BBC NEWS | Middle East | US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

BBC NEWS | Middle East | US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.

The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.

The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.

But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.

That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.

Two triggers

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.


Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.
Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground.

The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians.

Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says.

Deadline

Earlier this month US officers in Iraq said they had evidence Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi Shia militias. However the most senior US military officer later cast doubt on this, saying that they only had proof that weapons "made in Iran" were being used in Iraq.


Gen Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he did not know that the Iranian government "clearly knows or is complicit" in this.

At the time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the accusations were "excuses to prolong the stay" of US forces in Iraq.

Middle East analysts have recently voiced their fears of catastrophic consequences for any such US attack on Iran.

Britain's previous ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC it would backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term.

Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment - a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb.

Tehran insists its programme is for civil use only, but Western countries suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons.

The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February.

If it does not, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms this, the resolution says that further economic sanctions will be considered.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6376639.stm

Europe’s Plan to Track Phone and Net Use - New York Times

Europe’s Plan to Track Phone and Net Use - New York Times

February 20, 2007

Europe’s Plan to Track Phone and Net Use

By VICTORIA SHANNON
PARIS, Feb. 19 — European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people’s Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.

In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal.

A draft law in the Netherlands would likewise go further than the European Union requires, in this case by requiring phone companies to save records of a caller’s precise location during an entire mobile phone conversation.

Even now, Internet service providers in Europe divulge customer information — which they normally keep on hand for about three months, for billing purposes — to police officials with legally valid orders on a routine basis, said Peter Fleischer, the Paris-based European privacy counsel for Google. The data concerns how the communication was sent and by whom but not its content.

But law enforcement officials argued after the terrorist bombings in Spain and Britain that they needed better and longer data storage from companies handling Europe’s communications networks.

European Union countries have until 2009 to put the Data Retention Directive into law, so the proposals seen now are early interpretations. But some people involved in the issue are concerned about a shift in policy in Europe, which has long been a defender of individuals’ privacy rights.

Under the proposals in Germany, consumers theoretically could not create fictitious e-mail accounts, to disguise themselves in online auctions, for example. Nor could they use a made-up account to use for receiving commercial junk mail. While e-mail aliases would not be banned, they would have to be traceable to the actual account holder.

“This is an incredibly bad thing in terms of privacy, since people have grown up with the idea that you ought to be able to have an anonymous e-mail account,” Mr. Fleischer said. “Moreover, it’s totally unenforceable and would never work.”

Mr. Fleischer said the law would have to require some kind of identity verification, “like you may have to register for an e-mail address with your national ID card.”

Jörg Hladjk, a privacy lawyer at Hunton & Williams, a Brussels law firm, said that might also mean that it could become illegal to pay cash for prepaid cellphone accounts. The billing information for regular cellphone subscriptions is already verified.

Mr. Fleischer said: “It’s ironic, because Germany is one of the countries in Europe where people talk the most about privacy. In terms of consciousness of privacy in general, I would put Germany at the extreme end.”

He said it was not clear that any European law would apply to e-mail providers based in the United States, like Google, so anyone who needed an unverified e-mail address — for political, commercial or philosophical reasons — could still use Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail addresses.

Mr. Hladjk said, “It’s going to be difficult to know which law applies.” Google requires only two pieces of information to open a Gmail account — a name and a password — and the company does not try to determine whether the name is authentic.

In the Netherlands, the proposed extension of the law on phone company records to all mobile location data “implies surveillance of the movement of large amounts of innocent citizens,” the Dutch Data Protection Agency has said. The agency concluded in January that the draft disregarded privacy protections in the European Convention on Human Rights. Similarly, the German technology trade association Bitkom said the draft there violated the German Constitution.

Internet and telecommunications industry associations raised objections when the directive was being debated, but at that time their concerns were for the length of time the data would have to be stored and how the companies would be compensated for the cost of gathering and keeping the information. The directive ended up leaving both decisions in the hands of national governments, setting a range of six months to two years. The German draft settled on six months, while in Spain the proposal is for a year, and in the Netherlands it is 18 months.

“There are not a lot of people in Germany who support this draft entirely,” said Christian Spahr, a spokesman for Bitkom. “But there are others who are more critical of it than we are.”

The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and The Starbucks Coffee Company Joint Statement

dBusiness News
SEATTLE -- The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and The Starbucks Coffee Company recognize their shared interests and responsibility in the sustainability and growth of the Ethiopian coffee sector. Strong partnerships between the Government, coffee companies, donors and other stakeholders are critical to the growth of the sector.

