almost the entire length of the exterior part of the penises of 18 rabbits, leaving the nerves and urethra intact. He then replaced them with the engineered erectile tissues. Because the tissues were grown from the rabbits' own cells, there was no problem with immune rejection.
Once they had recovered from the surgery, the rabbits attempted to have sex within 30 seconds of being put in a cage with a female. "They were able to copulate, penetrate and produce sperm," Atala told New Scientist.
More detailed studies revealed that the penises generated about half of the normal pressure of an erect penis. "It's analogous to the penis of a 60-year-old man, versus that of a 30-year-old," says Atala. Details of the work will be published in the October issue of The Journal of Urology.
September 13, 2002
LEICESTER (Reuters) - Sex was first recognised in the fossil records more than 500 million years ago and the oldest known penis is about 100 million years old, a conference has heard.
It belongs to an ostracod, an early crustacean related to crabs, shrimps and water fleas, and was found in a fossil sample unearthed in Brazil.
"To my knowledge it is the oldest penis. I don't know of any older," Professor David Siveter, of the University of Leicester, told the British Association science conference on Friday.
Dinosaurs were around 100 million years ago but the only known dinosaur fossils are of bones, not soft tissue.
In fact the ostracod fossil had not one penis but two.
Siveter, an expert in palaeontology, believes ostracods are very sexy animals because they have the second longest sperm in the animal kingdom. A one millimetre ostracod can produce a single sperm 10 millimetres long.
"An ostracod has the longest sperm to body ratio of any animal known to man, so clearly it has to have special equipment to deal with the sperm. It doesn't have one penis, it has two. We found the two penises in a 100 million year old fossil," he said.
By studying gender and sexuality and how far it goes back in the fossil record, Siveter said scientists can learn more about how animal reproduction evolved and behavioural traits.
In a separate presentation, Professor Scott Sampson of the University of Utah Museum of Natural History in the United States said that dinosaurs probably used their enormous horns, pikes, plates and crests to attract the opposite sex, in a similar way that peacocks use their colourful array of feathers.
Some of the appendages were used as weapons but Sampson said others were simply not strong enough to be useful against an enemy and like deer or antelope they used the horns to impress potential mates.
"I think the evidence is quite strong that dinosaurs did too," he said.
11 September 02
(New Scientist)
Airliners could be brought down by terrorists using modified versions of almost any personal electronic equipment, a security expert has warned. He says passengers should be barred from carrying any electronic gadgets onto aircraft until planes are able to detect them.
Simple modifications to everyday electronic gadgets could bring down an airliner Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Chet Uber, a technology expert at Security Posture in Omaha, Nebraska, says devices such as radios, tape recorders, CD players, PDAs and laptop computers could easily - and invisibly - be adapted to cause potentially catastrophic interference with an aircraft's control systems.
While it has been known for some time that cellphones and laptops can cause low-level interference, no airline monitors such radio emissions during flight. Instead they rely on passengers turning off their devices during critical periods such as take-off and landing.
But Uber told the InfoWar conference in Washington DC that the renewed terrorist threat means we should take seriously the possibility someone might intentionally interfere with the plane's instruments.
Basic knowledge
Currently, if any device being used by a passenger disturbs the normal operation of a plane, pilots have no monitoring system to tell them whether that problem is due to interference or a malfunction. This leaves aircraft wide open to attack from a device operated by a passenger.
For example, Uber says a terrorist with a basic knowledge of electronics could modify the circuitry in many common gadgets to create an electromagnetic weapon.
Such a device might interfere with critical flight electronics, such as the guidance system that monitors the aircraft's "glide slope", which helps the pilot descend smoothly when landing. And at baggage check, even an electronics engineer might not be able to spot that an apparently innocent piece of equipment had been modified.
In 1996, the US Federal Aviation Administration funded a feasibility study by MegaWave Corporation of Boylston, Massachusetts, into ways of detecting interfering signals inside aircraft cabins. MegaWave developed a system that scans for a wide range of radio emissions inside the cabin, via sensors mounted above each passenger seat. This would allow the flight crew to quickly pinpoint the source.
But after successful demonstrations, MegaWave was told that the FAA was pulling the plug on the research. MegaWave spokesman Marshall Cross believes that it abandoned the project because no commercial air incidents have ever been attributed to interference from electronic equipment in the passenger cabin.
"They've given commerce a higher priority than safety," says Uber. "This is a clear threat that has not been taken seriously enough."
The makers of laptops, in particular, heavily lobbied the FAA not to ban their equipment on planes. But Uber says no electronic gadget should be allowed inside a commercial aircraft unless the airline knows it is safe.
09 September 02
NewScientist.com
Shuttling genes into hair follicles can alter hair colour, scientists have shown for the first time. The experiments on mice also suggest genetic modification treatments for hair loss will be possible in future.
Closer to reality is the prospect of restoring colour to greying hair. But it will be some years before the pioneering work that has given mice shocks of gaudy green hair reaches the salon.
"They're punk mice, you could say," jokes Ronald Hoffman, head of the team which developed the mice with green hair at AntiCancer, a Californian biotech company based in San Diego.
But he warns that the breakthrough is very much a first step, and that genes to treat baldness cannot be delivered in the same way until someone identifies them. Candidates include the genes that suppress the overproduction of the "superandrogen", dihydrotestosterone. This hormone is also implicated in acne, which in theory could also be helped by the new approach.
Skin slivers
The genes transferred into the mice's hair follicles make a fluorescent protein from jellyfish, which glows green in blue light. To load the jellyfish genes, Hoffman grew small sheets of mouse skin. After softening up the tissue with an enzyme called collagenase, he dunked the skin slivers in a solution containing an adenovirus similar to the one that causes colds.
The viruses had already been loaded with copies of the jellyfish gene. Hoffman had also removed the genes that that enable the virus to replicate, so that it would load its genetic cargo into mouse cells without replicating itself.
Within hours, Hoffman peered down the microscope and could see blobs of the green protein appearing in hair follicles, the sources of each new shaft of hair. In the treated skin slivers, 80 per cent of the growing hairs were now green.
And when he grafted the slivers onto mice lacking hair of their own, the transplanted hair continued developing normally in every way, except that it was green under blue light.
Pigment production
GM treatments to restore hair colour would need to increase the amount of the pigment melanin. Changing hair colour would mean switching the form of melanin produced. Black hair results from eumelanin, while red and brown hair owe their hue to a lighter form, called pheomelanin.
But no-one yet knows the molecular secret of blonde hair. "It's one thing to restore pigment formation to a greying follicle, but quite another to modify the pigment," says Hoffman. "So it's not yet a replacement for the peroxide blonde."
Once hair colour genes are discovered, it might be possible for people treated with them to switch them on and off whenever they want with hair creams that activate or turn off the genes.
Next, Hoffman plans experiments in albino mice. These lack the gene for tyrosinase, an enzyme that regulates the production of melanin, to see if pigment production can be restored by loading the missing gene.
(cooperativeresearch.org)
September 9, 2002
Just who is Saeed Sheikh? He has gone by many names and had many roles. Most recently he made headlines in July 2002 when he was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Ironically, he may be innocent of that crime while guilty of far more serious crimes. He is deeply implicated in the Sept. 11 attacks, yet the mass media and Pakistani and US governments have obscured his role and his background, and soon will hang him. The cover-up may have something to do with the fact that he wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Sept. 11 hijackers at the orders of Pakistan's secret service, the ISI.
The ISI: "The Invisible Government" [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/27/01]
To understand Saeed, it is necessary to first understand the Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI plays a much more significant role in the Pakistani government, than do its counterparts in other countries. Time Magazine recently noted, "Even by the shadowy standards of spy agencies, the ISI is notorious. It is commonly branded 'a state within the state,' or Pakistan's 'invisible government.'" [Time, 5/6/02] The ISI grew into its present form during the war between the Soviet Union and mujaheddin guerrillas in Afghanistan in the 1980's. The CIA thought the Afghan war could be Russia's own costly Vietnam War, and they funneled billions to the mujaheddin resistance to keep them a thorn in Russia's side. The strategy worked: Soviet soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later, partly due to the costs of the war.
But the costs to keep the mujaheddin fighting were staggering, with estimates ranging between $6 billion and $40 billion. [New York Times, 8/24/98, Nation, 2/15/99] While a substantial portion of this amount came from the CIA and the Saudi Arabian government, who were both funneling the money through the ISI, much of the cost was deferred by Afghanistan's opium trade. The Sydney Morning Herald noted, "opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan's northern tribal belt and adjoining Afghanistan were a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA cooperation. It succeeded in turning some of the Soviet troops into addicts. Heroin sales in Europe and the US, carried out through an elaborate web of deception, transport networks, couriers and payoffs, offset the cost of the decade-long war in Afghanistan." [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/27/01] Afghan opium production ballooned from 250 tons in 1982 at the start of the war to 2,000 tons in 1991 just after its end. The Minneapolis Star Tribune observed, "If their local allies were involved in narcotics trafficking" - the ISI and their allies in Afghanistan - "it didn't trouble CIA." [Star Tribune, 9/30/01]
After the Afghan war ended, the ISI continued to profit from opium. In 1999, The United Nations Drug Control Programme estimated that the ISI was pulling in around $2.5 billion annually from the sale of illegal drugs. [Times of India, 11/29/99] The drug trade helped unite the ISI and Osama bin Laden, who was said to have taken a 15% cut of the Afghan drug trade money in exchange for protecting smugglers and laundering their profits. [Star Tribune, 9/30/01]
It has been argued that the ISI actually controls the rest of Pakistan's government, instead of the other way around. [Guardian, 4/5/02] By 1994, the ISI had created their own puppet government in Afghanistan: the Taliban. The Taliban, which was originally a movement consisting of numerous Muslim radicals studying in Pakistan, had been recruited by the ISI and molded into a fanatical force that conquered Afghanistan's capital by 1996. CNN reported, "The Taliban are widely alleged to be the creation of Pakistan's military intelligence [the ISI]. Experts say that explains the Taliban's swift military successes." [CNN, 10/5/96] Even in early 2001, a leading US expert on South Asia would claim that the Taliban were still "on the payroll of the ISI." [Times of India, 3/7/01] The ISI didn't create the Taliban simply for strategic reasons; they shared the Taliban's extreme radical vision. As the Wall Street Journal remarked in Nov. 2001, "Despite their clean chins and pressed uniforms, the ISI men are as deeply fundamentalist as any bearded fanatic; the ISI created the Taliban as their own instrument and still supports it." [Asia Times, 11/15/01]
Who is this mystery man, and why is he so dangerous?
