BBC NEWS | Europe | CIA rejects secret jails report

BBC NEWS | Europe | CIA rejects secret jails report

CIA rejects secret jails report
The CIA has dismissed a Council of Europe report alleging that it ran secret jails for terror suspects in Europe after the 11 September attacks.

A CIA spokesman said the report was biased and distorted, and that the agency had operated lawfully.

Swiss Senator Dick Marty, who wrote the report, said secret CIA prisons "did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania".

The charge was denied by both Polish and Romanian officials.

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who served from 1995 to 2005, said on Friday: "There were no secret prisons in Poland."

Romanian senator Norica Nicolai, who headed an investigation into the allegations, also denied his country's involvement.

The secret detention facilities in Europe were run directly and exclusively by the CIA
Dick Marty

"All statements made by Dick Marty are totally groundless," he said.

A spokesman for the CIA told the BBC that the agency's "operations have been lawful, effective, closely reviewed and of benefit to many people - including Europeans - by disrupting plots and saving lives".

Mr Marty - working on behalf of the Council of Europe, a human rights body - has been investigating the CIA's "extraordinary renditions" programme, under which terror suspects were transported around the world for interrogation.

In his report, he said a secret agreement among Nato allies allowed the CIA to operate the camps.

Unnamed CIA sources quoted by Mr Marty said Poland was the "black site" where eight "high-value detainees (HVDs)" were interrogated, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001.


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The report says Romania "was developed into a site to which more detainees were transferred only as the HVD programme expanded".

"The secret detention facilities in Europe were run directly and exclusively by the CIA," the report says.

But it said "the highest state authorities" knew of the CIA's activities.

A report approved by a European Parliament committee earlier this year said more than 1,000 covert CIA flights had crossed European airspace or stopped at European airports in the four years after the 9/11 attacks.

US President George Bush admitted last year that terror suspects had been held in CIA-run prisons overseas, but he did not say where the prisons were located.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6736385.stm

Published: 2007/06/08 22:58:29 GMT

© BBC MMVII

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq Shias 'attack' Sunni mosques

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq Shias 'attack' Sunni mosques

Iraq Shias 'attack' Sunni mosques
A prominent Iraqi Sunni party says Shia militiamen have attacked two Sunni mosques in Baghdad.

The Iraqi Islamic Party says the militiamen, backed by commando troops, raised their banners over the Rahman and Fataah Basha mosques.

The party says many Sunnis have been forced to flee the area. The mosques are in the Bayaa district, an area with a mix of Sunni and Shia residents.

The Shia-dominated government has not commented on the latest accusations.

It has said in the past that it is working to reduce sectarian tensions.

Sunni leaders have repeatedly complained that their community's mosques in Baghdad are under threat but the government is doing nothing about it.

In a statement on its website, the Iraqi Islamic Party said the latest attacks came shortly after Kurdish troops stationed in Bayaa were replaced by interior ministry commandos.

The Sunnis accuse Shia militias and their allies in the security forces of operating squads that kidnap, torture and kill Sunni civilians.

Suicide bombings blamed on Sunni militants frequently target Shias.

Hundreds of people die every month in attacks which have brought Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Millions of people have also been displaced by the spiralling sectarian strife.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6731303.stm

Published: 2007/06/07 15:23:29 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Embassy builders in Iraq accused of human trafficking

raw story
The Department of Justice is investigating whether or not a Kuwaiti construction firm contracted to build the US Embassy in Iraq has carried out human trafficking with its laborers, according to a report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal.

"The Department of Justice launched the probe of First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co. after former employees alleged that workers at the company were told they were being sent to Dubai, only to wind up in Iraq instead... First Kuwaiti confiscated the workers' passports, so they were unable to depart Baghdad, these people said," wrote Yochi J. Dreazen.

The Kuwaiti company denied a Justice Department investigation was going on, and said the State Department had already found no violations of the workers' rights.

Indeed, the State Department's Inspector General reported that there was "no evidence of Trafficking in Persons violations...[workers] were being paid and had the ability to quit at any time...and return to their home country."

Still, Dreazen writes that the charges may be credible.

"While Justice may ultimately clear the company of the present allegations, its involvement suggests they are serious enough to merit investigation," he wrote.

Iraqis were not hired by First Kuwaiti for the $592 million project out of fear that they could compromise the project's security.

"Instead, it hired nationals from poor countries such as Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan," the Journal notes.

Dreazen's full report can be read at this link.

Envoy: Iran nearing nuclear capability

centredaily
WASHINGTON --
Iran has not yet crossed the threshold of being able to make nuclear weapons but may be only two years away, Israeli ambassador Sallai M. Meridor said Wednesday.

"I really think they are on the verge of getting the genie out of the bottle, and leaving our children with a nightmare," the Israeli envoy said at a news conference at the Council on Foreign Relations, a private think tank.

Meridor said Iran was having trouble with the process of installing centrifuges to get them spinning, and was trying to decide between "quantity and quality" in its program.

"2009 is the worst-case scenario to have the bomb," Meridor said, while renewing an Israeli vow to try to derail any nuclear weapons program.

"They are not there yet," he said.