The Government of Ethiopia and Starbucks have agreed to work together in their shared vision to increase Ethiopian farmer incomes and enhance the sustainable production of fine coffee. Both the Government of Ethiopia and Starbucks recognize that there may be differences in approach to achieving this shared vision. Starbucks respects the right and choice of the Government of Ethiopia to trademark its coffee brands and create a network of licensed distributors. Starbucks will not oppose Ethiopia’s efforts to obtain trademarks for its specialty coffees—Sidamo, Harar/Harrar and Yirgacheffe—and its efforts to create a network of licensed distributors.

Further, Starbucks has agreed to double its purchases from East Africa and will increase its purchases from Ethiopia. Starbucks will also provide technical support and capacity building to Ethiopian farmers through a Farmer Support Center that it will open in East Africa. The Farmer Support Center will be staffed with agronomists who will work with farmers to improve quality, yields and prices received. Starbucks will also expand its micro-credit facilities in East Africa to help farmers invest in their farms.

Both the Government of the Ethiopia and Starbucks will continue to strengthen their partnership and engage in consultations on strategies to improve the lives of Ethiopian coffee farmers and their families.

Guantanamo detainees lose court case - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com

Guantanamo detainees lose court case - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com

Guantanamo detainees lose court case

Challenges to military system are denied in big win for administration

BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:27 a.m. ET Feb 20, 2007

WASHINGTON - Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision in President Bush’s anti-terrorism law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.

This report will be updated as information becomes available.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17239258/

FOXNews.com - Ahmadinejad: Iran Will Stop Nuke Enrichment If You Will, Too - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

FOXNews.com - Ahmadinejad: Iran Will Stop Nuke Enrichment If You Will, Too - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News


Tuesday , February 20, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran —

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran would only halt its uranium enrichment program and return to negotiations if other Western nations do the same.

Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in northern Iran one day ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline that it was no problem for his country to stop, but that "fair talks" demanded a similar gesture from the West.

"That ... we shut down our nuclear fuel cycle program to let talks begin. It's no problem. But justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too. Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere," Ahmadinejad said.

The Security Council has set Wednesday as a deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment or face further economic sanctions.

Ahmadinejad spoke in a far more conciliatory tone than the one he usually adopts, avoiding fiery denunciations of the West with a call for talks.

• Monitor the nuclear showdown in FOXNews.com's Iran Center.

"We are for talks but they have to be fair negotiations. That means, both sides hold talks under equal conditions," he said.

He added, however, that it was unacceptable for countries to demand that Iran stop its nuclear activities without reciprocity.

"We say how is it that your (nuclear fuel) production facilities work 24 hours a day, but you feel threatened by our newly established complex and we need to shut it down for talks," he asked.

Iran has long insisted that it will not stop its nuclear activities as a condition for negotiations to start.

"The condition they set for talks is a condition that deprives us of our rights," Ahmadinejad said of the United States and its Western allies. "We have never been after confrontation and tension. We have always been for dialogue but dialogue under fair conditions."

On Dec. 23 the Security Council agreed to impose limited sanctions against Iran and gave the country 60 days to halt enrichment or face additional measures.

At the time, Iran rejected the resolution as "illegal" and said it would not give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.

The United States and several of its Western allies believe that Iran is using its nuclear program to produce an atomic weapon — charges Iran denies, saying its aim is to generate electricity.

Enriched to a low level, uranium is used to produce nuclear fuel but further enrichment makes it suitable for use in building an atomic bomb.

Ahmadinejad said Iran would not give in to coercion and warned the United States and its allies they will fail to force it into give up its nuclear program.

"If you want to speak from the position of power and make use of the oppressing leverage of some international institutions, you have to know the you will fail against the unity and resistance of the Iranian nation," he said.

Russia's nuclear agency spokesman warned Tuesday that Iranian delays in payments for the construction of a Russian-built nuclear plant would push back its launch date and uranium fuel deliveries from Russia.

A top nuclear official in Iran on Monday rejected Russian claims that Tehran had been dragging its feet on payments, and accused Moscow of trying to delay the launch of the reactor.

But Russia's Federal Nuclear Power Agency spokesman Sergei Novikov insisted Tuesday that Iran has made no payments this month, and paid only a quarter of what was due last month.

Novikov told The Associated Press that Iran was to pay Russia $25 million a month for construction works at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran, adding that Iran has continuously dragged its feet on meeting the obligations.

Top Bin Laden Expert: Confession Fake

9/11 Blogger | February 19, 2007

Kevin Barrett sent the following email:

Top U.S. Bin Laden Expert: Confession Video “Bogus”
by Kevin Barrett, http://mujca.com
2/17/06

Was Osama Bin Laden responsible for 9/11?