Saeed's Background
Saeed Sheikh would eventually become deeply involved in the world of the ISI, as well as al-Qaeda. But initially he seemed an unlikely candidate for a career in espionage and terrorism. He was born in Britain with the name Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the son of a wealthy Pakistani clothing manufacturer. He grew up in London, attending the best private schools and performing brilliantly. He studied mathematics and statistics at the London School of Economics. While still at school, he started a successful shares and equities business. [South Asian Outlook, 3/02] In college he was a chess champion, world class arm wrestler, and martial arts expert - a rare combination of physical and mental prowess. [Rediff, 2/6/02]
His life took a turn when he volunteered for charity work in Bosnia in late 1992. The Bosnian war was raging, and he saw atrocities committed by Serbians on Bosnian Muslims. He returned to Britain a committed Muslim radical. Because of his impressive abilities in economics and mathematics, as well as fluency in English and complete understanding of Western society, he was a very valuable asset to any terrorist group. [ABC News, 2/7/02]
In 1993 he emerged in Pakistan as a member of a militant group fighting for the liberation of Kashmir from India. Pakistan has been fighting India for years over control of Kashmir, and it appears Saeed was put on the ISI payroll around this time, to help the Pakistani cause in Kashmir. [ABC News, 2/7/02] In 1994, Saeed trained at the Khalid bin Waleed training camp in Afghanistan, where he learnt how to handle firearms. He must have developed close ties with al-Qaeda while training there, if not before. The London Times reported that by the time he went to jail later that year, he was known as Osama bin Laden’s "favored son." [London Times, 8/21/02] There is also speculation that he was a financial manager for bin Laden during the time he was based in Sudan. [Guardian, 10/1/01, BBC, 10/1/01]
Prison and Escape
Saeed Sheikh was arrested in India in 1994 while on a kidnapping mission designed to trade Western tourists for Kashmiri separatists. [ABC News, 2/7/02] The ISI paid his legal fees, but he was nonetheless sentenced to a long prison term in an Indian jail. [Washington Post, 5/3/02] While in prison, his natural abilities soon allowed him to become the leader of the jail’s large Muslim population. By his own admission, "he lived practically like a Mafia don." When he was later transferred to a new facility in 1998, he quickly established himself as the Muslim leader there as well. [London Times, 8/21/02]
The hijackers leave the Indian Airlines plane,
under Taliban supervision. They were given 8
hours to leave the country. [BBC, 12/31/99]
In December 1999, terrorists hijacked an Indian Airlines aircraft and flew it to Kandahar, Afghanistan. After an eight-day standoff, the 155 hostages were released in exchange for three Pakistani terrorists held by India, one of whom was Saeed. [BBC, 12/31/99] He must have had previous contact with al-Qaeda because the hijacking appeared to have been largely funded and carried out by that organization. [CNN, 6/13/02, New York Times, 12/6/01] Perhaps al Qaeda rescued him for his financial expertise, because its previous financial chief, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, had been caught in September of 1998. [Washington Post, 9/15/01]
According to Newsweek, "Sheikh then traveled to Pakistan, where he lived openly—and opulently—in a wealthy Lahore neighborhood. US sources say he did little to hide his connections to terrorist organizations, and even attended swanky parties attended by senior Pakistani government officials." This led to speculation by the US government that he was a "protected asset" of the ISI. [Newsweek, 3/13/02] Pakistani police later claimed that he had spent some of this time serving as a guerrilla warfare instructor at training facilities in Afghanistan. [Washington Post, 2/18/02]
The Money Trail
By now, the al-Qaeda 9/11 plot was in motion. Tens of thousands of dollars had already been wired to some of the 9/11 hijackers in the US before Saeed was released from jail. [Newsweek, 12/2/01] But starting around June 2000, Saeed appears to have become the main conduit for money to the hijackers. On October 1 2001 the Guardian reported, "US investigators believe they have found the 'smoking gun' linking Osama bin Laden to the September 11 terrorist attacks, with the discovery of financial evidence showing money transfers between the hijackers and a Bin Laden aide in the United Arab Emirates. The man at the center of the financial web is believed to be Sheikh Saeed, also known as Mustafa Mohamed Ahmad..." [Guardian, 10/1/01] That same day, a BBC report also implicated Saeed in the financing of the 9/11 terrorist operation. [BBC, 10/1/01] But it wasn't until October 6, some 5 days later, that CNN mentioned Saeed's involvement in the movement of the funds. Quoting "a senior-level US government source," CNN reported, "US investigators now believe Sheik Syed, using the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, sent more than $100,000 from Pakistan to Mohammed Atta." The CNN report also confirmed that the Saeed Sheikh who wired the money to the terrorists was in fact the same Saeed Sheikh who had been released from the Indian prison in 1999. It reported, "Syed would still be in prison were it not for the December 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814." [CNN, 10/6/01]
The US government indictment against Zacarias Moussaoui on December 11 2001 provided more details about the transfers. "Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a/k/a Mustafa Ahmed" sent money to a Florida SunTrust bank account jointly held by Atta and al-Shehhi. $109,910 was wired to Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi in 2000. The money was sent on June 29, July 19, August 7, August 30, and September 18. [MSNBC, 12/11/01] Atta, who received most of the money, "would obtain money orders -- a few thousand dollars at a time -- to distribute to others involved in the plot in the months before the hijackings." [CNN, 10/1/01]
Master of Disguise
Saeed was ideal for this task because of his ability to trick authorities and move money undetected. Saeed used a variety of names for himself to sow confusion, and since it is difficult to spell Arabic words in the Roman alphabet, the problem was only compounded (this article uses Saeed Shiekh because it is closest to his born name; but Omar Sheikh and Sheikh Saeed are also used quite often). Consider the different names he has been referred to in newspaper stories: Mustafa Ahmad, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Mustafa Muhammed Ahmed, Sheik Syed, Mustafa Sheikh Saeed, Ahmad Umar Sheikh, Ahmed Omar Sayed Sheikh, Umar Sheikh, Sheik Omar Saeed, Omar Saiid Sheikh, Sheikh Omar, Shaykh Saiid, etc... He had numerous credit cards, false passports, social security cards, drivers licenses, a bewildering trail of e-mail accounts and cell phone numbers, and so on. [Rediff, 2/13/02] His ISI connections enabled him to get false passports for people. [Hindu, 5/13/02] He opened bank accounts using many of his name variations, and on occasion he would even use completely different names such as Chaudhry Bashir and Imtiaz Siddique. [The News, 2/13/02]
Al-Qaeda's "Chief Financial Officer" [Newsweek, 11/11/01]
This "financial guru," as the FBI have called him, served other fiscal roles for al-Qaeda. The FBI believes he assisted Saudi charities that were secretly funneling millions of dollars to al-Qaeda. [Newsweek, 11/11/01] For instance, the FBI picked up his trail in the Dublin offices of the Islamic Relief Agency, a Saudi-backed charity previously linked to bin Laden's 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa. [Newsweek, 11/11/01] He had long and close contacts with the Group of the Impoverished, a US-based "charity" now listed as a terrorist group. Its members are suspected of at least 13 fire bombings and 17 murders, as well as theft and credit-card frauds. He also has been connected to the Baladullah Estate in Fresno, California, and various groups in Colorado, New York State and the Caribbean. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02]
Take the Money and Run
But no doubt his most sensitive role was funding the Sept. 11 hijackers. The New York Times reported that "Mustafa Ahmad" sent about $325,000 of the $500,000 to $600,000 the hijackers received from overseas. [New York Times, 7/10/02] On June 25 2001, Saeed procured Visa and ATM cards for Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, one of the hijackers, and shipped them from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Florida. [MSNBC, 12/11/01] It appears Banihammad was in Dubai at the same bank on the same day as Saeed. [Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02] Then, in the days right before September 11, a flurry of money transfers between Saeed in the UAE and the hijackers occurred. According to the Moussaoui indictment, between September 6 and 10, $26,315 was wired from the hijackers back to "Mustafa Ahmad" - leftover money from the September 11 plot. [MSNBC, 12/11/01, Guardian, 10/1/01] On September 11, in the hours before the attacks, he transferred $40,871 from his UAE bank accounts to his Visa card, and caught a plane flight from the UAE to Pakistan. There are records of him making 6 ATM withdraws in Karachi on Sept. 13, and then his trail goes cold. [MSNBC, 12/11/01]
Enter General Ahmad and the ISI
President Musharraf shakes hands with ISI
Director General Ahmad. [AFP]
The majority of stories connecting Saeed to the money transfers were reported between October 1 and October 8 2001. [Washington Post, 10/7/01] For instance, on October 8, CNN used Saeed's complete born name, "Ahmed Umar Syed Sheikh" and again reported that he had used "a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to suspected hijacker Mohammad Atta..." [CNN, 10/8/01] But then from that day on, stories connecting Saeed to the hijackers became increasingly scarce. No doubt this had to do with another story being reported on October 9 in Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper. Dawn reported, "Director General of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed has been replaced after the FBI investigators established credible links between him and Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999... Informed sources said there were enough indications with the US intelligence agencies that it was at Gen. Mahmud's instruction that Sheikh had transferred 100,000 US dollars into the account of Mohammed Atta..." [Dawn, 10/9/01] An Indian newspaper then published a story a few hours later revealing that Indian intelligence had been instrumental in helping to establish the connection. [Times of India, 10/9/01] Yet this explosive story was not mentioned at all in the US, outside of one short piece in the Wall Street Journal, which said, "The US authorities ... confirm[ed] the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of General Mahmud." [Wall Street Journal, 10/10/01]
Why the silence on such an important story? No doubt the implications were too disturbing. If General Ahmad ordered Saeed to give money to Atta, then what other conclusion can be drawn than that the Pakistani ISI had helped plan and fund the September 11 attacks on the US? Pakistan is still one of the US's closest allies and in October 2001 their support was vitally needed to conduct the war against Afghanistan. Who knows what the political fallout would have been had the US blamed Pakistan for terrorism at that time. But the Saeed connection was hardly the only evidence that Pakistan was assisting bin Laden and knew about the attacks. What's even worse is that some of this evidence opened the possibility that people in the US government knew as well.
Incriminating the ISI
While Saeed was busy transferring money, it appears Osama bin Laden was getting ill. On July 2 2001, an Indian newspaper reported that "bin Laden, who suffers from renal deficiency, has been periodically undergoing dialysis in a Peshawar military hospital with the knowledge and approval of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), if not of [Pakistani President] Musharraf himself." [SARPA, 7/2/01] An Indian newspaper might be biased on this, but after Sept. 11 the highly respected intelligence newsletter, Jane's Intelligence Digest, later reported the same story, and came close to confirming it: "None of [these details] will be unfamiliar to US intelligence operatives who have been compiling extensive reports on these alleged activities." [Jane's Intelligence Digest, 9/20/01] CBS later reported bin Laden had emergency medical care in Pakistan the day before Sept. 11. He was spirited into a military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. Pakistani military forces guarded him. They also moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. [CBS News, 01/28/02] The Jane's article added, "it is becoming clear that both the Taliban and al-Qaeda would have found it difficult to have continued functioning - including the latter group's terrorist activities - without substantial aid and support from Islamabad [Pakistan]." [Jane's Intelligence Digest, 9/20/01]
On Sept. 9, in what was perhaps a preemptive defensive strike against an expected post-9/11 backlash, two men posing as journalists assassinated Northern Alliance leader General Ahmed Shah Massoud. His killers were thought to have been al-Qaeda agents, but they may have had other connections as well. [BBC, 9/10/01, BBC, 9/10/01] Though it was not widely reported, the Northern Alliance released a statement the next day, stating, "Ahmed Shah Massoud was the target of an assassination attempt organized by the Pakistani ISI and Osama bin Laden." [Radio Free Europe, 9/10/01, Newsday, 9/15/01, Reuters, 10/4/01] The Taliban's army had been massing for an attack against the Northern Alliance for weeks, but didn't attack until hours after Massoud's assassination. A large portion of this force was actually Pakistani. [Time, 8/4/02]
Another bit of evidence, suggesting that the ISI had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks, was just recently reported on September 7 by the Independent of London. It revealed that the Taliban's foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, had learned in July 2001 that bin Laden was planning a "huge attack" on targets inside the U.S.. Fearing that such an attack would provoke a massive retaliation against Afghanistan by the U.S., the foreign minister attempted to warn the US and the UN. He had learned of the planned terrorist operation from the leader of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). [Independent, 9/7/02] Given the ISI's assistance to bin Laden and its extensive ties to the Taliban and the IMU, how could the agency not have had foreknowledge of the attacks?
A Curious Visit
Another possible reason to bury the Ahmad-Saeed-Atta story was that Ahmad may have been in communication with the US government about bin Laden's plans. On September 4 2001, ISI Director Mahmud Ahmad arrived in Washington, D.C.. On September 10 a Pakistani newspaper reported the visit, saying that it had "triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council" as well as meetings with CIA Director George Tenet, unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon, and his "most important meeting" with Mark Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. The article suggested that "of course, Osama bin Laden" was the focus of some discussions. Prophetically, the article added, "What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time [his] predecessor was here, the domestic [Pakistani] politics turned topsy-turvy within days. That this is not the first visit by Mahmud in the last three months shows the urgency of the ongoing parleys." [Karachi News, 9/10/01] In May 2001, both CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had visited the region. It's not known if they met with Ahmad or anyone else in the ISI, but according to credible news reports, Tenet had "unusually long" consultations with President Musharraf. It is also worth noting that Armitage is known for his "large circle of friends in the Pakistani military and ISI" [SAPRA, 5/22/01] as well as his connections to the Iran-Contra affair.
Bob Graham [CNN, 2/23/02], John Kyl [Arizona Daily Star, 9/13/01], and Porter Goss. [CNN, 6/9/99] What were they
discussing with General Ahmad?
Of course everyone knows that politics did turn very "topsy-turvy" one day after the Karachi News article on September 10. But what many don't know is that on the morning of September 11 General Ahmad was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R). The meeting was said to have lasted at least until the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Goss is a self admitted 10-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine operations wing; Graham is the CIA's best ally in the Senate [Washington Post, 5/18/02] (both since have been named the heads of the joint House-Senate investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks, which has made headlines for saying there was no "smoking gun" indicating that the government had sufficient foreknowledge to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks). [Washington Post, 7/11/02] Also present at the meeting were Senator John Kyl (R) and the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodhi (note that all or virtually all of the people in this meeting also met General Ahmad in Pakistan a few weeks earlier [Salon, 9/14/01]). Senator Graham later said of the meeting: "We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan," and the New York Times mentioned that bin Laden was specifically being discussed. [Vero Beach Press Journal, 9/12/01, Salon, 9/14/01, New York Times, 6/3/02] The fact that these people were meeting at the time of the attacks is a strange coincidence at the very least, not to mention the topic of their conversation!
On September 12 and 13, General Ahmad met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Senator Joseph Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State Colin Powell. An agreement on Pakistan's collaboration in the new "war on terror" was negotiated between Ahmad and Armitage. [Miami Herald, 9/16/01] All these meetings coordinated Pakistan's response to September 11. [New York Times, 9/13/01, Reuters, 9/13/01, Associated Press, 9/13/01] Isn't it strange that the terms of Pakistan's commitment to fight al-Qaeda were negotiated with the man who had given orders to send $100,000 to the Sept. 11 hijackers?
Clearly, Pakistan and the US had secrets to hide, even if they were only embarrassing coincidences. The US received warnings of an al-Qaeda attack from an astounding number of countries, including Britain [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02, London Times, 6/14/02], Egypt [AP, 12/7/01], Russia [Guardian, 9/22/01, Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01], Israel [Telegraph, 9/16/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01], Jordan [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02], Italy [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02], Argentina [Forward, 5/31/02], and Germany [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01, Washington Post, 9/14/01]. Yet, supposedly no warning from Pakistan, a close ally in the best position to know. No wonder General Ahmad was forced into retirement in October 2001 for his role in funding the Sept. 11 hijackers. [Wall Street Journal, 10/10/01] Saeed was a vital link connecting Ahmad to al-Qaeda. What would have happened if he had told what he knew?
The Cover-up Begins
It was not enough to simply drop the Ahmad-Saeed-Atta story - a different explanation would be needed to replace it. Even prior to the revelation about General Ahmad on October 8, there was confusion over who Mustafa Ahmad / Saeed Sheikh was. On October 3, Newsday reported, "The United States has said that Mustafa Ahmad is an alias used by Shaykh Sai-id, who has been identified as a high-ranking bin Laden financial lieutenant. In the wake of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania in 1998, Tanzanian officials arrested and charged with murder an Egyptian named Mustafa Ahmed. After alleging that he had confessed to being a high-level al-Qaeda operative, Tanzania then released him without explanation a few months later, according to news reports at the time." [Newsday, 10/3/01] The Sunday Times wrote on October 7, "Who was he? Why did he leave? His name is thought be Mustafa Ahmad. Intelligence agencies have files on him with links to Bin Laden that go back a decade or more." [Sunday Times, 10/7/01] But "a decade or more" is before the real Saeed became involved in terrorism.
