DISPATCH FROM DOWN UNDER
Israel frees 500 Palestinian prisoners
Buses carried handcuffed Palestinians from an Israeli jail today to be freed among 500 prisoners in the largest release for nearly a decade.
The move is meant to bolster peace efforts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Further strengthening Abbas's hand, legislators from his dominant Fatah movement approved a keenly awaited new Palestinian cabinet that puts his loyalists in key positions.
Prospects for peacemaking in the Middle East have grown since Abbas was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat on a platform of non-violence and has persuaded armed factions to follow a de facto truce.
Palestinians say Abbas needs large-scale prisoner releases to get the armed groups to formalise the ceasefire he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a Feb. 8 summit.
Some 8,000 Palestinians are held by Israel.
The freeing of 500 prisoners comes a day after Israel's cabinet approved a plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, marking the first time Israel decided to dismantle settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.
After pre-dawn Muslim prayers,
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/21/1108834718060.html
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Forensic tests clear Australians
FORENSIC tests have cleared 10 Australian men of any involvement in the Beirut bomb that killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, Australian Federal Police (AFP) said today.
Tests on a substance found on the men's airline seats had revealed no trace of explosives, an AFP spokeswoman said.
"Based on information the AFP has received, we do not believe there is any link between the 10 Australians spoken to by the AFP and the Beirut bombing," she said.
The AFP would liaise with Lebanese police, but they were at this stage treating the investigation as over, the spokeswoman said.
The men arrived in Sydney last Wednesday night after leaving Beirut just a few hours after the blast that killed Mr Hariri and 16 other people.
Sniffer dogs trained to hunt explosives reacted to the substance on the men's airline seats, and the 10 men were taken for questioning.
The group was cleared of suspicion, and earlier tests of the substance had already returned negative results.
The AFP were called by Lebanese authorities and asked to investigate the men after they left Beirut for Australia on the day of the bombing.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12325868-29277,00.html
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US-Europe ties to survive Iraq: Bush
US President George W. Bush, in Europe to bury the hatchet on Iraq, was to say in a speech today that "no passing disagreement of governments" could permanently damage transatlantic ties.
"Our strong friendship is essential to peace and prosperity across the globe - and no temporary debate, no passing disagreement of governments, no power on earth will ever divide us," he said in excerpts released by the White House.
The 2003 Iraq war sparked a serious risk between Washington and a group of European countries led by European heavyweights France and Germany opposed to the conflict.
Mr Bush was due to have dinner with French President Jacques Chirac this evening, and travel on to Germany on Wednesday for talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder after summit talks tomorrow with NATO and European Union (EU) leaders.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12322183-23109,00.html
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Tens of thousands to die: al-Qaeda
AL-QAEDA today warned the West it faced defeat in its "new crusade" against the Islamic world, which would cost tens of thousands of lives and the collapse of its economy.
A videotape of the terror group's No.2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was aired by Al-Jazeera television this morning.
"Your new crusade will end, God willing, with the same defeat as its predecessors, but only after you have suffered tens of thousands of dead and the destruction of your economy," Zawahiri said in his message to "the peoples of the West".
The message, which he said was to mark the third anniversary of the internment of Islamists at the US military base of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also hit out at US plans for reform in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The US prison camp at Guantanamo "exposes the reality of the reform and democracy that the United States claims to be trying to establish in our countries", said the voice attributed to Zawahiri, but whose authenticity could not immediately be verified.
He said that reform proposed by Washington would be based on the US prison camps in Cuba and in Afghanistan, as well as the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib, where US troops' abuse of Iraqi prisoners shocked the world.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12320159-23109,00.html
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Al-Jazeera to air new al-Qaeda tape
SATELLITE TV channel Al-Jazeera today said it was poised to broadcast a new message from al-Qaeda No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.
It will be the Islamic militant leader's second message in 10 days after an audiotape aired by the same Qatar-based channel on February 10.
That recording hit out at the US concept of freedom, charging that it was a cloak for spreading corruption and injustice in the Islamic world.