The Bush Administration says yes, citing a grainy, badly-edited videotape that surfaced in December, 2001. In that tape, a fat guy who vaguely resembles Bin Laden chortles about the success of the 9/11 attacks. (In earlier interviews, Bin Laden had denied responsibility for 9/11, once even deploring the loss of civilian life in the attacks and calling them un-Islamic.)

Is the famous “confession video” genuine? Despite Bush’s insistence that the tape is authentic, America’s top academic Bin Laden expert has finally gone on the record, joining numerous other experts.

“It’s bogus,” says Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University’s Religious Studies program.

Lawrence, author of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, offered his historic debunking of the administration’s lie in an interview with Kevin Barrett (“Dynamic Duo,” gcnlive.com, 2/16/2007, first hour). The interview marked Lawrence’s first major public statement since he made headlines last year by suggesting that recent Osama tapes are hoaxes and that the real Osama Bin Laden may be dead.

Why has the Bush Administration been lying for more than five years by telling us that this preposterously bad hoax is a genuine “confession video”? Lawrence, citing informants in the US intelligence apparatus’s Bin Laden units, said that everyone knows the tape is fake, adding that the hoax has been kept alive because it is politically useful to those who wish to deflect attention from
“conspiracy theories” about 9/11.

If Professor Lawrence is right—and anyone with eyes can see that he is, simply by comparing the overweight impostor in the Fatty Bin Laden bogus confession video to other pictures of Osama Bin Laden—the Bush Administration, by repeatedly citing the tape as authentic, is clearly guilty of obstruction of justice at best, high treason and conspiracy to mass murder at worst. Since the FBI now tells us that Osama Bin Laden is “not wanted for 9/11” because there is “no hard evidence” connecting him to the 9/11 attacks, and since US intelligence personnel all know the “confession tape” is a Bush Administration hoax, it should not be difficult to nail the perpetrators of this outrageous cover-up of the crime of the century.

It is time for Congress or an appropriate judicial authority to mount an investigation of the Fatty Bin Laden bogus confession video.

Where did this tape come from? Who was responsible for the
administration’s claim that it is authentic, despite widespread knowledge in relevant intelligence agencies that it is bogus? If Bruce Lawrence is correct in asserting that US intelligence personnel know the tape is fake, we need to put them, along with Bush and Cheney, under oath and find out why our government has been lying so outrageously for more than five years in order to obstruct justice by shielding the real perpetrators of 9/11.

Please email your congressional representatives with the subject header “investigate bogus Bin Laden ‘confession video’ NOW!” and include a copy of this article in the body of the message.

_______________

Its hard to believe, but I actually agree with a Dookie...

US National ID Cards by May 2008

al-jazeerah

At large, the American people are still unaware of the issuance of the Real ID card forthcoming in May of 2008. This new national/international ID card, and its interactivity with national/international databases, can access our medical, financial, driving, Social Security, license(s), firearms registrations, and political status inside its high tech/little nano brain. In essence, it holds our private lives on a swipe-able card that is then privy to any organization, retailer, or person requesting our identification or our money. In other words, our life histories accessible upon command from one 2X3 inch card.

Having no choice but to comply, most American people will accept their new national/international ID card. It is my understanding that without the card, we will be denied bank accounts in the United States of America, a driver's license, and the right to fly on airplanes unless we have been issued a Real ID card. One might imagine that global retailers might require the Real ID to purchase food and gasoline. Take a look at your current driver's license. Check the expiration date. 2008 would be a good global guess.

For those of us who have seen United Nations military vehicles in the United States, and who have also noticed convoys of military tanks being transported through the wilderness areas of our nation – the same areas that have been locked down and away from the American people via Biosphere Reserves and conservation corridors - we have realized for a great many years that, as one patriot stated, the “stage was being set” for difficult times on American soil – the key issue that mass media ignores at its professional finest. So, with stages being set, one must also look to the timing of the Real ID card, and to 2008 in general. Let us not forget all the other paramilitary systems in our nation, like the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, Citizens Corp groups, Neighborhood Watch groups, C.O.P.S. (Community Oriented Policing Services), the militarizing of law enforcement departments, and the many new for-hire corporations that offer private armies with weapons for a price. And then, of course, there are the U.N. peacekeeping forces, which the American military has been actively involved with for many, many decades while, simultaneously and incrementally, our “leaders” have been closing our homeland military bases during these same decades.

The professional timing of the Real ID card in 2008, and its mandatory issuance, brings to mind several forthcoming coincidences and issues. The collecting and databasing of all personal information of every American adult – coinciding with the CFR's North American Community – and all global government infrastructures in place and play, one must consider the following:

• How are “domestic terrorists” determined and identified?