Even after October 8, the Saeed / Mustafa Ahmad story was still occasionally reported. [New York Times, 10/15/01, Los Angeles Times, 10/20/01] But then on December 18, the Associated Press casually mentioned the following individual as someone the FBI was looking for: "Shaihk Saiid, also known as Sa'd al-Sharif and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hisawi. A Saudi, Saiid, 33, is bin Laden's brother-in-law and financial chief. Saiid has been with bin Laden since his time in Sudan. Saiid allegedly wired money to Atta in preparation for the Sept. 11 attacks, according to court documents." [AP, 12/18/01] Note that this new Saudi Saeed contradicts both the previous Egyptian Saeed and the "decade or more" Saeed, as well as the real Saeed. However, this new Saeed identity didn't stick. The FBI failed to give more information on him, or post a picture of him anywhere, or put him on any "most wanted list," or "seeking information" list. By January 27 2002, the Telegraph was connecting the real Saeed with Atta again: "Omar Sheikh, 28, a former mathematics student at the LSE [London School of Economics], is said to have been linked to last week's drive-by shooting in Calcutta that killed five policemen. He has also been named as one of the key financiers of Mohammed Atta." [Telegraph, 1/27/02]
Back to Kashmir
After September 11, Saeed lived openly in the Pakistani city of Lahore. He was "frequently seen" at local parties hosted by government leaders and "made no secret" of his whereabouts. In January 2002, he celebrated the birth of his baby at a party he hosted in the city. [USA Today, 2/25/02]
But at the same time, he was secretly involved in more terrorist activity. His terrorist organization, the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, staged attacks on Kashmir parliament on October 1 2001 and India's parliament on December 13. Then, on January 22 2002, they shot up the American Center in Kolkata, India. "Many and varied sources have told Washington officials that in all these attacks, Saeed Sheikh had logistical and operational support from the ISI in Karachi and Islamabad. ISI also helped him form and operate the Jaish-e-Muhammed — Muhammed's Army — for his terrorist campaigns in Kashmir." [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02] It has been suggested that after September 11 he acted as a "go-between" for bin Laden and the ISI, which makes perfect sense given his involvement in both groups. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02] He claimed to have met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the days immediately after Sept. 11, according to Pakistani investigators (though it was not reported why). [Washington Post, 2/18/02, London Times, 2/25/02] Other suspects arrested in Pakistan also described Saeed's links with associates of bin Laden. [Washington Post, 2/18/02] Furthermore, "It is believed he helped produce bin Laden's latest taped interview" around February. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02]
The Setup
In November 2001, a US grand jury secretly indicted Saeed Sheikh with the 1994 kidnapping. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02] Investigators no doubt brought up this old crime so Saeed could be extradited to the US. But since Saeed escaped from prison at the end of 1999, why didn't US officials indict him a year or more earlier for his 1994 kidnapping of US citizens?
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel
Pearl. [September 11 News website]
Pakistani President Musharraf must have decided that Saeed knew too much, and needed to die before he could be extradited to the US. On January 23 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Pakistan. [Guardian, 1/25/02] According to the Washington Post, "At the time of his abduction, Pearl was investigating links between Pakistani extremists and Richard C. Reid, the British man accused of trying to blow up an American airliner with explosives hidden in his sneakers. As part of that probe, Pearl may have strayed into areas involving Pakistan's secret intelligence organizations." [Washington Post, 2/23/02] It was also alleged that he had been focusing more generally on the role played by the US in training and backing the ISI and connections between the ISI and Muslim radicals. [Gulf News, 3/25/02, Guardian, 4/5/02]
Daniel Pearl moments before he is
killed. [September 11 News website]
Around January 31 2002, Daniel Pearl was murdered by his kidnappers. Police investigators say "there were at least eight to 10 people present on the scene," and at least 15 who participated in his kidnapping and murder. "Despite issuing a series of political demands shortly after Pearl's abduction four weeks ago, it now seems clear that the kidnappers planned to kill Pearl all along." [Washington Post, 2/23/02] Musharraf could get rid of a meddlesome reporter asking too much about the ISI. Musharraf even brazenly stated, "Perhaps Daniel Pearl was over-intrusive. A mediaperson should be aware of the dangers of getting into dangerous areas. Unfortunately, he got over-involved'' [Hindu, 3/8/02] in "intelligence games." [Washington Post, 5/3/02] At the same time he eliminated Pearl, Musharraf could frame Saeed for the deed to make sure he would keep quiet about the ISI's Sept. 11 connections.
The Net Closes
To capture Saeed, it appears the police simply rounded up all of his family members and likely threatened to kill or harm them unless Saeed gave himself up. [AP, 2/9/02] "Senior police sources in Lahore have said that Omar swapped his surrender to the police with an immediate release of all of his relatives from the police custody in various Pakistani cities." [Karachi News, 2/13/02] On February 5, he turned himself in, not to the police, but to the ISI. For the next week, Saeed and the ISI worked "out a deal for how little he would say about the ISI's support for terrorist groups in Kashmir and Pakistan in exchange for not being extradited to the United States. Neither the Pakistani police nor the US Embassy nor the FBI who were in Islamabad investigating the kidnapping were informed that Saeed was being 'held' by the ISI during this period. The deal done, a brazen Saeed Sheikh gave himself up to police, telling them of Pearl's capture but misleading them on every possible fact — including his ISI linkage." [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02] When asked by the FBI about his connection to the ISI, he replied, "I will not discuss this subject... I do not want my family to be killed." [Newsweek, 3/13/02]
His surrender was made public knowledge on February 13. [Newsweek, 3/11/02] He then confessed to the murder of Daniel Pearl. Yet, as Newsweek put it, he remained, "confident, even cocky." He told his interrogators that he was "sure" he wouldn't be extradited to the US and said he wouldn't serve more than "three or four years" in a Pakistan prison. [Newsweek, 3/13/02] Others were arrested for the murder as well; many of whom also had connections to both the ISI and al-Qaeda, including Khalid Khawaja, who had "never hidden his links with Osama bin Laden, " and who at "one time . . . used to fly Osama's personal plane." [PakNews, 2/11/02]
Saeed in handcuffs in Karachi on March 2 2002. [New York Times, 7/15/02]
Double Cross
But Saeed and the others were tricked. It's true that Musharraf had no intention to extradite Saeed to the US. The US ambassador even reported that Musharraf privately said, "I'd rather hang him myself" than extradite him. [Washington Post, 3/28/02] But it was simply too risky to keep him alive; his connections to both the ISI and the September 11 hijackers were too obvious. According to the Guardian, Saeed "is widely believed in Pakistan to be an experienced ISI 'asset.'" [Washington Post, 5/3/02] Additionally, as The Washington Post put it, "The [ISI] is a house of horrors waiting to break open. Saeed has tales to tell." [Washington Post, 3/28/02] So the prosecution sought the death sentence for Saeed, not a light sentence. Saeed withdrew his confession. On April 5, in an article titled, "A Certain Outcome For Pearl Trial: Death Sentences Expected, Despite Lack of Evidence," NBC reported, "Some in Pakistan's government also are very concerned about what Saeed might say in court. His organization and other militant groups here have ties to Pakistan's secret intelligence agency [the ISI]. There are concerns he could try to implicate that government agency in the Pearl case, or other questionable dealings that could be at the very least embarrassing, or worse." [MSNBC, 4/5/02]
Collective Amnesia
Given all of the above, one might think that the story of Daniel Pearl's murderer's ties to both the ISI and the Sept. 11 hijackers would be the subject of front page headlines. After all, by the end of March all of the events of the story had already been reported in bits and pieces in mainstream newspapers. It was just a matter of tying it all together. But one would be wrong - there were no headlines. Amazingly, given everything that had already been reported about him, most coverage about Saeed in the wake of the Daniel Pearl murder failed to mention his ties to the ISI, much less those to al-Qaeda. On March 3, US Secretary of State Colin Powell ruled out any links between "elements of the ISI" and the murderers of reporter Daniel Pearl. [Dawn, 3/3/02] The Guardian was a rare voice calling Powell on this obvious lie. They called Powell's comment "shocking", given the overwhelming evidence that the main suspect, Saeed Sheikh, worked for the ISI: "If he was extradited to Washington and decided to talk, the entire story would unravel. His family are fearful. They think he might be tried by a summary court and executed to prevent the identity of his confederates being revealed." [Guardian, 4/5/02] A week before Powell's comment, even US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "acknowledged reports that Omar Sheikh may have been an 'asset'" for the ISI. [London Times, 2/25/02]
It's as if Saeed suddenly became three separate persons: Saeed, the accused murder of Daniel Pearl, Saeed, the al-Qaeda "finance chief" and "central financial figure" in September 11 [Washington Post, 1/7/02], and Saeed, ISI agent. At best, any given article tied together two aspects of Saeed's life, but not all three. For instance, ABC News brought up Saeed's links to al-Qaeda. [ABC News, 2/7/02] The New York Times brought up his links to the ISI. [New York Times, 2/25/02] The Sunday Times had a remarkable story entitled, "Pearl Murder Case Briton Was a Double Agent," that tied him to both al-Qaeda and the ISI. But even that story failed to connect Saeed with funding the September 11attacks. [Sunday Times, 4/21/02] The Associated Press reported, "Western intelligence sources believe Saeed sent $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings" in a story on his links in the Daniel Pearl case, but didn't report on ISI connections. [AP, 2/9/02] A little noticed Pittsburgh Tribune-Review brought together many interesting elements, but not all. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02]
Why does the media fail to understand Saeed? Certainly the confusion over his many aliases plays a part. But there is a deeper reason, the same reason that caused Colin Powell to contradict Donald Rumsfeld. If you bring all these threads together, it demonstrates that elements within the ISI were involved in the September 11 plot, and perhaps Pakistan's President as well.
General Ahmad is Replaced by an “Underworld Don”
The one place where the complete Saeed story had at one time been reported was in India - not surprising considering India and Pakistan are traditional enemies. The most notable news report was of course the Oct. 9, 2001 story of General Mahmud ordering Saeed to wire money to Mohamed Atta. But there were no further reports on the Ahmad connection, as the Indian press seemingly shied away from the geopolitical ramifications of implicating the entire ISI in Sept. 11.
On January 22 - one day before Pearl was kidnapped - the Times of India reported that Indian intelligence had "informed [the] FBI that the ransom money taken by Dubai [United Arab Emirates] underworld don Aftab Ansari to release a Kolkata shoe baron was used to finance Mohammed Atta." [Times of India, 1/22/02] According to the news report, Saeed had asked the "underworld don" in early August 2001 if he would give $100,000 for a "noble cause." Then on August 19, Saeed e-mailed Ansari, informing him, "The money that was sent has been passed on." [Times of India, 2/14/02]
Then, on February 13, the Times of India cast doubt that Gen. Ahmad was connected to the Sept. 11 plot. It recalled that there were earlier allegations Ahmed ordered Saeed to wire $100,000 to Mohamed Atta. But then, contradicting its October article while providing no new evidence, it stated, “There was, however, no evidence to indicate whether Ahmed was aware that this amount was meant for the terrorist strikes in the US." [Times of India, 2/13/2002] The next day, in discussing the Ansari case, the same newspaper pointed out, “Interestingly, the mode of communication adopted by [Saeed and Ansari] is similar to that used by Mohammad Atta and other al-Qaeda members to carry out the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in the US. This gives credence to the perception that Ansari had arranged $100,000 for the terror attacks on America." [Times of India, 2/14/02] So Gen. Ahmad is let off the hook, and replaced by Ansari.
But there are problems with this new explanation. First, the “similarity” it mentions is simply that both Saeed and Atta communicated to others via e-mail. Second, the two Times of India articles failed to mention Ansari’s deep connections with the ISI. Ansari had close links to the militant Pakistani group Jaish-e-Mohammad, which is regarded widely as "a creature of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)." [Pioneer, 1/25/02] Both Saeed and Ansari collaborated in a Jan. 22, 2002 terrorist attack that had been directed under the guidance of the ISI. [Hindu, 5/13/02] Ansari clearly worked for and took orders from the ISI leadership. [Times of India, 1/22/02, India Today, 2/25/02] Finally, the $100,000 connected to Ansari was a different $100,000 than that connected to General Ahmad, which was sent one year earlier. Far from clearing General Ahmad, the Ansari story only served to further prove the connections between Saeed, the ISI, and the hijackers, and showed that Saeed sent the hijackers $100,000 more money than previously reported.
The Trial
So efforts to eliminate Saeed and forget the past moved forward. In late February, Time reported that the second highest Taliban official in US custody, Mullah Haji Abdul Samat Khaksar, had been waiting for months to be interviewed by the CIA. Even two weeks after Time informed US officials that he wanted to talk, no one had bothered to give him a proper interview. Time noted that "he claims to have information about al-Qaeda links to the ISI." [Time, 2/25/02] In March, the ISI pressured an important Pakistani newspaper to fire four journalists. The editor fled the country in response. These journalists had reported on connections between Saeed and recent attacks on the Indian parliament in Delhi and Kashmir. [Washington Post, 3/10/02]
When the verdict came down on July 15, Saeed, as the supposed "mastermind," of course was sentenced to death, and three others were given life in prison. The trial turned out to be a mockery of justice. It was decided by a secret "anti-terrorism" court known for its handpicked judges, [MSNBC, 4/5/02] and took place in a bunker underneath a prison. Furthermore, no reporters were allowed to attend. "Fear lay heavily over the court," reported one paper. [Independent, 7/16/02] The venue had to change three times because of bomb threats and security concerns. [BBC, 5/7/02, BBC, 7/16/02] The trial judge also changed three times. The trial, by law, had to finish within seven days, yet it took over three months. [BBC, 7/16/02] "Forensic scientists initially refused to attend the exhumation of the court" for fear they would be murdered. Saeed himself threatened the judge: "I will see whether who wants to kill me will kill me first, or get himself killed." [Independent, 7/16/02] The key witness was a taxi driver. Even Pakistani officials admitted that his testimony was doubtful, given that the "taxi driver" turned out to be a head constable policeman. Immediately after the trial, the government announced new suspects and new evidence that contradicted the Saeed verdict. [Guardian, 7/18/02] One of the new suspects was said by Pakistani police and intelligence officials to be the true mastermind of Pearl's murder (Saeed at most had a minor role). But the "arrests were made when the trial was already in its final stage and the official confirmation of these crucial arrests would have completely derailed the prosecution's case," a senior police official said. [Washington Post, 7/15/02]]
Saeed: "The Americans should
have realized by now that whatever
happened on 11 September, they
deserved that." [BBC, 7/5/02]
Reaction
The White House expressed satisfaction with the ruling. "The Bush administration welcomes Pakistan's verdict in this matter," spokesman Ari Fleischer said, adding, "Daniel Pearl was brutally executed, and Pakistan's ... court system has now ruled. This is a further example of Pakistan showing leadership in the war against terror." [Wall Street Journal, 7/15/02] In fact, an FBI agent was one of only a "handful" to testify in favor of the prosecution, [BBC, 7/16/02] and "the government's case rest[ed] heavily on technical FBI evidence." [AP, 7/1/02] The British government also approved the verdict. [BBC, 7/15/02]
The mainstream media in the US slipped further into amnesia in their coverage. The conviction story made headlines and there was room for lengthy background information and even special background articles on Saeed [AP, 7/15/02, BBC, 7/16/02], as newspapers reported on his conversion to radicalism, the 1999 hijacking that released him and so forth. However none of them mentioned his al-Qaeda or ISI connections. [AP, 7/15/02, Washington Post, 7/15/02, CNN, 7/15/02, New York Times, 7/15/02, Wall Street Journal, 7/15/02] The verdict was generally spun to appear just. As the Wall Street Journal delicately put it, "The prosecution overcame some significant weaknesses in the case to obtain the conviction." [Wall Street Journal, 7/15/02] European coverage at least was somewhat better, frequently noticing the absence of justice. [BBC, 7/16/02, Independent, 7/16/02]
Since the trial, the spinning of the story away from Saeed and the ISI continues. On Sept. 1, 2002, the Los Angeles Times published "The Plot," a 12,000 word article detailing exactly how the Sept. 11 plot was planned and by who. Yet the ISI wasn't mentioned even once. It did however make this brief comment: "Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawasawi, an al-Qaeda finance officer also known as Sheikh Saiid, transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars from the United Arab Emirates to the hijackers in the United States. Current status: Fugitive." [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/02] Their reference to Saeed being a "fugitive" clearly implied that the man responsible for financing the September 11 terrorists was someone other than the Saeed sitting in a Pakistani jail. Yet who is this Mustafa Ahmed, and why would he naively transfer money to hijackers using his real name? If this terrorist exists, why does the FBI continue to exclude him from their "most wanted" and "seeking information" lists? [FBI, 2/12/02, FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, 2002, FBI Seeking Information, 2/14/02] Investigators have a surveillance video of Mustafa Ahmed walking into a bank in the UAE, [Newsweek, 11/11/01] so they obviously know his real identity - yet they allow the confusion to persist.