In a videotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera on November 29, Zawahiri vowed al-Qaeda would pursue its fight against the United States.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12320154-23109,00.html
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Several armed militants kidnap female Iraqi TV presenter in Mosul
BAGHDAD (AP) - Gunmen in Iraq abducted a female Iraqi television presenter in the northern city of Mosul, an official from her local television network said Monday.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/21/937380-ap.html
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Iraq's Sunni Arabs meet as Shiites prepare for power after holy days' carnage
By PATRICK QUINN
BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. marines and Iraqi security forces launched an offensive Sunday against insurgents in troubled cities west of Baghdad after two days of carnage that left nearly 100 people dead. Sunni Muslim tribal leaders met to determine their place in a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.
As the Shiite majority prepared to take control of the country's first freely elected government, tribal chiefs representing Sunni Arabs in six provinces issued a list of demands - including participation in the government and drafting a new constitution - after previously refusing to acknowledge the vote's legitimacy.
"We made a big mistake when we didn't vote," said Sheik Hathal Younis Yahiya, 49, a representative from northern Nineveh. "Our votes were very important."
He said threats from insurgents - not sectarian differences - kept most Sunnis from voting.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/20/937246-ap.html
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'US CAN'T STOP ATTACKS'
The head of al Qaeda in Iraq has said governments could not stop attacks there and has called for an end to aggression against Muslims.
Speaking on a videotape broadcast by al Jazeera TV, Ayman al-Zawahri said the security of the West depended on respect for Islam.
He also said the "new crusader campaign" would end in defeat as others had in the past, and he hit out at US plans to reform the Arab and Islamic worlds.
He said his message was to mark the third anniversary of the internment of Islamists at the US military base of Guantanamo Bay.
Al-Zawahiri said the prison camp there "exposes the reality of the reform and democracy that the United States claims to be trying to establish in our countries".
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1171713,00.html
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Police seize record ecstasy haulFrom correspondents in TokyoFebruary 21, 2005
JAPANESE police have seized a record haul of 286,000 tablets of the increasingly popular club drug ecstasy worth 1.14 billion yen ($13.8 million) from a Tokyo gangster.Organised crime don Masakazu Saito, 52, and three other people had been arrested in the case since the start of the month, a police spokesman said today.
"The amount of the seized tablets was the biggest in a single MDMA (ecstasy) hunt," the spokesman said.
Police seized the drugs from Saito's home and from safe deposit boxes he had rented.
A police report for 2004 found that MDMA use was increasing rapidly among young people, even as overall arrests for drugs declined.
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Penis retrieved from toiletFrom correspondents in AnchorageFebruary 21, 2005
A 44-year-old Alaskan man had his penis surgically reattached after it was cut off by an angry girlfriend and flushed down a toilet, police said today.The events unfolded on Saturday night, after the pair had been arguing over an impending break up, an Anchorage Police Department statement said.
At some point, the two decided to have sex and the man agreed to let the woman tie his arms to a windowsill.
But the woman used a kitchen knife to amputate her partner's penis and flushed it down the toilet, police said.
She untied the man, drove him to a local hospital and was cleaning the bloody scene when police arrived at the home, according to the statement
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12328833%255E1702,00.html
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World-leading burns unit opensFebruary 21, 2005
AUSTRALIAN of the Year Fiona Wood has spoken of her hopes of making even more progress with burns research, as Royal Perth Hospital opened its new world-leading burns unit.Dr Wood, a pioneering burns specialist whose work with Bali bombing victims gave her national and international acclaim, opened the $3 million ward today.
The unit will focus on research and treatment, aiming to increase survival rates for burns victims, improve their quality of life and improve the chances of Dr Wood's ambition of "scarless healing" being realised.
"As we move forward toward that improved outcome, improved scarring, we have to work out (why) in 10 people with 10 same treatments, we've got 10 different scars," Dr Wood said.
"And if we can answer that then we can start to manipulate those scars in a more positive way.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12327087%255E1702,00.html
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Al-Sadr calls for calm, the withdrawal of U.S. forces
The Iraqi Sh'iite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has called for calm following bombings on Shi'ite Muslims in the past few days and stated the main priority after the January 30th elections is for the occupation forces to leave the country.
Speaking to a pan-Arab television station, al-Sadr said that he would not take part in the Iraqi political process while the U.S. led occupying forces remained.
Al-Sadr led two uprisings against the U.S. led troops in April and August.