Iran insists that its program is designed to produce civilian energy. It has resisted Western offers of diplomatic and economic benefits if it would suspend enrichment programs.

The latest report from the U.N. nuclear agency saying Iran was still refusing to suspend uranium enrichment has set the stage for an attempt by the United States and its allies to impose tough economic sanctions against Tehran.

The head of the agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said last month he agreed with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimate that Iran was three to eight years from being able to make nuclear arms. He urged the United States and other Security Council members to abandon "rhetoric" and pursue dialogue.

Meridor said that Iran was susceptible to economic pressure because it was dependent on foreign investment, but, apparently referring to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he said "the world continues to fund this madman."

If economic and diplomatic pressure fail, Meridor threatened action by Israel. "An option is on the table is, they will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons," he said.

Asked to elaborate on what actions Israel might be considering, the ambassador said, "I hope you will forgive me for not sharing that."

Angelina Jolie Joins Council on Foreign Relations

transworldnews

Angelina Jolie will now be joining former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Diane Sawyer and several other distinguished names as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jolie was nominated by an existing member of the CFR and received approval from the organization.

Vice president of communications at CFR Lisa Shields said “Angelina Jolie is accomplished in her field and has demonstrated serious interest in issues such as Darfur, international education and refugees. As such, her profile fits very well with other young professionals we've selected as the next generation of foreign policy leaders.”

The 32-year-old mother of four has been a UN Goodwill Ambassador since 2001. After taking the position of Goodwill Ambassador Jolie stated “We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.”

Jolie recently told Esquire magazine that she would rather be remembered for her humanitarian work than her acting.

Angelina Jolie has three-adopted children and shares a biological child with boyfriend Brad Pitt. Maddox, 6, was adopted from Cambodia, Zahara, 3, was adopted from Ethiopia, Pax Thien, 3, was adopted from Vietnam. All three adopted children carry the Joilie-Pitt name as does their one-year-old daughter Shiloh.

Council of Europe: Secret CIA Prisons Confirmed

YUBANET
The Central Intelligence Agency secretly operated illegal prisons for terrorism suspects in multiple locations in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005, according to a report released today by the Council of Europe, a European intergovernmental human rights body.

The result of an investigation initiated in November 2005 by the council's Parliamentary Assembly under the leadership of assembly member and Swiss senator Dick Marty, the report provides evidence confirming allegations first made by Human Rights Watch in 2005 (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/07/usint11995.htm) that locations in Poland and Romania were among sites used by the CIA for secret detention.

It concludes that there is "now enough evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania." It also finds that prisoners in these facilities were subjected to "interrogation techniques tantamount to torture."

"Today's report confirms that Poland and Romania helped the CIA operate illegal detention sites on their territory in violation of international law," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. "It is now clear that US officials illegally conspired with intelligence officials in several European countries to ‘disappear,' interrogate and illegally transfer terrorism suspects, flouting basic human rights norms."

The report suggests that President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and former President Ion Iliescu of Romania authorized the secret detentions.

The Council of Europe report castigates the US and several European countries for these abuses. It also deplores what it terms "obstruct[ion]" by many of the governments implicated in the abuses, who "have done everything to disguise the true nature and extent of their activities and are persistent in their uncooperative attitude." In this respect, the report singles out the United States, Poland, Romania, Macedonia, Italy and Germany for criticism.

The report provides new information – including from cross-referenced testimonies of over 30 current and former members of intelligence services in the US and Europe – about how the secret program operated in Poland and Romania. It contains details from civil aviation records about CIA-operated airplanes used for detainee transfers, showing airplanes in the period 2003 through 2005 landing at remote airstrips in Poland and Romania. It also describes how flights to Poland – including one that may have carried terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from Kabul to Szymany on March 7, 2003 – were deliberately disguised using fake flight plans.

Human Rights Watch believes that detainees held in Poland were likely transferred there from Afghanistan in late 2003 and early 2004. Other detainees held in CIA custody in Afghanistan were transferred to military custody, and subsequently to Guantanamo.

CIA detainees were held in Poland until late 2005. They are believed to have been transferred out of the region after the Washington Post reported in November 2005 that the CIA was using detention sites in Eastern Europe and Human Rights Watch released information showing that Poland and Romania were likely among the sites used. ABC News, relying on sources within the CIA, reported in December 2005 that the detainees were flown to Morocco.

In September 2006, President George Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of the secret CIA detention system, and announced that 14 prisoners in secret CIA custody had been transferred to the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Human Rights Watch believes that most of these 14 prisoners were among those held in Poland and Romania in the period 2003 through 2005.

In status hearings earlier this year, at least four of these 14 prisoners claimed that they had been tortured while in US custody.

For example, Zayn al Abidin Muhammed Husayn, a Palestinian whom ABC News claimed was held in Poland, submitted a statement during the hearing in which he described "months of torture." In broken English, he told the hearing officers how he had made statements under torture to please his interrogators. The presiding officer summed up Husayn's claims by saying that "during this treatment, you said things to make them stop, and these things were actually untrue." But the details of the "treatment" that Husayn underwent were censored from the transcript.