The ISI Muzzled?
The ISI lost their puppet state in Afghanistan in the wake of Sept. 11, and they've been under great pressure since. It makes one wonder why they would have sponsored the Sept. 11 attacks. Perhaps they felt they were losing influence in Afghanistan to bin Laden, and conceived of a plot to use him, then get rid of him, while at the same time furthering their larger radical Muslim agenda. Bin Laden's influence with the Taliban rapidly grew after 1998 at the expense of the ISI, and in late August 2001 he was named commander of the Afghan army. [London Times, 8/3/02, UPI, 8/30/01] By early 2001, if not before, Pakistan had determined it had lost control of the Taliban to bin Laden. [Time, 8/4/02] Removing bin Laden would also have removed the major US objection towards the Taliban, and perhaps in the long term, it would have led to official recognition for the Taliban regime. It seems the ISI thought the US would eliminate bin Laden and let the Taliban survive, instead of the reverse. Former ISI Director Hamid Gul explained, "...You could have got everything you wanted from the Taliban. They would have been eating out of your hands. But you never talked to them, because you thought that they were not honorable." [New Yorker, 12/3/01]
The ISI may be taking a different course for now, but have they fundamentally changed? Said a Pakistani diplomat, "To remove the top two or three doesn't matter at all... The philosophy remains." [New Yorker, 10/29/01 A recent UPI editorial stated, "Al-Qaeda terrorists have long since scattered deep inside Pakistan and in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir where they enjoy the protection of the [ISI] ... The unspeakable is that Pakistan is the new Afghanistan, a privileged sanctuary for hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters and Taliban operatives. Some estimates go as high as 5,000 ... The Pakistani - al-Qaeda connection is visible to all but the geopolitically challenged." [UPI, 8/28/02] The ISI has betrayed efforts to capture these outlaws so many times that by the summer, the FBI and the Pakistan Army were no longer informing the agency about their raids in advance. Other Pakistani investigators had to build terrorist files from scratch because the ISI would not share its intelligence. [Independent, 7/21/02]
There has been widespread speculation that the September 11 attacks must have had the backing of a state intelligence agency. Said one CIA official, Bin Laden "sits in a cave in Afghanistan and he's running this operation? It's so huge. He couldn't have done it alone." [New Yorker, 10/1/01] The money trail clearly points to the ISI as that agency. Will the US let the ISI rebound and plan similar future attacks?
Just One Last Detail
If Saeed really does link the ISI to the September 11 attacks, what does that mean for the US? It so happens that there may be yet one more side to Saeed Sheikh. A long time regional expert with extensive CIA ties stated publicly in March 2001 that "The CIA still has close links with the ISI," and repeated the claim to CNN in February 2002. [Times of India, 3/7/01, CNN, 2/27/02] Probably the most revealing article on Saeed was one published by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which went even further: "There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that ... Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for." [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02] But journalists appear not to be looking into this connection, so it's almost impossible to discern if there is any truth to these rumors. Foreigners who have tried investigating the ISI often find themselves dead like Daniel Pearl, or in the case of Christina Lamb, arrested and deported. [Telegraph, 11/11/01]
Some newspaper editors still might consider the full story of Saeed a story better left untold, lest it bring down the Pakistani government. There are fears that the Western allied President Musharraf will be replaced by Muslim radicals - especially worrisome since Pakistan has nuclear weapons. But it actually may be more dangerous leaving the situation as it is. The ISI appears to be the main instigator of Kashmiri violence (some of it planned by Saeed), which almost led to nuclear war between Pakistan and India earlier this year. Musharraf is supposed to have reformed himself and clamped down on the ISI. But, as the Independent put it, although the Western media continues to report that the ISI has been reformed, "few in Pakistan believe it." [Independent, 7/21/02] In Kashmir, Musharraf promised the US he would stop the excursions into Indian-controlled territory, but "Musharraf reneged -- or ISI did for him." The ISI continues to supervise the infiltration of "freedom fighters" into Kashmir, and continues to secretly support religious extremists financially and politically. [UPI, 8/28/02]
Exposing the ISI's Sepember. 11 role may force Musharraf to truly break the back of the ISI, just as an earlier, limited exposé led to the firing of ISI Director General Ahmad. The complete truth needs to come out. If Musharraf isn't guilty, if the ISI isn't guilty, if the CIA isn't guilty, let the evidence prove their innocence.
4 September 2002
(by Chaim Kupferberg-Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG))
A mere week after the destruction of the World Trade Center, authorities were gradually building toward an official announcement that would definitively link Osama bin Laden to the events of September 11 - a wire transfer of $100,000 to lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. To an increasingly skeptical public, here was the "smoking gun", a bona fide money trail that would demonstrate how al-Qaida planned and financed the operation.
On October 1, 2001, the press revealed the pseudonym of the al-Qaida operative who allegedly passed on the funds to the hijackers. Days later, CNN revealed that the pseudonym belonged to a 28-year old Pakistani militant, a former student at the London School of Economics named Omar Saeed Sheikh. Yet on October 9, the Times of India reported that Omar Saeed was in fact acting under the authority of General Mahmud Ahmad, the chief of Pakistani intelligence, who had spent the morning of September 11 in deep discussion with Sen. Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss (now the co-chairmen heading up the "independent" investigation into 9/11). An intricate disinformation campaign was now set in motion to control any damaging fallout that might have implicated elements of the U.S. government in the events of September 11.
At the insistence of U.S. authorities, General Ahmad was "quietly retired," and a cover story was then elaborated to explain that General Ahmad was "purged" by the Pakistani President for being "pro-Taliban" - yet distancing him from any connection to the 9/11 money trail.
As for the initial "smoking gun" itself - the money trail - trouble was brewing in the days before the Times of India's October 9 revelation. While plans were possibly being put into effect to initially publicize Omar Saeed as the 9/11 paymaster, confusion apparently set in when the Indian government began to ferret out the link between Omar Saeed and the Pakistani spymaster. It now became necessary to gradually put the brakes on the money trail story, minimizing it with the release, on Oct. 3, of the Blair document setting out the "persuasive" case against bin Laden (yet omitting mention of the alleged money trail).
A few days later, the invasion of Afghanistan commenced, and the money trail story began to die a slow death in the mainstream media. Yet in the meantime, it had to be dealt with.
With a cover story for General Ahmad's sudden dismissal firmly in place, a "legend" now had to be elaborated for Omar Saeed to distance him from General Ahmad and the money trail story. After October 9, as Omar Saeed suddenly disappeared from the world's headlines, the Indian-Pakistan front was now heating up, stoked by an October 14 announcement on Kashmir by al-Qaida.
By mid-December, the Associated Press had dislodged Omar Saeed from the money trail story by tagging bin Laden's brother-in law - Shaykh Saiid - as the actual 9/11 paymaster. That week, the Bush Administration also managed to fully bury the money trail story by presenting a new, "sexier" smoking gun - the Bin Laden Videotape Confession. Also that week, Pakistan and India were brought to the brink of war by a daring terrorist attack on the Delhi parliament - an attack that would eventually be linked to Omar Saeed.
On January 23, 2002, one day after a terror attack in Calcutta (which would also be linked to Omar Saeed), Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl disappeared off the streets of Karachi. On February 5, Pakistani authorities revealed the prime suspect in Pearl's kidnapping - Omar Saeed. With Saeed actually being in Pakistani custody on that very day, the authorities then spent the following week on a "hunt" for him, officially announcing his "arrest" on February 12.
With Omar Saeed back in the headlines, his link to the money trail was being gradually resurrected, yet this time it was minimized with the news of his now-publicized links to most of the post-9/11 terror attacks heating up the Pakistan-Indian border. In the meantime, the Times of India was now backing away from its October 9 bombshell, cutting General Ahmad out of the picture and connecting Omar Saeed to the money trail by way of an alternative al-Qaida operative (who was linked to the January 22 attack in Calcutta). Omar Saeed was now cast as a Kashmir militant with collateral ties to al-Qaida, employing terrorist attacks to foil Pakistani President Musharraf's collaboration with U.S. authorities in the War On Terror.
With General Ahmad branded as a "rogue" intelligence chief, all the pieces of the cover story were now firmly in place, providing an "alternative" explanation for the history books.
On July 15, 2002, Omar Saeed was sentenced to die for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl. While some correspondents had briefly touched upon Omar Saeed's alleged additional role as 9/11 paymaster, most persisted in refusing to acknowledge this angle of the story, focusing instead on a 1994 kidnapping which was the subject of a "secret" indictment against Saeed by the Justice Department back in November 2001.
While the media may, one day, present a "plausible" explanation for many of these anomalies, the evidence nevertheless now irrefutably points toward the existence of a vast disinformation apparatus that has managed, manipulated, and obfuscated most of the information being fed to the public - the true smoking gun of 9/11.
A year after the attacks the identities of the hijackers remain mired in confusion.
(Middle East Media Research Institute-www.memri.org)
9-10-2
Iraq Calls for the Formation of Suicide Squads to Strike American Targets and Interests
An editorial in the Iraqi weekly Al-Iqtisadi [The Economist], which is owned by Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday, called for the formation of suicide [fidaiyoon] squads to launch broad-based sabotage operations against the United States, its friends, and interests.
As an introduction, the weekly highlighted the growing Arab, regional, and international opposition to American threats against Arab and Muslim countries, and Iraq, in particular. The following are excerpts from the article:
"...The United States practices international terrorism against the whole world. By doing so, it turns peoples and governments into hostages, thereby causing the suspension of international activities and generating fears and instability in the international domain. This conduct has similarities with Hitler and Nazism which led the world to a world war."
"...It is unlikely that the United Nations will establish an international tribunal to prosecute the U.S., but it is not difficult for any country to indict it [the U.S.] internationally and to mobilize other countries to do so despite the ridiculous international decision that protects American forces from their crimes against others..."
"...The confrontation with the aggressors should transcend the means of condemnation and rejection, particularly in the Arab and Muslim street. They should use all means-and they are numerous-against the aggressors, including boycott, closing air and sea ports to civilian ships and airplanes that belong to the U.S. and its allies, striking their economic interests and establishments, and considering everything American as a military target, including embassies, installations, and American companies, and to create suicide/martyr [fidaiyoon] squads to attack American military and naval bases inside and outside the region, and mine the waterways to prevent the movement of war ships..."(2)
September 11, 2002
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Intelligence officials have identified the al Qaeda prisoner who was the primary source of information prompting the United States to go on a high state of alert.
Kuwaiti national Omar al-Faruq "only recently started to talk," the officials said.
"He is in U.S. custody but not in the U.S.," a senior official told CNN. Al-Faruq ran al Qaeda operations in Southeast Asia until his arrest in Indonesia about two months ago, U.S. officials say. He was turned over to the United States in recent weeks.
These officials have told CNN the man has provided "specific and credible" information about plots to attack U.S. facilities in Southeast Asia. It was this key information from al-Faruq that led to the president's decision to put the nation on "high" alert. The information was received at the CIA midday Monday.
U.S. officials for the first time Tuesday raised the nation's terrorist alert status from "yellow" to "orange," signifying a high risk of terrorist attacks.
Al-Faruq was a member of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group that U.S. officials say has ties to al Qaeda and is expected to be put on the State Department list of terrorist organizations.
U.S. officials say they also have information from other al Qaeda members about possible threats to U.S. targets in the Middle East, as well as intelligence "chatter" suggesting lower-level members of the terrorist group may try to mark the September 11 anniversary with less sophisticated, smaller-scale terrorist attacks.
One senior State Department official said the information was credible "because it's specifically detailed, and it specifically fitted into what we [already] had."
While officials said the threats deal with U.S. facilities overseas, they emphasized the nation's intelligence agencies heard similar "chatter" last year at this time.
"Remember, last year we thought if there were an attack it could be overseas. We were incorrect," a senior FBI official said.
Embassies and consulates have been closed for a review of their "security posture" in Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as in Malawi, Pakistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan.
A senior State Department official said the offices closed were not the only U.S. facilities under threat of attack but appeared more vulnerable.
He cited as an example the embassy in the Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which does not have a "setback" from main roads and is next to the street. He said a similar situation exists in Hanoi, Vietnam.
After the 1998 terror bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the State Department was advised to place its embassies at least 100 feet back from main roads and thoroughfares.
11 September, 2002
(BBCNews)
An amateur astronomer may have found another moon of the Earth. Experts say it may have only just arrived.