• Who will be held in the Civilian Labor Camps on American soil?

• What is the real issue behind the “identity theft” propaganda?

• Why are the off-limits American wilderness areas crawling with secret military operations?

• And why the mandatory issuance of an ID card that sums up every American citizen with one swipe?

One cannot help but to almost laugh when it comes to considering how directly global intentions rest beneath our noses. So easy to see, yet so blindly the public goes about its merry and dull way. On that note, the Real ID card will ultimately seal your fate. You will be a compliant and completely identifiable slave to the New World Order, or you will be its enemy – and your Real ID will determine which global creature you shall be.

Therefore, America, let us not in-fight. The fact of our demise as free people exists no matter whose research is right or wrong. The stage is, in fact, being set for our nation's conquering. The Democrats and Republicans have seen to this fact and have worked steadfastly to raise their one-world government. They knew from the beginning that people with property, firearms, and rights were their primary problems, or in other words, the people of the United States of America and other westernized nations. Our “leadership” is not what they seem.

The public acceptance of the Real ID in May of 2008 seals the deal. It will be more than interesting to see which of our friends, neighbors, and family members will willingly sign onto their fate as new “citizens” of the global police state. Just keep telling yourselves that you voted them into office. So did I. As such, we have a lot of soul searching to do and very, very little time – about 21 months. Are we going to continue to allow our “representatives” to march off with this nation and our Constitutional freedom, or are we going to unite and reclaim OUR nation? Ignorance is never bliss. It is abject slavery, and this time, the enslavement is backed by a system far greater than concepts or perceived notions of freedom. It's past time to do more than wave flags, wear patriotic tee shirts, hats, and pins. It's time to serve through action and duty to this nation. Start an A.C.E. (Americans for Constitutional Enforcement) chapter in your neighborhood NOW. Request an information packet (contactus@a4ce.org) and create your local chapter. It's YOUR job and Constitutional duty to save our nation and to preserve freedom. We have been betrayed. For the sake of your children, open your eyes and act. The only potential answer is to UNITE for freedom and to command that freedom with one voice. Then, as a nation UNITED in knowledge, we can rid ourselves of our “representative” globalists. Now, please stop the bickering and bitching, especially of the partisanship flavor, and get to WORK. Global government is non-partisan minus the master-slave divide.

You may also request a mailed copy of the A.C.E. Information Packet by sending $10.00 to A.C.E., P.O. Box 293, Iron Mountain, MI 49801.

Clinton Defends Consulting Contract

In South Carolina, Hillary Rodham Clinton Defends Hiring Politician Who Endorsed Her

FLORENCE, S.C. Feb 19, 2007 (AP)— Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday denied that her campaign traded money for an endorsement from one of South Carolina's most influential black politicians.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Clinton responded to questions about the consulting contract her campaign negotiated with state Sen. Darrell Jackson, who last week endorsed her candidacy rather than of top rivals John Edwards or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

"Senator Jackson was someone who was involved in my husband's campaigns. He was someone we turned to for political advice and counsel and I'm proud to have him on my team," Clinton told the AP.

Soon after the endorsement, Jackson acknowledged that his media consulting firm had negotiated a $10,000 per month contract with Clinton's campaign. Jackson has said he turned down more lucrative contracts from other candidates.

Although he backed Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, Jackson said he now supports Clinton because she has the best shot of winning the White House.

Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman, said Friday that Jackson's firm will advise the campaign on "political matters in South Carolina, outreach, organizing issues" and purchasing advertising.

Earlier in the day, Jackson introduced Clinton when she spoke to more than 1,500 people gathered at Allen University, a historically black college in Columbia.

Clinton, who spoke to the AP during her first trip to this early voting state since announcing her White House bid, also said South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war.

"I think about how many South Carolinians have served in our military and who are serving today under our flag and I believe that we should have one flag that we all pay honor to, as I know that most people in South Carolina do every single day," the New York senator said.

"I personally would like to see it removed from the Statehouse grounds."

Other Democratic hopefuls, including Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, have said the flag should come down. The banner, which once flew over the Statehouse dome and now flies nearby, is the subject of an ongoing NAACP boycott.

Clinton is one of several Democrats to draw huge crowds during campaign stops in the state, but she said during the interview that her party will have a tough time winning in GOP-heavy South Carolina.

"I think it's going to be hard for any Democrat to carry the state," she said. "The Republican Party is very strong here."

Clinton's visit comes close on the heels of Obama's two-day trip to the state in which he drew crowds of about 2,000 people.