Many detainees who are believed to have been held in CIA custody remain missing. Human Rights Watch has done extensive research on detainees believed to have been held by the CIA, and earlier this week issued an updated list of missing detainees jointly with five other human rights groups. The list named 39 persons whose fate and whereabouts are unknown (http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/ct0607/).

Human Rights Watch deplored the fact that the CIA's illegal system of secret prisons is still operational. In 2007 alone, three detainees have been transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and in all cases the CIA may have had custody of the detainees before their transfer. Indeed, the US government has confirmed that the CIA had custody of one detainee before his transfer, proving that the CIA detention program still operates.

"Shutting secret prisons down in one part of the world, only to open them in another, is not acceptable," Mariner said.

The Council of Europe report issued today also documents the involvement of European governments in CIA-facilitated illegal transfers of suspects to third countries, known as renditions. The report criticizes Italy and Germany's involvement in the illegal transfer of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, kidnapped in Milan in February 2003. Over 20 CIA agents have been indicted in Italy on kidnapping charges related to the Abu Omar case; their trial in absentia begins today.

The report also discusses the involvement of Macedonia in the illegal detention and transfer of a German citizen, Khalid el-Masri, who was abducted and flown out of Macedonia in January 2004 and held in a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan until his release in mid-2004.

The report, adopted by a Council of Europe parliamentary committee today, is also strongly critical of NATO, which it says "never replied to our correspondence." It notes that "strict observance of the rules of confidentiality laid down in the NATO framework" helped keep the CIA program secret for so long.

Human Rights Watch applauded Dick Marty on his investigation into the CIA's illegal activities in Europe, and urged European governments and parliaments to follow up by carrying out or finalizing their own public investigations, and by ensuring timely implementation of the recommendations the report makes to prevent the occurrence of further abuses.

Among the report's most urgent recommendations are the following:

· Establish enhanced control (through parliamentary oversight and judicial control) over the activities of secret services, both domestic and foreign;

· Establish enhanced safeguards and controls over aircraft transiting through member states;

· Ensure that state secrecy or national security cannot be invoked to shield governments or individual government officials from responsibility for serious human rights abuses;

· Ensure compensation and rehabilitation for the victims of secret detention and unlawful transfers; and,

· Set up a genuine European parliamentary inquiry mechanism with adequate investigative powers and resources, including the possibility of appointing a special investigator modeled on the rules governing the German Bundestag commissions of inquiry.

Human Rights Watch also reminded Council of Europe member states about their obligation to act on the conclusions of the inquiry initiated by the institution's secretary-general, Terry Davis. Nearly one year after the secretary-general issued his recommendations on measures to prevent future illegal practices, member states have yet to take action.

"Investigations by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament have been met by stonewalling," said Mariner. "It's time now for governments to face their responsibility and take concrete steps to ensure that illegal operations like these don't happen again."

Human Rights Watch also urged the US Congress to schedule hearings on CIA activities and detention practices, and work to pass legislation banning secret detention and rendition to torture.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on CIA counterterrorism activities, please visit:

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=ct_cia

'War czar' nominee sees lots of work ahead

STAR TELEGRAM
WASHINGTON -- The three-star general picked by President Bush to be his war adviser spoke on the first day of his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Deputy national security adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan is a new position intended to reach across agency bureaucracies and better execute Bush's policy on the two conflicts.

The main points made by Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute:

On the Iraqi government's ability to take control of its country:

"The question in my mind is not to what extent can we force them ... to a particular outcome but rather to what degree do they actually have the capacity themselves to produce that outcome." And if the Iraqis are "pressed too hard, will we, in turn, end up with an outcome that isn't really worth the paper it's written on?" He noted that the Iraqi government had been in power just over a year.

On Iraqis wanting to achieve national reconciliation:

Lute admitted that Iraqi politicians and religious leaders "have shown so far very little progress" in meeting benchmarks they have set that are designed to lead to an end of factional fighting. Unless they start making progress, there's unlikely to be any decrease in violence, he said. "I have reservations about just how much leverage we can apply on a system that is not very capable right now," Lute said.

On his skepticism toward the troop buildup in Iraq ordered by President Bush in January:

Lute said he registered his concerns on the issue with Bush and his top aides when they interviewed him for the job, arguing that a military solution wasn't enough to bring lasting national stability. In Lute's view, a "surge" of troops would likely have only temporary and localized effects unless it were accompanied by counterpart surges by the Iraqi government and nonmilitary agencies of the U.S. government.

On early results of the troop buildup:

Lute said results were mixed. "I'd assess at this point that the Iraqi participation in the surge has been uneven so far," he said. "And I think we're in the early days, and time will tell." He said the troop increase in Greater Baghdad and Anbar province to the west made Iraqi officials understand that the U.S. was providing them security. "We're giving them a golden opportunity that they must seize to make progress on the political front."

On the United States paying a heavy price with soldiers killed and seriously wounded to establish Iraq's government:

American personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are "foremost in my mind," Lute said. "They are absolutely behind my motivation to seek this appointment and seek this nomination, your confirmation of this nomination and try to make a difference here in Washington."

On whether U.S. troops should be withdrawn:

Lute said withdrawing some troops may pressure the Iraqi government to make needed changes. A withdrawal "ought to be considered," he said.