Much uncertainty surrounds the mysterious object, designated J002E2. It could be a passing chunk of rock captured by the Earth's gravity, or it could be a discarded rocket casing coming back to our region of space.
It was discovered by Bill Yeung from his observatory in Arizona and reported as a passing Near-Earth Object. It was soon realised however that far from passing us it was in a 50-day orbit around the Earth.
Paul Chodas of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California says it must have just arrived or it would have been easily detected long ago. Calculations suggest it may have been captured earlier this year.
Moon or junk?
When he detected the object Bill Yeung contacted the Minor Planet Centre in Massachusetts, the clearing house for such discoveries, which gave it the designation J002E2 and posted it on their Near-Earth Object Confirmation webpage.
Soon however, its motion suggested it was in an orbit around the Earth. Its movements had all the hallmarks of being a spent rocket casing or other piece of space junk.
But experts are not completely sure what exactly the object is.
Observations made by Tony Beresford in Australia indicate that the object's position does not match any known piece of space junk. Observations made in Europe have failed to see any variations in brightness that might be expected from a slowly spinning metallic object.
Nasa's Paul Chodas says the object must have arrived quite recently or else it would have been easily detected by any of several automated sky surveys that astronomers are conducting.
Its trajectory suggests that it may have been captured in April or May of this year, but there is still some uncertainty about this.
If it is determined that J002E2 is natural it will become Earth's third natural satellite.
Earth's second one is called Cruithne. It was discovered in 1986 and it takes a convoluted horseshoe path around our planet as it is tossed about by the Earth's and the Moon's gravity.
Astronomers, professional and amateur, are carrying out further observations to determine if J002E2 is really another moon of the Earth, or just a piece of space junk.
orbit: 9378 km from the center of Mars
diameter: 22.2 km (27 x 21.6 x 18.8)
mass: 1.08e16 kg
In Greek mythology, Phobos is one of the sons of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus). "phobos" is Greek for "fear" (the root of "phobia"). Scientists tell us that Phobos has always been a bit of an odd moon, because it is the only moon in the solar system with a clockwise orbit.
By James van der Worp
(yowusa.com)
On June 5, 2000 comet 76P/West-Kohoutek-Ikemura had its closest encounter with the planet Mars. This event has generated a wide-reaching debate on the Internet as many feel that this event was prophesied by Nostradamus, Scallion, Gilbert, and Mother Shipton.
While NASA had originally planned to observe the flyby with the DSSI space craft, their position is that nothing happened and that the 76P flyby is a nonevent.
Following NASA's statement that "nothing happened" the interest in 76P began to fade. However, 76P has not been sighted since the June flyby of Mars and NASA is still publishing 76P data based on pre-flyby sightings. Since then, the Earth has been repeatedly buffeted by a outbreak of violent solar storms. Consequently, NASA's inability to sight 76P plus the current solar activity has refocused attention on the prophecies of Nostrdadamus, with specific regard to C10:Q72.
We will probably not know if Phobos is heading for us until it’s too late, but the imagery taken shortly after the passage by Mars certainly indicate an interaction of SOME sort between the planet Mars and the comet and perhaps even the moons of Mars. Another detail is that on the last few SOHO images taken before the passage the comet COULD be seen, just before it passed directly behind Mars. It hasn’t been spotted coming back out from behind Mars.
And Mars hasn’t been looking so bright and a bit larger on images taken the weeks after the passage. Some even called it a blot of used bubblegum. Coincidence? Could it be optical effects by the Sun’s radiance? Possibly, but it’s not satisfactory as an explanation to too many of us out here.
Personally I believe it can be said that something did take place there, and that it may result in terrible consequences for the Earth. In this regard, the dismissive and condescending attitude of NASA officials is what troubles me more. They do not seem to know anything more than we do (or do not want to let on to what they know) but nonetheless they keep patting us on the head like precocious children and telling not to worry. But we do worry that Phobos could turn out to be Nostradamus’ King of Terror and NASA's patronizing treatment only further this these disturbing thoughts.
(NASA.gov Photo of the Day)
Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These Martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of the Solar System. In this 1978 Viking 1 orbiter image, the largest moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a heavily cratered asteroid-like object. About 17 miles across, Phobos really zips through the Martian sky. Actually rising above Mars' western horizon and setting in the east, it completes an orbit in less than 8 hours. But Phobos is doomed. Phobos orbits so close to Mars, (about 3,600 miles above the surface compared to 250,000 miles for our Moon) that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In 100 million years or so it will likely crash into the surface or be shattered by stress caused by the relentless tidal forces, the debris forming a ring around Mars.
Phobos 2 was a Soviet probe sent to examine the Martian moon Phobos (The USSR was interested in the possibility of using Phobos as a staging post for a manned exploration of Mars). What makes it interesting to ufologists is that among the images it sent back before it malfunctioned was one (allegedly the last one) which appeared to show a large object near Phobos. Analysis of this picture and of a picture showing what seems to be the shadow of the "UFO" on Mars, indicate an object about 20km long. The implication to ufologists is that this "space station" could have been involved with the probes untimely demise.
By Jim Oberg
http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/phenomena/fobos_mystery_000630.html
7-2-00
If Robert Frost had been the poet laureate of space flight, he might have written, "Something is there that doesn't like a Mars probe." And a comic cartoonist once drew an ugly, hungry space beast lurking near Mars to devour Earth's space vehicles (the painting hung on the wall of a mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for years). You get the picture.
This past decade has not been kind to Earth's Mars probes. There was NASA's expensive Mars Observer blowing up in 1993 as it warmed its rocket engines up to slow into orbit. And we've just seen both of NASA's 1999 missions fail.
Russia lost another ambitious probe in 1995 when its upper stage failed, dumping radioactive fragments onto the Andes Mountains. And a Japanese mission, their first to Mars, went off course right out of the gate in December 1998.
But the most bizarre loss of a Mars probe is unarguably the case of Phobos-2 (or Fobos-2, in the Russian spelling). It "disappeared" in March 1989, under very unusual circumstances that still mystify and excite many people.
Recent developments in the Russian space program have opened new insights into that failure. But first, here's some history.
Trying to lift the curse
The Soviet Union launched two probes towards Mars in mid-1988, trying to break a decades-old jinx. Its initial series of small probes (1960-1965) had been a total disaster, and a series of heavier probes (1969-1973) didn't do much better. But this third generation was much more promising.
The spacecraft "bus" -- the main body -- was of an entirely new design. It had new engines, new computers, new communications gear. And this new mission carried subsatellites to be dropped onto the inner Martian moon, Phobos.
But the old jinx still prevailed. The first probe was lost due to an erroneous command on the outbound leg. The second vehicle was crippled by electronics failures and by the time it reached Mars on January 30, 1989, it was operating on its last and lowest-powered radio.
Nonetheless, it slipped into orbit around Mars and slowly matched its path with Phobos. As it closed in, it also made observations of Mars.
A dozen times, it turned its cameras away from Mars and towards Phobos. This required the whole spacecraft to turn, since a movable "scan platform" hadn't been installed. The maneuver also turned the dish antenna away from Earth, cutting communications for several hours each time.
On March 27, 1989, the probe began another Phobos photo maneuver, and as expected radio signals ceased. But after the planned maneuver, when listeners on Earth expected to reacquire the signal, nothing was heard. More careful listening picked up brief bursts of radio signals, as if the dish antenna were swinging wildly through space and only occasionally beaming back towards Earth. Then -- only silence.
Strange shadows explained
But not for long. Soon a strange and wonderful story grew and spread, about mysterious structures observed on the surface of Mars. The probe's last view, so the tale continued, showed a miles-long oval object closing in. The object's elliptical shadow could be seen on the surface of Mars thousands of miles below.
And indeed, cigar-shaped shadows were plainly visible in many of the 37 photographs that the doomed probe sent back to Earth during the 60 days it survived circling Mars.
Such images are not unusual in the archives of American Mars orbiters, from Mariner-9 to the Viking Orbiter twins, to the Mars Global Surveyor, still at work there to this day. In those cases, what was seen were shadows of the moonlet Phobos, stretched by being projected at a low angle to the Martian surface.
But Fobos-2 was on a different orbit, and for the last few weeks it was fairly close to the moon Phobos. Thus, any view of that object's shadow on Mars would have to be fairly circular. Think about the geometry -- use props if you want to. It's an illuminating exercise in 3-D perspectives. If you're next to a roundish object casting a shadow, the shadow will look more-or-less roundish to you no matter how steeply tilted the surface it's projected on is lying.
So where did the cigar-shaped shadow come from?
Several years ago, mission scientist Aleksandr Selivanov explained the cigar-shaped shadow in the Fobos-2 images this way.
The imaging system is a "scanning radiometer," not a camera, Selivanov pointed out. A rotating mirror moves perpendicular to the line of the probe's motion over Mars. As a result, "a picture is generated by the motion of the spacecraft in its orbit." The probe did NOT gather an entire image in one snap, but accumulated it over a period of time, line by line.
Fobos-2 was staring straight back along the Sun-to-Mars line, to get the best infrared readings. In contrast, visible light imagers prefer to look for shadows cast by surface features, so they are aligned at large angles to the Sun's rays. This made the visible-light images from Fobos-2 look washed out.
Now, Fobos-2 was quite near the moon Phobos in the last days of its flight, both circling Mars along the same path. So the roundish shadow of Phobos was on Mars's surface, within the field of view of the scanner, when the scanner was looking "down sun" at Mars.
Selivanov explained that if the probe had been rock steady, the Phobos shadow would have left a dark streak right through the entire center of each image, as the image was assembled line-by-line over the course of each orbit. Because of a slight rocking of the probe, however, the scanning beam "sliced" the Phobos shadow at different points, from back to front, over the course of each imaging session.
The resulting elongated shadow is thus an artifact of the imaging technology, and of the probe's motion through space and around its own axis. Selivanov argued that since these shadows are all precisely aligned along the probe's flight path over Mars, they are unquestionably not shadows of other objects near Mars. They show the shadow of Phobos.
One supposed photograph, the "last one before the attack," shows Phobos and a bright vertical line below it. Since the line runs right along the telemetry scan lines, space experts are confident it is some sort of transmission flaw, not a real object in space. Besides, the date on the image is March 25, two days before the probe's loss.
Hurry and other human errors
The breakdown of Fobos-2 was disappointing to experts associated with the program, but not surprising. They had seen human error doom its sister craft, Fobos-1, before it even got to Mars, and they had seen signs that Fobos-2 wasn't in much better shape.
Dr. Larry Soderblom was one of the American scientists who had instruments aboard the probe. "There is a feeling in the American space science community the Russians were in too much of a hurry," he later told a reporter. "The two satellites lost were launched without much thought to a system of checks and balances that might have prevented such problems."
And even the design was questionable. "Soviet scientists at the Space Research Institute in Moscow complained that the new, sophisticated spacecraft actually was designed for purposes other than those for which it was being used on the missions to Phobos," wrote a British space expert. "Engineers adapted it for the mission in order to flight-test it for future missions to which it was considered better suited."
These problems were recognized even as the missions were launched. I remember telling another reporter: "I'd be surprised if both make it -- and I wouldn't be surprised if neither do."
Everything returns
But space is full of surprises, and 11 years later, Fobos-2 has suddenly been reborn. A rocket stage based on its design was launched into orbit on February 9 and performed perfectly. A second and more ambitious test on March 20 also went perfectly.
The stage is called "Fregat," Russian for "Frigate" -- and in fact, on many Fobos-2 photographs from 1989, one can read the designation "Phobos-Fregat." In 1995, project manager Vladimir Ashushkin described to me his hopes for a commercial deal to carry paying customers into space by adapting and improving the interplanetary module.
That deal has now been signed with a number of European customers and Fregat spacecraft will soon be heading off into space again, into high Earth orbits, out to the moon, and even back to Mars -- a Fregat is slated to carry the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe in 2003.
With a better design, and better luck, the curse of Fobos-2 may be dispelled. But Mars may have its own ideas about that!
Has NASA Betrayed Us? Did a comet crash into Mars in June 2000 dislodging it's moon Phobos, causing the biggest duststorm ever observed and sending debris on a devastating collision course with Earth
YOWUSA.COM, September 5, 2001
(http://www.yowusa.com/Archive/August2002/lpbusted/lpbusted.htm)
YOWUSA.COM, August 10, 2002
Marshall Masters
In this disquieting age of pedophile priests, even outcasts of the Catholic Church have come under fire and YOWUSA.COM has just learned that Mr. William Kamm aka THE LITTLE PEBBLE and the Moderator of the Order of Saint Charbel in Cambewarra, Australia, has been arrested on six counts of child sexual assault dating back to 1993 and 1994.
For several years, Kamm et al. have prophesized that a debris field caused by an impact event with one of the moons of Mars during the June 5, 2000 flyby of the plant by Comet 76P/West-Kohoutek- Ikemura is headed towards Earth. This now raises a key question. With all of the other governmental irregularities surrounding the 76P flyby, is the arrest of Kamm based on solid evidence that will eventually yield a conviction? Or, is it an attempt to discredit him and his prophecies and to deflect attention away from unresolved issues regarding Mars?
(aeronews.com)
9/8/02
The Colombian Army has raided a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or 'FARC') camp, and found something that's sure, in the future, to ruin a lot of Americans' and others' hobbies. It discovered and seized nine 'toy airplanes' that were, the government said, to have been packed with explosives.
The Colombian government believes these to be the first-ever of their breed. While several governments, including Colombia's, have occasionally found real airplanes loaded with destructive stuff, this is the first time in memory that 'toys' have been set up for this use -- at least by non-government operators.
The small planes (details not given) were found some 250 miles northeast of Bogatá, in a camp near the town of Araquita.
Sep 12, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI agents have searched the former home of Dr. Steven Hatfill, a focus of attention in the anthrax case, for the third time, according to a source close to the case.
The search was carried out Wednesday under the authority of a warrant, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Hatfill's spokesman, Pat Clawson, said Hatfill was not informed of the search and has not lived in the apartment in Frederick, Md., since Aug. 12. Hatfill's apartment has been searched twice before, the second time under warrant.
"He doesn't know anything about it if they did search the house," Clawson said. "If they are looking for something, how come they didn't find it during the first two searches?"
Chris Murray, spokesman for the FBI's Washington field office, had no comment on the matter.