A spate of bombings on Friday and Saturday left more than 50 dead while Shi'ite Muslims were commemorating Ashura, the most important day in their religious calendar
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7125
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Demonstrators call for release of journalist
Italian journalist days after a video was aired in which she was seen pleading for Italians to pressure the government to withdraw their troops from Iraq.
The rally had been planned for days before the video was aired in which Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with the communist newspaper Il Manifesto pleaded for her life and called for an end to the deployment of the 3,000 Italian troops in Iraq.
Guiliana's father Franco Sgrena said he was buoyed by the thousands of people who took part in the rally.
"The more people there are, the better," Sgrena said. "This is the nicer part of these anguished days."
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7091
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Afghanistan - Taliban Country
Winner of the Walkley Award; IF Glenfiddich "Independent Spirit Awards" Finalist
This week’s documentary is a disturbing exposé of American actions in Afghanistan. Journalist Carmela Baranowska spent three weeks embedded with the marines. She then returned in secret to document what was really happening. It’s a story of prisoners abused and villagers humiliated. This report prompted a US inquiry. Watch it online now!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
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Swift Boaters to slam AARP over Soc. Sec.Also: Wall Street firms will sit out Soc. Security debate; Don't see much money in it.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=110
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Has anyone seen our submarine?
David Adam, science correspondent
Monday February 21, 2005
The Guardian
Lost: much loved robot submarine, last seen under 200 metres of Antarctic ice last Wednesday, answers to the name Autosub - reward.
The £1.5m British unmanned research sub was investigating the waters below the Fimbul ice shelf when it became trapped. Scientists don't know what went wrong, but say the submarine is stuck and unlikely to be recovered.
Gwyn Griffiths, an ocean engineer at the Southampton Oceanography Centre who helped to design Autosub, said: "It isn't going to come back. We've lived with this vehicle for eight years and it's done 382 missions. But every time we put it out there's a chance it isn't going to return. It was sort of inevitable."
Scientists sent the submarine under the ice shelf, one of the most inaccessible and poorly understood known environments on earth, to collect information about the role of the ocean in climate change. It was also to investigate whether global warming was accelerating, how the ice melts and what sort of creatures live in the Antarctic waters.
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Buses carried handcuffed Palestinians from an Israeli jail today to be freed among 500 prisoners in the largest release for nearly a decade.
The move is meant to bolster peace efforts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Further strengthening Abbas's hand, legislators from his dominant Fatah movement approved a keenly awaited new Palestinian cabinet that puts his loyalists in key positions.
Prospects for peacemaking in the Middle East have grown since Abbas was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat on a platform of non-violence and has persuaded armed factions to follow a de facto truce.
Palestinians say Abbas needs large-scale prisoner releases to get the armed groups to formalise the ceasefire he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a Feb. 8 summit.
Some 8,000 Palestinians are held by Israel.
The freeing of 500 prisoners comes a day after Israel's cabinet approved a plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, marking the first time Israel decided to dismantle settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.
After pre-dawn Muslim prayers,
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/21/1108834718060.html
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Forensic tests clear Australians
FORENSIC tests have cleared 10 Australian men of any involvement in the Beirut bomb that killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, Australian Federal Police (AFP) said today.
Tests on a substance found on the men's airline seats had revealed no trace of explosives, an AFP spokeswoman said.
"Based on information the AFP has received, we do not believe there is any link between the 10 Australians spoken to by the AFP and the Beirut bombing," she said.
The AFP would liaise with Lebanese police, but they were at this stage treating the investigation as over, the spokeswoman said.
The men arrived in Sydney last Wednesday night after leaving Beirut just a few hours after the blast that killed Mr Hariri and 16 other people.
Sniffer dogs trained to hunt explosives reacted to the substance on the men's airline seats, and the 10 men were taken for questioning.
The group was cleared of suspicion, and earlier tests of the substance had already returned negative results.
The AFP were called by Lebanese authorities and asked to investigate the men after they left Beirut for Australia on the day of the bombing.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12325868-29277,00.html
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US-Europe ties to survive Iraq: Bush
US President George W. Bush, in Europe to bury the hatchet on Iraq, was to say in a speech today that "no passing disagreement of governments" could permanently damage transatlantic ties.