On his role as "war czar" if confirmed:

Lute promised to give Bush his unvarnished military advice.

Sources: The Associated Press, McClatchy Newspapers, Bloomberg News

U.S. Eases Rules In Face Of Passport Delays

BTNMAG
JUNE 08, 2007 -- The State Department today temporarily modified its new passport rules, allowing U.S. citizens to travel to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda if they have applied for a passport, but have not yet received one.

The State Department said that through Sept. 30, travelers who are not carrying passports must present "official proof of application for a passport" and government-issued photo identification. "The federal government is making this accommodation for air travel due to longer-than-expected processing times for passport applications in the face of record-breaking demand," the State Department said in a statement.

Through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the government modified passport rules and beginning Jan. 23 required passports for air travel between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda. "As early as January 2008, the Departments will begin to implement WHTI at land and sea ports of entry," the State Department said today. "A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking outlining a phased implementation is expected to be published in the Federal Register within the next two weeks."

Rice: US pursues own missile plan

AP
NEW YORK — The United States will pursue its own plans to put a missile defense in Eastern Europe despite Russian suggestions to locate it outside the region, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press Friday.

Rice said Russian President Vladimir Putin's surprise offer to share a Soviet-era radar tracking station in Azerbaijan for the project had caught the Bush administration off guard, but that it was worth looking into even while missile defense negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic continue.

"One does not choose sites for missile defense out of the blue," she said in an interview. "It's geometry and geography as to how you intercept a missile."

"This is an idea that has not yet been vetted," she said of Putin's offer, made Thursday to President Bush at a meeting in Germany. "We have to see whether Azerbaijan makes any sense in the context of missile defense."

Rice said Putin's idea, which represented an apparent softening in Moscow's hardline opposition to missile defense, could be positive but stressed that Washington would do what it saw fit to deal with the "real security problem" posed by rogue states like Iran and North Korea.

"If it is a way to begin more serious discussions about what we believe is a common threat — which is the threat of the Irans and North Koreas of the world launching missiles — that's a very positive development," she said.

"But we are continuing our discussions with the Czech Republic and Poland and we're going to do that, we are continuing our discussions in NATO, and we're going to do that. We will do what is best from the point of view of actually dealing with the problem, which is a real security problem. This isn't a faux security problem."

The United States has been pushing a plan that would put the radar tracking station in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland to protect European and NATO allies from attacks.

Until Putin's Azerbaijan offer on Thursday, Russia has been vehemently opposed to the entire concept, arguing that it poses a threat to its nuclear deterrent.

Saudi prince 'received arms cash'

BBC
A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.

The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.

Prince Bandar would not comment on the investigation and BAE Systems said it acted lawfully at all times.

The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.

Sir Raymond Lygo, a former chief executive of BAE, told the BBC's World Business Report that there had been "nothing untoward" about the arms deal.

"I was the one who won the contract," he said. "I don't know anything about this prince at all.

"We paid agents according to the law as it applied at the time... at the time there was nothing untoward about the deal at all."

Private plane

The investigation found that up to £120m a year was sent by BAE from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington.

The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar for his role in the 1985 deal to sell more than 100 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the prince's private Airbus.

David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were held, said Prince Bandar had been taking money for his own personal use out of accounts that seemed to belong to his government.

He said: "There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts as we would call them, and the accounts of the royal family."

Mr Caruso said he understood this had been going on for "years and years".

"Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars were involved," he added.

Investigation stopped

According to Panorama's sources, the payments were written into the arms deal contract in secret annexes, described as "support services".

They were authorised on a quarterly basis by the MoD.
It remains unclear whether the payments were actually illegal - a point which depends in part on whether they continued after 2001, when the UK made bribery of foreign officials an offence.

The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.

The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.

Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to comment on the Panorama allegations.

But he said that if the SFO investigation into BAE had not been dropped, it would have led to "the complete wreckage of a vital strategic relationship and the loss of thousands of British jobs".

Prince Bandar, who is the son of the Saudi defence minister, served for 20 years as US ambassador and is now head of the country's national security council.

Panorama reporter Jane Corbin explained that the payments were Saudi public money, channelled through BAE and the MoD, back to the Prince.

The SFO had been trying to establish whether they were illegal when the investigation was stopped, she added.

She believed the payments would thrust the issue back into the public domain and raise a number of questions.

'Bad for business'

Labour MP Roger Berry, head of the House of Commons committee which investigates strategic export controls, told the BBC that the allegations must be properly investigated.

If there was evidence of bribery or corruption in arms deals since 2001 - when the UK signed the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention - then that would be a criminal offence, he said.

He added: "It's bad for British business, apart from anything else, if allegations of bribery popping around aren't investigated."

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said that if ministers in either the present or previous governments were involved there should be a "major parliamentary inquiry".

"It seems to me very clear that this issue has got to be re-opened," Mr Cable told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight.

"It is one thing for a company to have engaged in alleged corruption overseas. It is another thing if British government ministers have approved it."

World's Press Faces Increasing Surveillance Measures

WAN
The World Association of Newspapers has called on democratic governments to take specific measures to protect freedom of the press in the face of widespread tightening of anti-terrorism measures.