Five people were killed by anthrax-tainted letters sent through the mail last fall. The FBI has identified Hatfill as a "person of interest" in its investigation but says he is no more or less important than about 30 fellow scientists and researchers with the expertise and opportunity to conduct the attacks.
Hatfill has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks and says the Justice Department ( news - web sites) is ruining his life by linking him to the crimes.
He was fired Sept. 3 from a job at Louisiana State University after the Justice Department sent his supervisor an e-mail ordering that Hatfill be barred from working on department-funded projects.
Hatfill, 48, worked until 1999 for Fort Detrick's Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland. It is the primary custodian of the virulent Ames strain of anthrax found in the anthrax letters.
(LondonTimes)
September 13, 2002
IT BEGAN with the recruitment of a young Palestinian reading King Lear in the British Council library.
It ended two years later with the spymaster vanished, and the young Palestinian claiming he had been blackmailed into treachery by doctored photographs of assignations with prostitutes and promises of a life abroad.
Most importantly, it ended with 16 of his own people killed by an Israeli bomb that he had just helped to guide from an F16 on to the secret hideout of Salah Shehada, the Hamas military leader, in Gaza City.
At least, that is the story of Akram el-Zatma. But then Akram, a self-confessed collaborator, is a dead man talking.
Unsurprisingly, Israel refuses to confirm if this articulate but unsophisticated young man was among the collaborators recruited by Shin Bet to carry out the Shehada operation.
The Palestinian Preventive Security Service, which granted The Times access to probably the most hated Palestinian in Gaza, also refuses to say anything beyond indicating that they believe Akram’s account because — with execution a near certainty — he has little reason to lie.
Akram’s story began with a visit to the library to borrow some of Shakespeare’s plays to try to improve his English. He recalled: “At the table opposite me was a foreigner, flipping through pages of magazines. He looked bored. He told me his name was Terry and that he was a lecturer in sociology from Ottawa University.
“He said he had a nice villa and he promised to take me to Canada and help me settle there. He told me it was easy to get rich.”
Excited, Akram agreed to act as an interpreter, paid $100 (£60) a week, for “Terry” and a new friend, David, a “Canadian businessman”. The next month was a blur of trips to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Bethlehem, with occasional visits to anonymous hotels and official-looking buildings where he picked up forms on official-looking paper.
Phone calls were always directly to him, numbers were never left and documents and passports were glimpsed but never retained.
Then, just before the intifada, he was in a hotel room in Tel Aviv when a third man knocked at his door and presented four photographs of him apparently cavorting with naked girls. “They had used the photograph I gave them in each picture. I knew it was a fake but it was so good you couldn’t tell,” he said. “They were totally explicit. As a Muslim this would have been catastrophic for me.”
Hooked, Akram began giving information about where demonstrations were going to take place, earning 900 shekels (£85) a month, regular sessions with prostitutes and £60 a month paid into his account.
On the night of the assassination of Shehada, he recalls, he was ordered to stand outside one of the three buildings he had been told the Hamas leader used regularly, and confirmed to his handler that he saw a figure matching Shehada’s build leave a car and go into the building.
He claims to have warned the Israelis that civilians were near by, but while his motives for saying so are clearly suspect — to implicate Israel in deliberately causing innocent casualties — he makes little effort to absolve himself.
“Yes, I am very ashamed. Of course, it is the Israelis to blame but I am also to blame because if I had confessed earlier it would not have happened.”
He is, at least, lucky enough to be facing trial — unlike dozens of other suspected male and female collaborators who have been shot or hanged from scaffolding in town squares as a warning to other Palestinians.
As for corroboration of his story, there is none.
While confirming that an operation such as the Shehada assassination would almost certainly need collaborators, Daniel Seaman, an Israeli government spokesman, said that Shin Bet never confirmed whether an individual had been recruited.
He said that the use of honey traps and deception was “not out of the question”, but added that most collaborators were motivated by money or the desire to avenge family and tribal feuds with other Palestinians.
“You don’t need to pull these kinds of stunts to recruit somebody. It’s not a tactic used very often because they can easily get out of it. He could have simply said, ‘these are not true photographs’, and gained favour by exposing what terrible things the Israelis do.”
In Gaza, the colonel of the Palestinian police signals that the interview with Akram is over.
The contempt for Akram has been palpable. Twice an assistant has scuttled into the room with five cups of coffee and five cups of tea. There are six people in the room, but Akram does not exist.
Suddenly the doomed youth disappears behind a white steel door. Through the narrowing crack can be glimpsed a blindfolded man, eyeless in Gaza, sitting on a bare wooden chair, his head bowed and hands tied before him.
For Akram the questions are over. For others, they are yet to begin.
(Wired)
9/12/02
Its been more than six months since the news broke about the FBI's new high tech spying device named "Magic Lantern." The government, understandably, wants to keep the Magic Lantern technology under wraps. But that didn't stop "CyberCrime" from getting the inside scoop on this high tech surveillance device from experts, which we'll show you on this week's episode.
The Magic Lantern technology began as part of a broad FBI project called "Cyber Knight" -- the same project that spawned the notorious Carnivore email monitoring device. Magic Lantern goes much farther than Carnivore, though. If initial reports are correct, it will allow investigators to secretly install software that records every keystroke on a person's computer, steal passwords, and read encrypted messages.
With many encryption programs available on the Internet, the FBI has been frustrated in efforts to break open encrypted messages, and officials are increasingly concerned about their ability to read encrypted messages in criminal or terrorist investigations.
Magic Lantern also resolves another important problem with the FBI's existing computer monitoring technology -- the "key logger system." In the past, investigators had to break into a target's residence armed with a warrant and physically attach a device to a computer. Magic Lantern, however, can be installed over the Internet by tricking a person into opening an email attachment. It is unclear whether Magic Lantern would transmit keystrokes it records back to the FBI over the Internet or store the information to be seized later in a raid.
Once up and running, it can reportably records all keystrokes, peer into file, and even translate encrypted words into readable text.
How it works
Based on media reports, Magic Lantern is essentially a trojan program. This is a software application that sits on a computer and runs without the user knowing that it's there. Trojan programs usually come disguised as an email attachment or an innocuous software download. For example, one popular trojan came hidden in a downloadable game called "Whack a Mole."
Trojans thought to be similar to Magic Lantern include Netbus and Back Orifice. These trojans allow other people to control your computer via the Internet. When you run a program that contains the trojan, it will copy itself to the Windows or WindowsSystem directory and add itself to the system's Registry.
Once the program is completely installed onto a computer, it tries to hide itself on the task list. It doesn't show any icon or indication that it is running. The person who is controlling your computer uses a program that lets them record keystrokes, copy files, or basically do whatever they want.
A threat to civil liberties?
When news of Carnivore first hit, there was an uproar in the privacy community because the program seemed to scan the emails of many people, not just emails sent by people under suspicion. With Magic Lantern, privacy advocates are concerned for a different reason.
On "CyberCrime," we interview Washington privacy advocate Mikal Condon, who is leading the charge to get more details about Magic Lantern out of the FBI. She believes the secrecy surrounding the technology is a serious threat to public privacy. Here's some commentary from around the Web examining the privacy concerns prompted by Magic Lantern. Stories supportive of the project are hard to come by as of yet since all the FBI has revealed so far is that Magic Lantern exists and is in development.
12 September 2002
(thisisgloucestershire.co.uk)
Most parents believe the sex of their new baby is a random occurrence, but yesterday scientists finally dispelled that myth.
AnAustralian researcher has discovered a mother's personality is the most reliable indicator of whether she will give birth to a boy or a girl.
Valerie Grant, from the University of Auckland, claims a baby's sex is dictated by the levels of testosterone in its mother's genes.
And her research could explain why dominant women like Victoria Beckham give birth to boys, while more retiring types, such as Kate Winslet, tend to have girls.
Worldwide, official records show slightly more boys are born than girls - 106 males for every 100 females.
For several decades, researchers have been trying to work out why this happens but the history books are filled with contradictory and confusing studies.
Boffins have peered into test tubes and microscopes for decades trying to establish why certain biological quirks occur. For example, why highstatus men such as presidents and Lords tend to produce sons, while those who work as divers, test pilots, clergymen and sawmill workers have more daughters.
However, Grant believes scientists may have been looking for explanations in the wrong place.
"Maybe it's not fathers who control the sex of their children. Maybe it's mothers, " she said.
The idea that humans could control the sex of their offspring is not as odd as it might first appear. Many animals produce young of the sex that will do best under certain environmental conditions. And it's usually the mother that takes control.
Female alligators produce sons if they lay their eggs in a relatively warm place and daughters if the incubation site is cooler.
Insects such as ants, bees and wasps have an even more foolproof method - eggs that mothers allow to be fertilised become daughters, while the rest become sons.
With humans, our sex is determined by our genetic make-up. If your 23rd pair of chromosomes is XX, you are female; if it's XY, you are male.
Human embryos inherit an X from their mother and either another X or a Y from their father.
And, in theory at least, men produce equal numbers of sperm carrying X and Y chromosomes. But while previous studies have suggested fathers were the key factor in determining the sex of a child, scientists now believe mothers are taking more of a leading role.
However, Grant has taken the research a stage further by claiming sex determination is purely a one-woman s h ow.
She designed a questionnaire for prospective mothers that measures how dominant they are.
The test consists of 64 adjectives such as proud, free, awed and bored which the mothers tick if it applies to them. Sprinkled among them are 13 words linked with high dominance and women are scored on how many of these words they tick.
The average score is three but Grant's records show that pregnant women who score eight or above have an 80 per cent chance of having a boy.
But despite the consistency of her published work so far, Grant admits other scientists remain sceptical of her latest findings.
(redflagsweekly.com)
By Richard Altschuler
9-9-2
Does the expiration date on a bottle of a medication mean anything? If a bottle of Tylenol, for example, says something like "Do not use after June 1998," and it is August 2002, should you take the Tylenol? Should you discard it? Can you get hurt if you take it? Will it simply have lost its potency and do you no good?
In other words, are drug manufacturers being honest with us when they put an expiration date on their medications, or is the practice of dating just another drug industry scam, to get us to buy new medications when the old ones that purportedly have "expired" are still perfectly good?
These are the pressing questions I investigated after my mother-in-law recently said to me, "It doesn't mean anything," when I pointed out that the Tylenol she was about to take had "expired" four years and a few months ago. I was a bit mocking in my pronouncement - feeling superior that I had noticed the chemical corpse in her cabinet - but she was equally adamant in her reply, and is generally very sage about medical issues.
So I gave her a glass of water with the purportedly "dead" drug, of which she took two capsules for a pain in the upper back. About a half hour later she reported the pain seemed to have eased up a bit. I said "You could be having a placebo effect," not wanting to simply concede she was right about the drug, and also not actually knowing what I was talking about. I was just happy to hear that her pain had eased, even before we had our evening cocktails and hot tub dip (we were in "Leisure World," near Laguna Beach, CA, where the hot tub is bigger than most Manhattan apartments, and "Heaven" as generally portrayed, would be raucous by comparison).
Upon my return to NYC and high-speed connection, I immediately scoured the medical databases and general literature for the answer to my question about drug expiration labeling. And voila, no sooner than I could say "Screwed again by the pharmaceutical industry," I had my answer. Here are the simple facts:
First, the expiration date, required by law in the United States, beginning in 1979, specifies only the date the manufacturer guarantees the full potency and safety of the drug - it does not mean how long the drug is actually "good" or safe to use. Second, medical authorities uniformly say it is safe to take drugs past their expiration date - no matter how "expired" the drugs purportedly are. Except for possibly the rarest of exceptions, you won't get hurt and you certainly won't get killed. A contested example of a rare exception is a case of renal tubular damage purportedly caused by expired tetracycline (reported by G. W. Frimpter et al., in the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, 184:111, 1963). This outcome (disputed by other scientists) was supposedly caused by a chemical transformation of the active ingredient. Third, studies show that expired drugs may lose some of their potency over time, from as little as 5% or less to 50% or more (though usually much less than the latter). Even 10 years after the "expiration date," most drugs have a good deal of their original potency. So wisdom dictates that if your life does depend on an expired drug, and you must have 100% or so of its original strength, you should probably toss it and get a refill, in accordance with the cliché, "better safe than sorry." If your life does not depend on an expired drug - such as that for headache, hay fever, or menstrual cramps - take it and see what happens. One of the largest studies ever conducted that supports the above points about "expired drug" labeling was done by the U.S. military 15 years ago, according to a feature story in the Wall Street Journal (March 29, 2000), reported by Laurie P. Cohen. The military was sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every two to three years, so it began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory. The testing, conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter. The results showed that about 90% of them were safe and effective as far as 15 years past their original expiration date.
In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, said he concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer. Mr. Flaherty noted that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful. "Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons," said Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement in 1999. "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."
The FDA cautioned there isn't enough evidence from the program, which is weighted toward drugs used during combat, to conclude most drugs in consumers' medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date. Joel Davis, however, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, said that with a handful of exceptions - notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics - most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military. "Most drugs degrade very slowly," he said. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years, especially if it's in the refrigerator." Consider aspirin. Bayer AG puts two-year or three-year dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that. However, Chris Allen, a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, said the dating is "pretty conservative;" when Bayer has tested four-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective, he said. So why doesn't Bayer set a four-year expiration date? Because the company often changes packaging, and it undertakes "continuous improvement programs," Mr. Allen said. Each change triggers a need for more expiration-date testing, and testing each time for a four-year life would be impractical. Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond four years, Mr. Allen said. But Jens Carstensen has. Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's pharmacy school, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, said, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after five years, Bayer was still excellent. Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable.
Okay, I concede. My mother-in-law was right, once again. And I was wrong, once again, and with a wiseacre attitude to boot. Sorry mom. Now I think I'll take a swig of the 10-year dead package of Alka Seltzer in my medicine chest - to ease the nausea I'm feeling from calculating how many billions of dollars the pharmaceutical industry bilks out of unknowing consumers every year who discard perfectly good drugs and buy new ones because they trust the industry's "expiration date labeling."
Sept 04, 2002
(SKYNEWS)
A world-renowned hair expert is on the verge of proving the existence of a "Yeti-like" creature on an Indonesian island.
