Thursday, December 14, 2006

EU driving licence coming in 2013

The European parliament has given final approval to the creation of a European driving licence, which will replace the many national licences used in the EU.



The credit card-style licence, with photograph and possibly a microchip, will start to be introduced in 2013.

The EU hopes it will improve security and prevent people disqualified in one country getting a licence in another.

National governments have a choice of whether to issue the new forgery-proof licences for 10 or 15 years.

Database

Licences for lorry and bus drivers, however, will be valid for only five years.

For motorcyclists, a "step-up" approach will become obligatory in all member states, meaning that new riders will have to build up experience on smaller motorcycles before moving on to larger engines.

To prevent "driving licence tourism" a European licence database will be created.

"The times when people convicted of drink-driving could simply get a new licence in another country will soon be over," said German Socialist MEP Willi Pieczyk.

Some EU countries currently issue driving licences for life. Germany and Austria were reluctant to agree to a licence that had to be regularly renewed, but dropped their objections in March.

The phasing in of the new licence will be completed by 2032.

Microchip

The European Union's 300 million drivers currently use a total of 110 different paper and plastic licences.

Belgian MEP Mathieu Grosch said some licences still in use were so old, they had been issued by states that no longer exist, such as the former East Germany.

Member states will have the option to include a microchip to store information about the driver.

"The common EU driving licence will play a major role in improving security on European roads and in fighting fraud," said Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot.

""Each European driver will carry a driving licence that is clear, modern and recognised in all EU member states."

bbc

Worsening health of terror cleric could spark attacks, FBI warns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The health of terrorist cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik, is deteriorating — leading to fears that his death in prison could trigger an attack on the United States, officials said Thursday.

There is no credible indication that an attack on the U.S. is imminent, said several law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation.

In a two-page bulletin, dated Dec. 8, the FBI reported to federal intelligence officials that Rahman was rushed from prison to a Missouri hospital two days earlier for a blood transfusion. There, doctors discovered a tumor on Rahman's liver, according to the bulletin, which was described to The Associated Press by a law enforcement official.

But U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Tracy Billingsley said Rahman's condition has stabilized, and he has since been moved back to prison.

"His condition has improved," Billingsley said.

Officials said the bulletin served merely as a reminder that Rahman had called for retaliation by terror sympathizers if he died in prison. It cited a May 1998 press conference where al-Qaeda members distributed his last will and testament, in which Rahman pleaded for followers to "extract the most violent revenge" should he die in U.S. custody.

The FBI did not have immediate comment on Thursday.

Rahman was sentenced to life in prison after his 1995 conviction for his advisory role in a plot to blow up New York City landmarks, including the United Nations.

His health has deteriorated in recent years, and he was transferred in September 2003 from the federal Supermax prison in Colorado, where the country's most notorious inmates are held, to the U.S. Medical Center for Prisons in Springfield, Mo. Prisons officials have said Rahman has suffered from diabetes, which has threatened the loss of his limbs.

USA today

UK Government Proposals Approve Human/Animal Embryo Hybrids

LONDON, United Kingdom, December 12, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - British researchers would be permitted to create human/animal embryo hybrids using test tube technology, under sweeping new proposals to be introduced by government health officials this week, the Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday.

Known as "chimeras", the embryos would be produced by combining human and animal genetic material within a laboratory setting--the North East England Stem Cell Institute has already requested permission to create an embryo that is part human and part cow.

"The overarching aim is to pursue the common good through a system broadly acceptable to society," British Health Minister Caroline Flint said in a report on the policy changes obtained by the Sunday Telegraph.

Other changes include removing the current requirement that a child's need for a father must be considered when a woman seeks fertility treatment. Single women and lesbian couples would have the same access to fertility treatments as heterosexual couples.

Screening embryos for genetic conditions which have the potential to lead to "serious medical conditions, disabilities or miscarriage" would be allowed, as would screening embryos in order to select a child that would be a tissue match for a sibling suffering from a "life-threatening illness."