"WAN believes that though balancing the sometimes conflicting interests of security and freedom might be difficult, democracies have an absolute responsibility to use a rigorous set of standards to judge whether curbs on freedom can be justified by security concerns," the WAN Board said in a resolution issued during the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Cape Town, South Africa.

WAN also issued four other resolutions, to protest against:

* A recent UN Human Rights Council's resolution that attempts to justify censorship of free speech under the guise of protecting religious sensibilities (read the full resolution here);
* The decade-long judicial harassment of Spanish journalist José Luis Gutiérrez, who was convicted by Spanish courts of violating Moroccan King Hassan II's "right to maintain his honor" after Gutiérrez published an accurate report about the seizure of five tons of hashish inside a truck belonging to the Moroccan Royal Crown (read the full resolution here);
* The almost complete lack of arrests and convictions in the cases of 21 journalists who have been killed in Russia since President Vladimir Putin came to power in March 2000 (read the full resolution here):
* The repressive government policy against a free press in Zimbabwe, including the recurrent violations of journalists' basic rights and the complete disregard for the rule of law (read the full resolution here);
* A raid on the offices of the independent daily Le Quotidien in Senegal by armed soldiers, the closure of its radio station Premiere FM and the seizure of broadcasting equipment (read the full resolution here.
* In the resolution concerned with increasing surveillance measures, WAN called on democratic governments and their agencies to take seven specific steps to protect press freedom while tightening anti-terrorism measures:
* To guarantee public availability of officially held data, information and archives accessible under Freedom of Information laws or related legal provisions.
* To guarantee the right of journalists to protect their confidential sources of information, as a necessary requirement for a free press.
* To make electronic surveillance of communications dependent on judicial authorisation, control or review, to protect the imperative independence and confidentiality of newsgathering.
* To ensure that searches of journalist offices or homes are conducted uniquely by warrant issued only when there is proven ground for suspicion of lawbreaking.
* To guarantee journalists the right to cover all sides of a story, including that of alleged terrorists, and to restrain from any hasty and unjustified criminalisation of speech.
* To abstain from prosecuting journalists who published classified information. In free societies, courts have held that it is the job of governments, not journalists, to protect official secrets, subject to the common sense decisions that editors normally make against, for instance, endangering lives.
* To abstain from resorting to “black” propaganda - in other words, peacetime use of government services to plant false or misleading articles masquerading as normal journalism as well as the false use of journalistic identities by intelligence agents.

Read the full resolution here.

The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 77 national newspaper associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 10 regional and world-wide press groups.

China shares tumble as panic spreads

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China stocks tumbled 8.3 percent on Monday in their second biggest drop this decade, erasing $340 billion in market value and extending big losses from last week after the government hiked the share trading tax to cool a feverish bull run.

In an apparent attempt by authorities to restore confidence, front-page editorials in official newspapers tried to reassure investors the market's medium- and long-term outlook was still positive, and that the tax hike was merely aimed at speculators.

But that failed to stop selling by many of the anxious and often inexperienced individual investors who had jumped into the market in recent months for what seemed like easy money.

"This is obviously panic selling, and the sentiment is quickly spreading across the market," said Wang Jing, deputy general manager at Everbright Securities.

"But the fall is normal today, given the fact that the market has gone up so much. It won't be surprising if the index falls to about 3,000 points -- which would mean a 30 percent correction from the top."

However, many analysts and fund managers said they did not believe the government, which has made a strong stock market central to its economic reforms, would permit an extended slide which could fuel social unrest or threaten China's rapid economic expansion.

The key index has now lost 15.3 percent from last Tuesday's record intra-day high. A fall of 10 percent is an internationally accepted definition of a bear market in stocks.

Global stock markets, which were roiled by a heavy Chinese market sell-off in late February, appeared to be taking the latest slump in stride, though many Asian markets came off the day's highs as the rout in Shanghai worsened.

"I knew the market would go down, but I did not expect it would be this fast. After a small plunge, it should go up, but it is not going up," said Madame Wang, a pensioner in her 50s, who put some of her savings into stocks during the bull run.

"Next time I will remember -- once the market falls, I will sell all my stocks."

Many fund managers and analysts in Asia said the index, which had risen 62 percent this year to last Tuesday's close after surging 130 percent in 2006, had room to fall much further in coming days as the excesses of the bull run were corrected.

But many also said they did not believe the market as a whole was going into freefall.

Most worrying to analysts were deep falls in some of the blue chips favored by institutional investors, since those stocks had stayed firm last week even as speculative shares tumbled.

Oil refiner Sinopec, which had risen 16 percent over the final three days of the week, sank its 10 percent daily limit to 13.65 yuan.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest bank, dropped 8.1 percent to 4.99 yuan.

The Shanghai Composite Index ended the day at 3,670.401 points, its lowest level since April 25. Losing stocks overwhelmed gainers by 846 to 17, with about 466 shares plunging their 10 percent daily limits.

Turnover in Shanghai A shares was active at 143.0 billion yuan ($18.7 billion), but down sharply from Friday's 224.7 billion yuan, suggesting many investors were pulling out of the market.