The tale of the orang pendek - or Little Man of the Forest - could become reality if studies into hair samples discovered in Western Sumatra continue to defy scientific analysis.
Hans Brunner, an associate of Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, has been analysing two hairs which were found by a team of British explorers who followed the trail of a primate which has long lived in the folklore of tribespeople on the island.
Unknown
Mr Brunner volunteered his expertise after three part-time explorers found unknown hairs and a footprint.
Adam Sanderson, Adam Davies and Keith Townley sent the hair samples they found in Western Sumatra to Australia for analysis and the findings have been little short of startling.
No match could be found when they were tested against reference hairs of orang-utan, chimpanzee, gorilla, sun bear, red leaf monkey, pigtail macaque, Malaysian tapir and human.
Dr Brunner still has some checks to run but said: "So far I have found that the two hairs which I have are different from any species which I have compared them with. If nothing comes which looks like the same I would have to say there could be an animal that we do not yet know about."
Creature
The Orang Pendek is said to be a 5ft tall creature with chocolatey-brown, orange hair. In Borneo, the Orang Utan is known as the old man of the forest.
A digital re-print of the footprint found on the expedition was sent to be analysed by Dr Colin Groves, professor of primatology at University of Canberra, Australia.
He has opted not to make his findings public until Mr Brunner releases a scientific paper on the hair analysis but has told Mr Sanderson that he believes it will be "good news".
(ANANOVA)
4th September 2002
Pilgrims are flocking to a house in Bombay where they believe that Elephant headed Hindu Lord Ganesha has appeared in the shape of a potato.
The potato is said to be shaped like the Lord Ganesha and people are offering money and gifts to seek the blessing of the "divine vegetable".
The vegetable was grown in Uttar Pradesh and bought by Najmuddin Alibhai Jessani, a fruit and vegetable exporter.
It was about to be eaten by the family, when Mr Jessani's sister-in-law noticed the resemblance to Lord Ganesha. The potato's fame spread after it was featured in local newspapers.
The main living room of the family home has been turned into a shrine to the potato.
Around 60 or 70 people a day are visiting the shrine to leave gifts of marigolds and money. It's understood that the money will be given to a religious charity.
30th July 2002
(ANANOVA)
An Indian dairy firm has started marketing instant Holy Cow Dung to help urban Hindus perform their rituals properly.
Hindus traditionally sanctify places of worship by sprinkling them with a mixture of cow dung and water before worshipping idols or conducting rituals.
A company based in Andhra Pradesh is now marketing "instant cow dung" for people in cities where cattle are scarce.
The Deccan Chronicle says the dung is mixed with camphor, turmeric and sandalwood paste which improves the smell.
One young housewife said: "I used to avoid cow dung because of its bad odour. But this Holy Cow Dung does not smell that bad and I am going to apply it at home."
The Holy Cow Dung is sold in different weight denominations. The company collects fresh cow dung from its dairies located in different parts of the state before sending it to a plant for processing and packaging.
It is proving popular in southern towns and cities where it is being used in houses, business premises and temples.
Mr V R Rao, chairman of the Agri Gold Company which is marketing the cow dung, said: "Many spiritualist urban Hindus felt their rituals remained incomplete without the cow dung.
"So our product has become an instant hit. Shortly we are going to begin the exercise to get the patent rights for our product."
(Ananova)
6th August 2002
A dog worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu saint has left an Indian animal hospital after recovering from kidney problems.
Sai, a seven-year-old white Spitz, is believed to be Shirdi Saibaba, a saint who lived in the western state of Maharashtra around 100 years ago.
A special exit was arranged for the dog as he was discharged from the intensive care unit of an animal hospital in Bombay.
Devotees distributed biscuits and sweets to the other animals, draped a shawl around Sai and applied a vermilion dot to his forehead.
Sai lives at an ashram south of Bombay, where he sits on a throne to worshipped by the public twice a day. He travels in a limousine, lives in air-conditioned quarters, eats out of special cut class crockery and has four attendants.
Locals are known to carry the animal through town on Mondays and Thursdays.
Beliefs about the dog being a reincarnation of the saint are reportedly partly due to his perfect mannerisms and temperament and his apparent enjoyment of prayer sessions.
Neeta Parvate, a spokesman for the BSPA hospital, told Mumbai Newsline: "He took treatment in a dignified manner. It was as if he knew someone was taking care of him. Looking after Sai was a different experience."
Swami Narayan, the spiritual guru who owns the dog, said: "Sai's journey in this life needs a deeper understanding of the complexities of existence."
September 7, 2002
(japantoday.com)
Ever since a bearded seal showed up in the Tama River last month, Tokyoites have been going ga-ga. The seal was even given a pet name — Tama-chan. Nonplussed by all the attention, Tama-chan has moved to the Tsurumi River for an extended summer vacation while the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport wonders what to make of him.
The arrival of Tama-chan, who normally lives in the Arctic Circle, could be an omen from Mother Nature, say some university researchers who suggest that he might be a harbinger of an earthquake.
Certainly, Tama-chan's visit is rare, says Shinichi Hayama, an instructor at Nippon Veterinary and Animal Science University, said. "Sometimes, bearded seals are washed ashore throughout Japan and are often weak and die. But seing Tama-chan on TV, he looks good. This is fairly unusual.
"In April and May, he was probably wandering between Hokkaido and Tohoku. Maybe he was searching for food and got lost and ended up in the Tama River," Hayama said.
While bearded seals usually live around the Arctic Circle, they have been seen in the Sea of Okhotsk and off the coast of Hokkaido. The fact that one has come this far south has some people suggesting there has been a climate change.
"In 1993, a tsunami killed 193 people on Okushiri island located southwest of Hokkaido. Before it struck, residents recall seeing unusually large numbers of mice," said Satoru Kikuchi, an associate professor at Shinshu University specializing in cognitive psychology. "And before the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, it was reported that dogs grew restless. If you look up old records of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, you'll find references to an unusually high fish catch before the disaster.
"Tama-chan might only be following a school of fish, so it would be premature to say he is an omen of disaster. But if more seals turn up, that's a different story," added Kikuchi.
Natural harbingers of disaster are nothing new. Everyone has heard stories of odd cloud formations, strange behavior by fish, birds, dogs and cats before an earthquake. Possible indications of earthquakes have been extensively studied since the 1960s.
Masakazu Ohtake, the chairman of the coordinating committee for earthquake prediction in Japan and a professor at Tohoku University, said, "In 1975 before an undersea earthquake occurred off China, evacuation of coastal areas was urged beforehand because animals in zoos went wild. As a result, the loss of human life was minimized."
Continued Ohtake: "I have been informed of such signs of calamity many times. I'd say 99% of them are meaningless, but I cannot ignore the remaining 1%. Since the mechanism of how earthquakes occur is not completely understood yet, a variety of phenomena may very likely be considered signs."
Then, how about Tama-chan? Is he a sign? Hayama said, "There must be a reason why the seal came to Tokyo Bay because it originally lives in the Arctic Ocean. Creatures living in the ocean are pretty sensitive to changes of environment, and conditions in the sea are reflected in the behavior of marine creatures."
However, most scientists think Tama-chan just followed his food. But they do note that a large number of sardines — which are food for seals — emerged just before the great earthquake in 1923.
Yoshibumi Tomida, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University specializing in seismology, said, "Based on my 10-year-long research, I'm sure that the fish catch is closely connected with earthquakes. The reason is chemical. For instance, when chemical matter emerges from an undersea volcano, fish react to it and gather in much greater numbers. Thus, the fish catch increases."
On the other hand, according to a survey by the Fisheries Agency, the sardine catch for the first half of the year sharply decreased — 85% down compared to the same period last year. Tsuneji Rikitake, the former vice chairperson of the coordinating committee for earthquake prediction, countered: "A larger than normal fish catch is certainly unusual but so is a sudden decrease."
Ryukyu University seismology professor Masaaki Kimura indicated, "Recently, numerous whales have been beached. This may be because of abnormal magnetic fields. In Tama-chan's case, it might be the same."
September 7, 2002
(tehrantimes)
GERMANY -- Archeologists in southwest Germany have uncovered a 1,800-year-old temple built to the Persian god Mithras while they were working on a Roman dig, authorities in the town of Gueglingen said Friday.
Well preserved parts of an altar, jewelry and pieces of a fresco have been discovered, said Andrea Neth, director at the site, which will be opened to the public on Sunday, AFP reported.
The temple is the fifth of its kind to be found in the southwest German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, according to local authorities.
The Roman army introduced the cult of Mithras from Persia (modern Iran) to the West. Focusing on truth, honor, courage and discipline, it became the god of many soldiers and traders.
September 10, 2002
Wireless Flash
FOLSOM, Calif. (Wireless Flash) -- It sounds like a whole lot of nonsense but a California man is almost ready to prove there's a giant hole connecting the North and South Poles.
Next May, Hollow Earth researcher Dallas Thompson is planning to travel from the Arctic to the Antarctic by way of the hole.
So far, Thompson says he's received $100 grand in donations -- enough to buy a mini-helicopter that can zip through the hole at 100 miles per hour.
Thompson still needs another $15 grand to pay for the "hole" experience, which he says will include a side trip to a "crystal city" under the Earth and encounters with real-life dinosaurs.
Think that Thompson has holes in his head? Well, he says science backs up his theories and claims monks from all over the world travel through the holes in order to visit a Tibetan village called "Sham-bala."
Thu Sep 12, 3:04 PM ET
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Four people who recently received blood transfusions have tested positive for the potentially fatal mosquito-borne West Nile virus , U.S. health officials reported on Thursday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said the blood products given to the victims had been withdrawn as a precaution, though they stressed that there was no evidence linking the West Nile infections to the nation's blood supply.
Dr. Lyle Petersen, a West Nile expert with the CDC, said the two federal agencies were cooperating with the American Red Cross and state and local health departments to follow up and test those who had donated blood to the four patients.
There have been 1,201 human cases of West Nile in the United States this summer, including 46 deaths. The outbreak is the largest since West Nile, which is common in Africa and the Middle East, surfaced in the Americas three years ago.
"By chance alone, some of these persons will have received blood transfusions," said Petersen, who noted that all four of the cases involving blood transfusions had occurred in areas where the mosquitoes that spread West Nile virus were active.
"Recent receipt of a blood transfusion by a person with West Nile virus infection does not necessarily implicate the transfusion as the source of infection," Petersen said.
Fears that West Nile, which can cause encephalitis, a severe brain inflammation, could be transmitted through blood surfaced earlier this month after four organ recipients were infected from a single donor in Georgia.
Tens of thousands of Americans may have been exposed to the virus since it first appeared in the United States in 1999, when it killed seven people in the New York borough of Queens.
FLU-LIKE ILLNESS
Although most people bitten by a West Nile-carrying mosquito have no symptoms and those who do normally suffer little more than flu-like illness, they can still carry the virus in their blood for days or even weeks.
Although health officials concede that they do not currently have the capability to test the nation's blood supplies for the virus, they said the potential risk of contracting West Nile from blood was likely very small.
"For the overwhelming majority of people, even if West Nile is a problem the blood that they get is extremely safe and offers no problem," said Dr. Jesse Goodman, deputy director of the FDA's Center for Biologics, Evaluation and Research.
Goodman, however, said excluding some donors from giving blood might be among the options considered if West Nile became a threat to the blood supply.
While federal agencies grapple with the issue of blood transmission of West Nile, state and local health officials continue to battle the virus as it approaches its seasonal peak in mid-September.
Although initially centered in the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, this year's outbreak has moved into the Midwest with a vengeance. States such as Illinois and Michigan have been particularly hard hit.
Illinois has reported 292 human cases of West Nile, the most in the nation, according to the CDC.
At least 42 states, stretching from Maine to California, and the District of Columbia have reported some West Nile activity this year. The virus, which is spread largely through bird migrations, has also been detected in parts of Canada.
Mosquitoes contract West Nile from infected birds and then spread it to humans. The virus cannot be spread from person to person or from birds to humans.
Decipher
by Stel Pavlou
(PhiladelphiaInquirer)
Sep. 01, 2002
St. Martin's. 422 pp. $24.95
Reviewed by Donald Newlove
A rocketing adventure for superadults as mankind fades under gravity waves from sunspots, Stel Pavlou's spellbinding debut novel, five years in the research and writing and already an international best-seller, bursts with marvels of scientific chitchat and towers above most recent science fiction. Its science offers the real stuff.
Pavlou has a polymath's intense grip on several fields of research: linguistics, particle physics, archaeology, astronomy, tectonic plates, vulcanology, cosmology, engineering, mythology, medicine, complexity theory, code-breaking, warfare, armaments - well, just to name a few. His novel is especially timely, with the recent photographs of a gigantic eruption on the sun that spewed out vast magnetic waves - happily not in our direction. Had this novel phenomenon taken place on the side of the sun facing us, we would likely find all our electronics down universally - on planes, space stations, computers, and all forms of communication. In Decipher, far worse happens. In fact, the worst, as tectonic plates crack, tsunamis roar 40 miles inland at 700 m.p.h., and volcano chains all over the planet erupt with plumes shooting 50 miles high. And all that's the easy part.
Set in 2012, the story begins when deep-sea oil drillers in Antarctica break through a manmade wall on the sea bottom, and water pressure suddenly drives chunks of the wall through the drill pipe. The chunks turn out to be a crystallized carbon called C60, a hundred times harder than diamond and bearing ancient inscriptions in a pre-cuneiform language. These symbols are 12,000 years old - or far older than the oldest known language (Sumerian). As it happens, scientists have been trying to make C60 in the lab and so far have made only a pinhead of it at huge cost. Now here is a whole wall of it, and probably more. Greed rises.
Dr. Richard Scott, a linguist/cultural anthropologist/epigraphist (one who deciphers old writing), is called in to read the lettering. His student, November Dryden, 19, accompanies him as his assistant. One would say that Scott scoffs at creationism, although his materialist view gets stood on its head by novel's end when the linguistic mystery in the lettering is resolved.
The story turns on sunspots that spew gravity waves every 12,000 years, with some new waves already striking Earth. The earlier waves wiped out a civilization even more highly developed than ours and that Plato called Atlantis. At that time Antarctica was a fertile place. When the people of Atlantis foresaw their own doom, they devised C60 and left us a message on how to use it to prevent a future doom. Pavlou's vision of Atlantis is anything but a nut case's or headline from the National Enquirer.