"Our strong friendship is essential to peace and prosperity across the globe - and no temporary debate, no passing disagreement of governments, no power on earth will ever divide us," he said in excerpts released by the White House.
The 2003 Iraq war sparked a serious risk between Washington and a group of European countries led by European heavyweights France and Germany opposed to the conflict.
Mr Bush was due to have dinner with French President Jacques Chirac this evening, and travel on to Germany on Wednesday for talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder after summit talks tomorrow with NATO and European Union (EU) leaders.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12322183-23109,00.html
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Tens of thousands to die: al-Qaeda
AL-QAEDA today warned the West it faced defeat in its "new crusade" against the Islamic world, which would cost tens of thousands of lives and the collapse of its economy.
A videotape of the terror group's No.2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was aired by Al-Jazeera television this morning.
"Your new crusade will end, God willing, with the same defeat as its predecessors, but only after you have suffered tens of thousands of dead and the destruction of your economy," Zawahiri said in his message to "the peoples of the West".
The message, which he said was to mark the third anniversary of the internment of Islamists at the US military base of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also hit out at US plans for reform in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The US prison camp at Guantanamo "exposes the reality of the reform and democracy that the United States claims to be trying to establish in our countries", said the voice attributed to Zawahiri, but whose authenticity could not immediately be verified.
He said that reform proposed by Washington would be based on the US prison camps in Cuba and in Afghanistan, as well as the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib, where US troops' abuse of Iraqi prisoners shocked the world.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12320159-23109,00.html
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Al-Jazeera to air new al-Qaeda tape
SATELLITE TV channel Al-Jazeera today said it was poised to broadcast a new message from al-Qaeda No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.
It will be the Islamic militant leader's second message in 10 days after an audiotape aired by the same Qatar-based channel on February 10.
That recording hit out at the US concept of freedom, charging that it was a cloak for spreading corruption and injustice in the Islamic world.
In a videotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera on November 29, Zawahiri vowed al-Qaeda would pursue its fight against the United States.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12320154-23109,00.html
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Several armed militants kidnap female Iraqi TV presenter in Mosul
BAGHDAD (AP) - Gunmen in Iraq abducted a female Iraqi television presenter in the northern city of Mosul, an official from her local television network said Monday.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/21/937380-ap.html
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Iraq's Sunni Arabs meet as Shiites prepare for power after holy days' carnage
By PATRICK QUINN
BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. marines and Iraqi security forces launched an offensive Sunday against insurgents in troubled cities west of Baghdad after two days of carnage that left nearly 100 people dead. Sunni Muslim tribal leaders met to determine their place in a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.
As the Shiite majority prepared to take control of the country's first freely elected government, tribal chiefs representing Sunni Arabs in six provinces issued a list of demands - including participation in the government and drafting a new constitution - after previously refusing to acknowledge the vote's legitimacy.
"We made a big mistake when we didn't vote," said Sheik Hathal Younis Yahiya, 49, a representative from northern Nineveh. "Our votes were very important."
He said threats from insurgents - not sectarian differences - kept most Sunnis from voting.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/20/937246-ap.html
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'US CAN'T STOP ATTACKS'
The head of al Qaeda in Iraq has said governments could not stop attacks there and has called for an end to aggression against Muslims.
Speaking on a videotape broadcast by al Jazeera TV, Ayman al-Zawahri said the security of the West depended on respect for Islam.
He also said the "new crusader campaign" would end in defeat as others had in the past, and he hit out at US plans to reform the Arab and Islamic worlds.
He said his message was to mark the third anniversary of the internment of Islamists at the US military base of Guantanamo Bay.
Al-Zawahiri said the prison camp there "exposes the reality of the reform and democracy that the United States claims to be trying to establish in our countries".
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1171713,00.html
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Police seize record ecstasy haulFrom correspondents in TokyoFebruary 21, 2005
JAPANESE police have seized a record haul of 286,000 tablets of the increasingly popular club drug ecstasy worth 1.14 billion yen ($13.8 million) from a Tokyo gangster.Organised crime don Masakazu Saito, 52, and three other people had been arrested in the case since the start of the month, a police spokesman said today.
"The amount of the seized tablets was the biggest in a single MDMA (ecstasy) hunt," the spokesman said.