"Most new retail investors are too speculative to envision the mid- to long-term positive market trend. Their exit will cause a market landing, be it hard or soft," Morgan Stanley said in a report.

Traders see strong technical support for the index around 3,600, where it briefly peaked in mid-April. That level would still leave the market up 35 percent from the start of this year.

"Since the index has even fallen below 3,700 now, I believe the correction is about over," said Zheng Weigang at Shanghai Securities.

Another disillusioned investor at an Everbright Securities branch in Shanghai's financial district, a woman in her 30s surnamed Xu, said:

"I used to have confidence in the stock market. But how can I have confidence now that it has fallen so much. I have no more confidence. Even if the government wants to regulate the stock market, it should not be done like this."

($1 = 7.65 yuan)

(Additional reporting by Charlie Zhu and Lu Jianxin)

Salon: Waterboarding out, sensory deprivation in at CIA

RAW STORY
In order to comply with the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which outlaws "tough" interrogation techniques, President Bush is expected "to issue an executive order that will set new ground rules for the CIA's secret program for interrogating captured al-Qaida types," according to Salon.

It is thought that the order will do away with waterboarding as a permissible interrogation technique, which means, reports Mark Benjamin, sensory deprivation is likely to become the preferred choice for CIA interrogators.

"The technique has already been employed during the 'war on terror,' and, Salon has learned, was apparently used on 14 high-value detainees now held at Guantánamo Bay," writes Salon.

If the White House does turn to sensory deprivation, there may be little Congress can do to stop it, says Salon.

Excerpts from the Salon report follow:

#
The benign-sounding form of psychological coercion has been considered effective for most of the life of the agency, and its slippery definition might allow it to squeeze through loopholes in a law that seeks to ban prisoner abuse. Interviews with former CIA officials and experts on interrogation suggest that it is an obvious choice for interrogators newly constrained by law.

...

"I'd be surprised if [sensory deprivation] came out of the toolbox," said A.B. Krongard, who was the No. 3 official at the CIA until late 2004. Alfred McCoy, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has written extensively about the history of CIA interrogation, agrees with Krongard that the CIA will continue to employ sensory deprivation. "Of course they will," predicted McCoy. "It is embedded in the doctrine." For the CIA to stop using sensory deprivation, McCoy says, "The leopard would have to change his spots." And he warned that a practice that may sound innocuous to some was sharpened by the agency over the years into a horrifying torture technique.

Sensory deprivation, as CIA research and other agency interrogation materials demonstrate, is a remarkably simple concept. It can be inflicted by immobilizing individuals in small, soundproof rooms and fitting them with blacked-out goggles and earmuffs. "The first thing that happens is extraordinary hallucinations akin to mescaline," explained McCoy. "I mean extreme hallucinations" of sight and sound. It is followed, in some cases within just two days, by what McCoy called a "breakdown akin to psychosis."

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Armed Men Terrorize School

Michigan raid part of unfolding agenda to mould schools into prisons and students into obedient slaves

prisonplanet

A recent incident in which armed riot police raided a Michigan junior and high school as part of a drill that the children were not aware was about to take place raises the bar in the pursuit of an agenda to fully transform public schools into prison training camps set up to breed continuous generations of obedient slaves.

The Associated Press reports,

"A school safety drill that included police officers in riot gear with weapons has caused concern among some parents who say it was too realistic and frightened some students."

"Students, who were unaware police were conducting a drill, were taken from the classroom into the halls, patted down by officers and asked what they had in their pockets, the newspaper said."

"Some of these kids were so scared, they just about wet their pants," said Marge Bradshaw, a parent with four children in Godfrey-Lee Schools. "I think it's pure wrong that the students and parents were not informed of this."

The students were not told that the drill was about to take place and the teachers were given just a moments notice.

This follows an incident in early October where another Michigan school was locked down for hours after a teenager was seen in the woods wearing a Halloween mask.

The raid is similar to past examples such as Goose Creek South Carolina (video below), where armed police raided a high school with weapons drawn supposedly in search of drugs. Shouting officers aimed guns at students heads as they were ordered face-up against the wall, then into Guantanamo style squats as they were handcuffed and K9 dogs sniffed their backpacks.

No drugs were found and the Goose Creek Police Department, the city, as well as the Berkeley County School District had to pay $1.6 million for violating the rights of nearly 150 students caught in the raid. The three had to sign a consent decree barring similar activities in future but it included a waver where probable cause or voluntary consent could be cited to conduct further raids.

Having armed men terrorize children is by design and it is intended to normalize the police state and train students to accept it as a routine function of society when they leave school.

Footage from other school raid drills where police in riot gear point MP5's at students is included in the footage below, taken from Alex Jones' 9/11: The Road To Tyranny. FBI storm troopers in black uniforms and helmets scream and cuss at children in one instance before loading them on buses and taking them to a local jail. In Fort Worth Texas, the cop of the year was shot in the head by one of his own officers in another school drill.

Also highlighted is the Heartland Christian Academy school siege where CPS and police kidnapped hundreds of children without a warrant. Watch in horror as children filled with terror are forcibly dragged from their screaming mothers and loaded onto prison buses.