For all its pages chockablock with science, Pavlou's rousing adventure story under the Egyptian pyramids, in the Amazon rainforest, at the three-mile-long CERN atom smasher in Geneva, and on the Antarctic ice (where urine freezes in midair but still must be scooped up to save the environment) will remind many of H. Rider Haggard's mystical She; of William Harrison's gripping novel about the great explorer/linguist Sir Richard Burton, Burton and Speke (filmed as Mountains of the Moon); and even of MGM's The Wizard of Oz. And he has granted his characters a damnably amusing and compelling flippancy, much like Indiana Jones', as they face devastating horrors.
Vast tunnels of crystallized C60 under the Pyramids at Giza! Under the Sphinx! In China! Under the Aztec pyramids! I say no more. Let me reveal, however, that the mystery of the lettering resides in myths that the Atlantean ancients have spread about the planet, myths that mirror each other on Easter Island and in Egypt, and are more long-lived than any language. It has taken me a week to decipher this book of wonders - and what fun I've had. If Hollywood bosses pass up this spectacular, it's their loss.
Classic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Novelist Donald Newlove is writing "Blindfolded Before the Firing Squad," a novel/memoir about his life as Fyodor Dostoevsky.
9-13-2
WASHINGTON ("Family-lovin" Moonie-owned UPI) -- A former Israeli prime minister Thursday called upon the United States to effect regime change in both Iraq and Iran, prescribing a military invasion to topple the government in Baghdad and the transmission of ribald television programming via satellite into Persia, where he said the influx of pop culture would prove "subversive" to the conservative Islamic regime.
Citing the hundreds of thousands of satellite television dishes in Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu told the House Government Reform Committee that the United States could incite a revolution against the conservative Iranian clergy through the use of such Fox Broadcasting staples as "Melrose Place" and "Beverly Hills 90210" -- both of which feature beautiful young people in varying states of undress, living, glamorous, materialistic lives and engaging in promiscuous sex.
"This is pretty subversive stuff," Netanyahu told the committee. "The kids of Iran would want the nice clothes they see on those shows. They would want the swimming pools and fancy lifestyles."
But the more pressing issue to Netanyahu is Iran's neighbor, Iraq, which he said was dangerously close to developing weapons of mass destruction -- and would not be susceptible to subversion.
"We understand a nuclear armed Saddam places Israel at risk," he said. "But a nuclear armed Saddam also puts the entire world at risk."
"After Saddam gets a nuclear weapon, it is only a matter of time before the terror networks get nuclear weapons,' Netanyahu warned. "And they will use them if they get them."
Netanyahu said that the 1981 attack by Israel on an Iraqi nuclear facility was justified and implied that it's success hinged on just the kind of unilateralism that President George W. Bush's Thursday speech to the United Nations appears to abjure.
"Did Israel launch this pre-emptive strike with the coordination of the international community?" Netanyahu asked. "Did we condition such a strike on the approval of the United Nations? Of course not."
Burton's statements reflected more respect for the administration's coalition building efforts than Netanyahu's, but he did note that in the face of failing to develop such support for an invasion, he too supported a unilateral attack.
"This morning the president made a strong case for taking action. Now we need to see how the world responds," Burton noted. "I hope that our friends and allies around the world will join us. I hope that we can assemble a strong coalition that will stand up to this dangerous regime. However, if we can't, my view is that we have to do what's in our own best interest. If we determine that Saddam Hussein is a serious national security threat, then we have to act -- alone if necessary."
Netanyahu's rhetoric, at least the military invasion portion of his testimony, found a warm reception from committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., who said that finishing the war on terror with the occupation of Afghanistan without attacking Iraq would leave the job half done.
"One of the unfinished pieces of business we have is Iraq," Burton said. "In my opinion, this is a problem we can't continue to ignore. Saddam Hussein is a menace. He has chemical weapons. He has biological weapons. He's working hard to acquire nuclear weapons. He's used chemical weapons in the past. We should have no doubt that he'll use them again. And if he succeeds in developing nuclear weapons, we could have a catastrophe on our hands."
But Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich was not as supportive of Netanyahu's calls for war. In a terse exchange that occurred before the former prime minister laid out his "Iran Strategy," Kucinich asked him for additional suggestions for places to invade.
"While you're here, Mr. Prime Minister, are there any other countries besides Iraq that you would suggest that we invade?" he asked.
Friday September 13, 12:45 PM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has joked that Afghanistan should open its mountainous Tora Bora region to tourists so they can search its caves and perhaps determine once and for all whether Osama bin Laden is dead or alive.
"Every cave has been bombed. But so many of these caves have not been searched," he told a news conference at U.N. headquarters on Thursday. "In a lighter vein, I was suggesting maybe we open it to tourists, so they can start searching those caves at Tora Bora."
Musharraf said he still believed the Saudi-born militant blamed by Washington for masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States was dead and was certainly not in Pakistan.
He still thought bin Laden had been killed during the prolonged bombing of Tora Bora's caves that capped last year's U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan that toppled its Taliban leaders.
"My guess is probably, more likely, he is dead. He may be alive. More likely he is dead," he said.
Bin Laden's whereabouts remain a mystery, and U.S. officials have put out conflicting word in recent weeks about his fate. Some say he was probably killed in Tora Bora while others say he may have fled Afghanistan, perhaps to neighbouring Pakistan.
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah has said he believed bin Laden remained alive but was no longer in Afghanistan.
Large numbers of Islamic militants from bin Laden's al Qaeda network and their Taliban allies are thought to have crossed into Pakistan after U.S. forces began pursuing them in Afghanistan.
But Musharraf said the tall bearded man who may have been dependent on a kidney dialysis unit likely would travel with a huge entourage and would be easy to spot if he were in Pakistan, even in the semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
Tribal leaders in that area "are with us now. They lead the search parties, in fact," he said.
Sep 12, 2002
(1010 WINS)-Babylon, Long Island - A severely malnourished whale that washed up on Long Island's south shore this morning will be euthanized. A member of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation says the animal is just skin and bones and would never survive the trip to the foundation.
Wendy Khazzam says it was a 28-foot long, year-old Sei (say) whale. She says the whale would be put to sleep "as humanely as possible."
She said a necropsy would take place to determine why the whale had not been feeding.
George Gorman, director for state parks on Long Island, says a fisherman found the whale lying in the shallow surf around 7 a.m. at Gilgo State Park in Suffolk County.
Sei whales are a smaller relative of the fin whale. The average length of the Atlantic Ocean males is about 38 feet. Females are slightly larger.
The Sei whales migrate from Florida to Labrador and leave northern waters before September.
There are fewer than 70-thousand Sei whales in existence.
Sep 12, 2002
(1010 WINS)-BUCHANAN, N.Y. Electricity production at the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant was shut down to repair a hydrogen gas leak in the non-nuclear part of the facility, officials said.
Jim Streets, a spokesman for Entergy Corp., which owns the Indian Point plants, said the turbine was shut down at about 10 a.m. Wednesday and the plant's nuclear reactor power was reduced to 10 percent.
The leak, which was in a cooling system for the main electric generator, was discovered about two weeks ago, Streets said. Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it posed no threat to the public.
When it was first detected, the leak had been allowing about 600 cubic feet of gas to escape daily, but the amount of escaping gas grew to about 10,000 cubic feet, Streets said.
The hydrogen was mixed with water that helps to cool the generator and was being discharged into the Hudson River.
Officials had planned to repair the leak during a scheduled refueling shutdown but decided not to wait until it worsened, Streets said. The plant was not expected to return to normal until this weekend.
Thu Sep 12, 2002
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Sen. Patrick Leahy (Dem), urged Thursday that the government explore the possibility of a terrorist link to an outbreak of West Nile virus that has killed 54 people this year.
"I think we have to ask ourselves: Is it coincidence that we're seeing such an increase in West Nile virus or is that something that's being tested as a biological weapon against us?" said Leahy, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was the target last year of an anthrax-laden envelope sent to his office.
The Vermont Democrat made the remarks on a radio talk show broadcast on WKDR in Burlington and WDEV in Waterbury. In a statement issued later by his office, Leahy said he could point to no specific evidence that the outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus was linked to terrorism.
A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that there is no evidence to suggest an act of bioterrorism.
According to the CDC, nationally, 1,295 people have contracted the disease and 54 have died.
Leahy's office also released excerpts Thursday from previous news and congressional committee reports saying officials had downplayed the fear that the spread of West Nile virus might be the work of bioterrorists.
"In the times in which we live, questions about our vulnerabilities are unavoidable, and finding all the answers we can is more important than ever," Leahy said in the statement. "I have no way of knowing what the answers are, but some legitimate questions have been asked, especially before September 11 last year, and no doubt they are being asked anew by the agencies that are working on this."
West Nile first appeared in the United States in 1999 when an outbreak in New York killed seven people. That October, The New Yorker magazine published an article focusing on a book by an alleged Iraqi defector, who said Saddam Hussein may have developed a lethal strain of the virus to use as a biological weapon.
A report issued in July 2000 by the minority staff of the Senate Government Affairs Committee said "law enforcement, public health, and intelligence officials have investigated the possibility that West Nile virus resulted from a bioterrorist attack but believe that this is very unlikely."
Skinner, the CDC spokesman, said the cycle of the disease and its transmission — from mosquitoes to birds and to people — is what one would expect with West Nile. "All of that points to this being a naturally occurring outbreak," he said.
Sep 12, 2002
(1010 WINS)-PLUM ISLAND, N.Y. A ferryboat accident near the Plum Island Animal Disease Center has striking union workers concerned about safety.
A cargo-passenger boat struck a buoy as it was leaving the island Wednesday morning.
It was the second such accident in a week.
On Friday, another Plum Island ferry damaged a dock in Old Saybrook, Conn.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the island's research facility, said Wednesday's accident did not seriously damage the boat, which was operating later in the day.
But union employees, who have been on strike since Aug. 16, said the boat sustained roughly $100,000 worth of damage, was not operational Wednesday and needs to be brought to a shipyard for repair.
Sandy Hays, a spokeswoman for the USDA, said the damage estimate is inaccurate.
Members of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 30, perform all the maintenance and operational functions at the research lab, including operating the ferries. They say the incidents show the inexperience of the replacement workers and threaten safety at the facility.
The USDA contracts with a Virginia-based company, LB&B Associates, to manage operations at the facility. For the past 14 months, union employees at Plum Island have been negotiating with LB&B over wages and benefits. Those negotiations broke down in mid-August.
On Wednesday, negotiations between union officials and LB&B in New Jersey again broke down after the company told the union they would permanently replace 15 workers who operate the ferries.
According to LB&B, all the replacement workers, including the ferry operators, are experienced and qualified for their jobs.
LB&B Chief Operating Officer Ed Brandon said the same man was involved in both incidents.
''These boats are little bit different, a little bit awkward to handle,'' said Brandon. ''This guy was doing a good job, he just came into the harbor a little too fast.''
A one-time military base, the 850-acre island is the USDA's only testing and diagnosis facility for foot-and-mouth and other dangerous animal diseases.
Already a secure facility with restricted access, Plum Island has assumed new importance as a possible addition to the Bush administration's proposed Homeland Security program.
(Minneapolis Star Tribune)
9-13-2
The great horned owl cradled by a technician in St. Paul was trembling, but not from fear. The bird normally would have put up a vigorous struggle and clacked its beak, but it was sluggish and weak as its giant yellow eyes blinked slowly.
The owl is one of about 40 raptors taken to the University of Minnesota's Raptor Research Center in the past three weeks. They have been sick, almost certainly from the West Nile virus. All but a handful have died or been destroyed.
"I don't think it'd be exaggerating to say that several hundred owls and red-tailed hawks in Minnesota have been affected," said Dr. Patrick Redig. "We don't know where this is going."
Officials have known for years that the West Nile virus, first detected in North America in 1999, is spread by mosquitoes and affects humans, horses and birds. Until a year ago, about a dozen bird species were known to be hosts to the virus, primarily crows and blue jays, which have been dying in huge numbers.
But the latest estimates are that 110 to 120 bird species have been infected, according to Emi Saito, West Nile surveillance coordinator at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. The center has found the virus in everything from endangered Mississippi sandhill cranes to ruby-throated hummingbirds.
It is too early to know whether certain species, endangered or not, might be decimated by the virus, she said.
Concern for raptors popped up after thousands of hawks and owls died in Ohio in late July, Saito said. Soon afterward, the Wisconsin center began receiving reports of sick and dead raptors from Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Raptor rehabilitation centers that normally receive five to 10 birds a week suddenly started seeing more than 100 per week, Saito said. "Something's going on with the raptors," she said, but whether it's the West Nile virus alone is unclear.
The Minnesota Health Department has confirmed the West Nile virus in nine owls and hawks. Redig, the Raptor Center's director, expects that tests for all or most of the other raptors he has seen will confirm the virus, because they had similar symptoms: disorientation, lack of focus, inability to stand or fly, extreme thinness and tremors or seizures.
"By any definition this is an epidemic," Redig said. Nature will eventually adapt, he said, but at the moment the West Nile virus is a novel pathogen that is causing mass death.
Some birds in the wild may get a mild form of the disease and develop immunity, he said. "There are probably all gradations of severity, like when people get influenza," he said. "Some get the sniffles, some get wretchedly sick and some die from it."
So far most of the raptor casualties, nationally and in Minnesota, have been great horned owls and red-tailed hawks. Redig said Cooper's hawks, merlins and one goshawk have been brought to the center. No bald eagles in Minnesota are known to have died, he said, but at least one eagle death has been confirmed in Wisconsin.
Redig said that there is no treatment but that a few of the healthier raptors brought to St. Paul are being kept alive with daily injections of vitamins, fluids and anti-inflammatory drugs. But their full recovery is uncertain, and they might not be returned to wild.
Laura Erickson, an ornithologist and educator in Duluth, is concerned that many bird species now beginning to migrate south from Canada could become infected by mosquitoes that carry the virus.
Redig is hoping that cooler weather in northern states will soon kill the mosquitoes, giving him and other researchers time to compare notes. They hope to develop a vaccine for captive raptors in zoos, rehabilitation centers and research centers.
"This virus will now be part of the landscape forever," he said. "It won't go away."
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