Police seized the drugs from Saito's home and from safe deposit boxes he had rented.
A police report for 2004 found that MDMA use was increasing rapidly among young people, even as overall arrests for drugs declined.
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Penis retrieved from toiletFrom correspondents in AnchorageFebruary 21, 2005
A 44-year-old Alaskan man had his penis surgically reattached after it was cut off by an angry girlfriend and flushed down a toilet, police said today.The events unfolded on Saturday night, after the pair had been arguing over an impending break up, an Anchorage Police Department statement said.
At some point, the two decided to have sex and the man agreed to let the woman tie his arms to a windowsill.
But the woman used a kitchen knife to amputate her partner's penis and flushed it down the toilet, police said.
She untied the man, drove him to a local hospital and was cleaning the bloody scene when police arrived at the home, according to the statement
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12328833%255E1702,00.html
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World-leading burns unit opensFebruary 21, 2005
AUSTRALIAN of the Year Fiona Wood has spoken of her hopes of making even more progress with burns research, as Royal Perth Hospital opened its new world-leading burns unit.Dr Wood, a pioneering burns specialist whose work with Bali bombing victims gave her national and international acclaim, opened the $3 million ward today.
The unit will focus on research and treatment, aiming to increase survival rates for burns victims, improve their quality of life and improve the chances of Dr Wood's ambition of "scarless healing" being realised.
"As we move forward toward that improved outcome, improved scarring, we have to work out (why) in 10 people with 10 same treatments, we've got 10 different scars," Dr Wood said.
"And if we can answer that then we can start to manipulate those scars in a more positive way.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12327087%255E1702,00.html
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Al-Sadr calls for calm, the withdrawal of U.S. forces
The Iraqi Sh'iite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has called for calm following bombings on Shi'ite Muslims in the past few days and stated the main priority after the January 30th elections is for the occupation forces to leave the country.
Speaking to a pan-Arab television station, al-Sadr said that he would not take part in the Iraqi political process while the U.S. led occupying forces remained.
Al-Sadr led two uprisings against the U.S. led troops in April and August.
A spate of bombings on Friday and Saturday left more than 50 dead while Shi'ite Muslims were commemorating Ashura, the most important day in their religious calendar
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7125
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Demonstrators call for release of journalist
Italian journalist days after a video was aired in which she was seen pleading for Italians to pressure the government to withdraw their troops from Iraq.
The rally had been planned for days before the video was aired in which Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with the communist newspaper Il Manifesto pleaded for her life and called for an end to the deployment of the 3,000 Italian troops in Iraq.
Guiliana's father Franco Sgrena said he was buoyed by the thousands of people who took part in the rally.
"The more people there are, the better," Sgrena said. "This is the nicer part of these anguished days."
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7091
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Afghanistan - Taliban Country
Winner of the Walkley Award; IF Glenfiddich "Independent Spirit Awards" Finalist
This week’s documentary is a disturbing exposé of American actions in Afghanistan. Journalist Carmela Baranowska spent three weeks embedded with the marines. She then returned in secret to document what was really happening. It’s a story of prisoners abused and villagers humiliated. This report prompted a US inquiry. Watch it online now!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
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Swift Boaters to slam AARP over Soc. Sec.Also: Wall Street firms will sit out Soc. Security debate; Don't see much money in it.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=110
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Has anyone seen our submarine?
David Adam, science correspondent
Monday February 21, 2005
The Guardian
Lost: much loved robot submarine, last seen under 200 metres of Antarctic ice last Wednesday, answers to the name Autosub - reward.
The £1.5m British unmanned research sub was investigating the waters below the Fimbul ice shelf when it became trapped. Scientists don't know what went wrong, but say the submarine is stuck and unlikely to be recovered.
Gwyn Griffiths, an ocean engineer at the Southampton Oceanography Centre who helped to design Autosub, said: "It isn't going to come back. We've lived with this vehicle for eight years and it's done 382 missions. But every time we put it out there's a chance it isn't going to return. It was sort of inevitable."
Scientists sent the submarine under the ice shelf, one of the most inaccessible and poorly understood known environments on earth, to collect information about the role of the ocean in climate change. It was also to investigate whether global warming was accelerating, how the ice melts and what sort of creatures live in the Antarctic waters.
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posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:26 AM
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