A federal judge later barred CPS from removing children from the school in future but vaguely defined provisions remained in place where it could be justified.

Michigan is the epicenter of the agenda to mould all schools into youth internment centers, indoctrinating all children to accept the presence of surveillance cameras, biometric scanning to access buildings and buy food, ID tracking cards and men in uniforms pointing guns at them as normal. Allied to this is the openly stated agenda not to educate but to dumb down students and brainwash them with bizarre humanist rhetoric about the evils of the family, all in preparation for their smooth acquiescence into enslaved adulthood as a downtrodden worker bee under the control matrix of the elite.

From the very foundation of the public school system the elite made their plans clear. The goal was to psychologically mould people to create mindless drones and bricks in the wall of the system, via learning monotonously by rote and the day being divided up by pavlovian bells.

In his 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College, Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford—wrote that schools should be factories "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry."

Similarly, the Rockefeller Education Board—which funded the creation of numerous public schools—issued a statement which read in part:

"In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way."

These are the founders of the public education system in America. The agenda from the very start was to eliminate all forms of objective thought and use education to produce automatons of the state who would shrink from embracing higher forms of intellectual pursuit and truly understanding their role and potential to advance freedom in human society.

When this insipid abuse of the power that the architects hold to shape minds of the future is homogenized with the jackboot thuggery of the proto-police state cameras and security minions that stalk the hallways and corridors - the result is a pack of trained rats, subdued and conditioned to follow the every command of their masters from cradle to grave.

In September 2004, the Muskegon Chronicle reported on a drill that revolved around a mock terrorist attack on a Michigan school bus. The terrorist group were labeled, "Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be homeschooled."



The mock attack was funded by a Homeland Security grant and required the participation of students to act bloody and injured, also involving hospitals, morgues and mannequins painted up to look like dead children, as parents were ordered to dash to emergency rooms frantic in the belief that their child had perished.

The Muskegon Area Intermediate School District later had to apologize for characterizing homeschoolers as terrorists after hundreds of complaints poured in.

Stereotypes consistently propped-up by the media demonize homeschoolers as hicks, retards and extremists, despite the fact the local and national spelling bees are routinely won by homeschooled children.

The ceaseless attack on homeschooling is an attempt to neutralize any alternatives parents have to placing their children in the state run re-education gulags known as the "public school system."

In April 2005 a 5-year-old Florida girl was manhandled and handcuffed by police after she had a tantrum. Cases of zealous clampdowns by the authorities in schools are rife and pretext for the imposition of draconian measures of surveillance and armed security thugs is provided by regular school shootings across the country.

In almost every case the shooter is hopped up on a combination of the Ritalin-style substances that have become prevalent in America as our children are force-drugged with dangerous toxic trash, not to mention the increasing amount of mandatory vaccinations, and turned into mumbling nervous wrecks - all the natural zest and innocence of childhood cruelly raped from them by the state.

One in seven children are on Ritalin and other dangerous psychotropic drugs which make them swing between drooling in the corner at one point and then acting wildly the next. These numbers are only increasing. Children are put on these drugs in the first place for the most inane and insane reasons, such as raising their hand to answer questions in class too often.

In other cases, like Columbine, the shootings are deliberately aided by the state apparatus to manipulate popular opinion and pass gun control legislation as well as increase the chorus for more school lock-downs and restrictive and oppressive control measures.

We will continue to see armed men terrorize our children, aim guns at their head and indoctrinate them to accept living under tyranny unless parents and teacher organizations band together to file huge lawsuits against those responsible and we vehemently denounce the insidious Sovietization of the public school system.

Police, SWAT Team Surround Ed Brown's Property

New Waco could be unfolding
PRISONPLANET

A new Waco could be underway as reports come in of law enforcement, APC's and SWAT team personnel descending on the home of Ed Brown, the tax protester who has threatened to use force to defend himself against authorities.

We have now received unconfirmed reports that the Brown house is on fire - although according to reports, Plainfield – "Federal authorities indicated Thursday they will not raid the home of two convicted tax evaders but would serve a warrant."

Fred Smart, a close friend of the Brown's confirmed that Brown's phone has been cut and that at around 8:30PM last night a silent surveillance drone with a bright beaming light encircled the Brown's property as if conducting reconnaissance.

News reporters have confirmed that police have surrounded the property and that they were kept away from the property. Neighbors have been evacuted from their homes.

Officer Jack McLamb attempted to call the Sheriff's office in the area but was told that he was out of town.

Authorities have been telling reporters that they would not violently engage the Brown family for the past few months but this now appears to be the case.

"Dozens of heavily armed state police and federal agents have assembled near the rural Grafton County home of tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown."

"About 50 state troopers, some armed with high-powered rifles, along with a vehicle from the explosives unit gathered this morning in Plainfield, a small town where Edward and Elaine Brown have holed up in their home since being convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to lengthy federal prison terms," reports the Plainfield Union Leader.

More live updates at this blog.

VIDEO news report from the scene.

We are encouraging people in the Plainfield area to get down to the area immediately to see what is happening.

More on this story as it develops.....