However, screening for sex selection would not be permitted under any circumstances.
The new proposals would also forbid the creation of a human embryo by using the genetic material from two women, bypassing the need for a male.

The new measures are intended to upgrade the 1990 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act, paralleling advances in science and ensuring the law is "fit for purpose in the early 21st century.

Under the new proposals, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority would be replaced with a Regulatory Authority for Tissue and Embryos.

Additional changes would regulate the passage of information between sperm donors and potential children. Sperm donors would be granted "access [to] limited, non-identifying information about children conceived as a result of their donations."

As well, "in some circumstances" donors would have the right to be informed when their identifying details were provided to their children once they reached age 18. Also at age 18, the children would be able to find out if they have siblings from the same donor.

The coming proposals have been anticipated for some time, after urging by prominent leaders in the UK scientific community. A report introduced by members of the British Parliament's Science and Technology Select Committee in 2005 recommended relaxing current research restrictions to permit experimentation on human/animal hybrids, along with other proposals to permit screening of embryos for identifying genetic malformations and sex selection purposes.

The policy changes are expected to be released on Friday. Legislation would follow next year.

More info


UK Parliamentary Report Recommends Animal-Human Hybrids, Sex Selection and More


UK Cloning Doctor Wants to Create Human/Rabbit Hybrid Clones

National Geographic Reports Human/Animal Hybrid Creatures being Created in Labs Around the World

Yea I know... You thought I was making all this crazy human/animal hybrid shit up. I fucking wish!

US Government Biological Weapons Legislator Says 2001 Anthrax Attacks Part Of Government Bio-warfare Program

Expert says FBI covered up the plot to attack Congress which may have been perpetrated by the same people who carried out the 9/11 attacks

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The real culprits behind the 2001 anthrax attack on Congress were most likely US government scientists at the army's Ft. Detrick, MD., bioterrorism lab according to a former government biological weapons legislator and University of Illinois Professor.

Dr Franics A. Boyle says the FBI covered up these facts and has also quite clearly stated that he doubts the official government story that 19 arabs with boxcutters perpetrated the attacks of 9/11.

Boyle is a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia- Herzegovina at the World Court. Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University.

"I believe the FBI knows exactly who was behind these terrorist anthrax attacks upon the United States Congress in the Fall of 2001, and that the culprits were US government-related scientists involved in a criminal US government bio-warfare program," Boyle says in his new book Biowarfare and Terrorism.



Only a "handful" of scientists had the means to carry out the attack, yet the FBI ordered the destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames, IA., from which the Ft. Detrick lab got its pathogens. Boyle states that only top level scientists with access to "moonsuits" that enabled them to safely process and manufacture super-weapons-grade anthrax could have carried out the attacks.

"The trail of genetic evidence would have led directly back to a secret but officially-sponsored US government biowarfare program that was illegal and criminal" , Boyle said. However, impartial scientists were not allowed to perform genetic reconstruction of the anthrax found in letters mailed to Senators Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy, (D -Vt.) in late 2001.

We have previously exposed how leading members of the Bush administration and White House staff were on the anthrax-treating antibiotic Cipro up to six weeks before the attacks occurred. It is also documented that the anthrax strain used was military grade. This was widely reported in 2002 in publications such as the New Scientist. However, this fact has recently been totally changed with the FBI now suggesting that common anthrax, not military grade anthrax was used.

The whole thing "appears to be a cover-up orchestrated by the FBI." according to Dr Boyle.

Boyle goes on to inquire, "Could the real culprits behind the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, and the immediately following terrorist anthrax attacks upon Congress ultimately prove to be the same people? Could it truly be coincidental that two of the primary intended victims of the terrorist anthrax attacks - Senators Daschle and Leahy - were holding up the speedy passage of the pre-planned USA Patriot Act ... an act which provided the federal government with unprecedented powers in relation to US citizens and institutions?"

Clearly Dr Boyle has a hard time believing what the government says happened on 9/11.

The anthrax attacks cleverly (or coincidentally if you choose to believe) coincided with the terrorist atrocities and sent Congress into shut down for days. Immediately after re-convening the liberty smashing PATRIOT Act was passed without even being read by members.

In addition, the Bush administration moved to begin planning a major $10 billion expansion of the bioweapons labs at Fort Detrick. Residents in the area have fiercely campaigned against the expansion.

In a forward to Boyle's book, Dr. Jonathan King, Professor of Molecular Biology at M.I.T. and a founder of the Council for Responsible Genetics, says the government's "growing bioterror programs represent a significant emerging danger to our own population."



Those who cannot fathom how or why the government could kill almost 3000 citizens, including police and firefighters, on 9/11 need look no further than the anthrax attacks, which provide solid proof that criminal elements within the structure of authority are in operation and don't give a damn about who they kill to achieve their goals of social control.

There are countless examples of the US government having illegally tested and used bio-weapons on its own citizens. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, The Program F fluoride study, Project SHAD which we are now learning used live toxins and chemical poisons on American servicemen on American soil, spraying clouds of bacteria over San Francisco, releasing toxic gases into the New York subway, holding open-air biological and chemical weapons tests in at least four states in the 1960s, the list goes on.

The Pentagon's biowarfare program has long been in operation and US citizens have never been spared from experimentation. To get more of a taste for just how hideous the secret biowarfare program is, click here and go to Rense.com, which has a lengthy (but by no means a comprehensive) list of previous known bio-experiments conducted on the population by the criminal elite.

66% Think U.S. Spies on Its Citizens

52% in Poll Back Hearings on Handling of Domestic Surveillance
WASHINGTON POST

Two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies are intruding on privacy rights as part of terrorism investigations, but they remain divided over whether such tactics are justified, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday.

The poll also showed that 52 percent of respondents favor congressional hearings on how the Bush administration has handled surveillance, detainees and other terrorism-related issues, compared with 45 percent who are opposed. That question was posed to half of the poll's 1,005-person random sample.

Overall, the poll -- which includes questions that have been asked since 2002 and 2003 -- showed a continued skepticism about whether the government is adequately protecting privacy rights as it conducts terrorism-related investigations.

Compared with June 2002, for example, almost twice as many respondents say the need to respect privacy outranks the need to investigate terrorist threats. That shift was first evident in polling conducted in January 2006.

That sentiment is still a minority view, however: Nearly two-thirds rank investigating threats as more important than guarding against intrusions on personal privacy, down from 79 percent in 2002.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who is a professor in Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, said the poll results could spell trouble for the FBI and other government agencies as they continue to seek support for expanded anti-terrorism powers granted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I don't think you can view these polling results in isolation from an overall phenomenon, which is that people are more skeptical of the government's conduct of the war on terrorism," Hoffman said.

Sixty-six percent of those questioned said that the FBI and other agencies are "intruding on some Americans' privacy rights" in terrorism investigations, up from 58 percent in September 2003. Thirty percent think the government is not intruding on privacy.

Support for intrusive tactics has dropped even more significantly during that time. A bare majority, 51 percent, feel the tactics are justified, down from 63 percent three years ago.

The poll was conducted by telephone from Dec. 7 through Monday, and the results have a three-percentage-point margin of error.

Russia to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran

Moscow plans on delivering fuel in March for Iran's first atomic power plant amid heightened international debate over Tehran's nuclear program, Russian state monopoly Atomstroiexport told Russian news agencies Tuesday.

"We plan to launch preliminary work in January to deliver fuel in March," Sergei Shmatko, head of Atomstroiexport, was quoted by the Ria Novosti agency as saying.

Shmatko said the nuclear fuel would be delivered on schedule to the southern plant of Bushehr, six months before its expected opening in September 2007.

Moscow clinched a deal with Tehran in 1995 to build Bushehr, but the project has faced delays -- partly due to suspicions by Washington that Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Under a separate agreement signed last year, Russia would provide nuclear fuel to Iran and ferry back spent fuel to prevent it from being diverted into a weapons program.

Tehran also consented to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor Bushehr and the fuel deliveries.

Russia is part of a group of six world powers mulling United Nations sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

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