RELATED: SWAT Teams, Armored Vehicle Seen Near Brown Compound

Ron Paul Attacks Giulianis Support Of National ID Card

PRISONPLANET

During an appearance on MSNBC last night, presidential candidate Ron Paul attacked Rudy Giuliani's support of a national ID card, pointing out that its true agenda was not to keep track of illegal aliens, but to force American citizens to carry their papers and have their privacy invaded by the government.

The Texas Congressman joined Tucker Carlson for an eight minute interview. Watch the video below.


"They should have a tamper-proof I.D. card. It should be in a database that allows you to figure out who they are, why they're here, make sure they're not illegal immigrants coming here for a bad purpose, and then to be able to throw out the ones who are not in that database," Giuliani stated during the debate on Tuesday night.

Mitt Romney also parroted Giuliani's call for a national ID card, before Giuliani backpedaled and claimed he only supported a national ID card for immigrants and not all American citizens. But since illegal immigrants by their very nature are elusive to track such a distinction is impossible to make without forcing everyone living in the United States to accept an ID card and metering out punishments for those who refuse. If an ID card is introduced, it will be forced upon American citizens as well as immigrants.

Asked if he echoed Giuliani's support of a national ID card and a database, the Texas Congressman responded, "Absolutely not - I voted against the Real ID, I think the Real ID is the national ID card, it's introducing the notion that we will be carrying our papers.".

Paul added that it was impossible to restrict a national ID card solely to illegal aliens or hispanics and that the idea made no sense.

"The (dangers) should never be bad enough to sacrifice liberty and there's no reason to sacrifice liberty in thinking that you're going to be safer," said Paul.

Giuliani cited credit card companies as an example of how large amounts of information can be stored safely without a violation of privacy.

In the Carlson interview, Ron Paul outlines the clear difference between the private and government sector holding information on an individual. If the private sector invades an individual's privacy, they can turn to the government to enforce the rule of law for a redress but no such opportunity exists if the government invades privacy, such as in the case of the warrantless wiretapping scandal, where the only recourse is to cite the Constitution.

In addition, there have been numerous cases where the databases of credit card companies have been hacked and the information of millions of consumers has been exposed to criminals, so how can we expect the government to safeguard our information to any greater degree, especially in light of the fact that many ID schemes across the world are financed by means of the government selling our information to all manner of corporations and private business interests in the first place?

Ron Paul's opposition to the introduction of a national ID, like every other issue he stands for, has remained steadfast and unwavering.

Shortly after the introduction of the Real ID legislation in January 2005, Dr. Paul denounced the national ID as "Not proper in a free society," adding, "This is America, not Soviet Russia. The federal government should never be allowed to demand papers from American citizens, and it certainly has no constitutional authority to do so."

“History shows that governments inevitably use such power in harmful ways. The 9-11 commission, whose recommendations underlie this bill, has called for internal screening points where identification will be demanded. Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free nations. It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane," Paul concluded.



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BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Corruption 'damaging education'

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Corruption 'damaging education'

Corruption 'damaging education'
Bribery and corruption damage universities and schools across the world, according to a report for the UN's education wing, Unesco.

The study says education is plagued by rigged tendering processes, academic fraud and bribes over places and posts.

Academic fraud, such as fake degrees, is more common in the United States than in developing countries, it says.

The study of more than 60 countries says that in some, illegal use of funds meant for schools can be very high.

This loss between ministries and schools - or "leakage" as it is called - can be as much as 80% of the non-salary cash for schools.

Recent surveys have shown that ghost teachers on school payrolls represent 5% of the payroll in Honduras and 15% in Papua New Guinea, according to the survey.

Fake universities

In higher education, the problems centre mostly on bogus universities, degrees which can be bought rather than earned and fake accreditation or licensing of institutions.

The study says the number of fake universities on the internet offering bogus degrees rose from 200 to 800 between 2000 and 2004.

Officials in Ukraine had admitted that in 2005 most licensing or accreditation applications for the country's 175 private universities required some form of bribery for success.

Authors Jacques Hallak and Muriel Poisson paint a bleak picture of world education.

Such widespread corruption not only costs societies billions of dollars, it also seriously undermines the vital effort to provide education for all
Koïchiro Matsuura, director-general of Unesco

Their report says: "In most societies - rich and poor - the education sector is facing severe difficulties and crisis; financial constraints, weak management, low efficiency, wastage of resources, low quality of service delivery and lack of relevance as illustrated by high unemployment of graduates, among others".

The authors say the lack of integrity in education systems leads donors to question the worth of aid programmes.

The answer, they say, lies in strengthening regulatory systems and management as well as educating future generations about ethics to try to stamp out corruption.

They say there are good examples of countries which have overcome corruption problems, such as Azerbaijan, where fraud in university entrance exams was cut through the use of computer technology which stopped people altering marks.

In Uganda, they say "leakages" of funds in the transfer of money from the education ministry to schools was cut from 87% to 15%. This was achieved by giving more information to local communities and by publicising penalties taken against corrupt officials.

The director-general of Unesco, Koïchiro Matsuura, said the report was a call to action.

"Such widespread corruption not only costs societies billions of dollars, it also seriously undermines the vital effort to provide education for all.

"It prevents poorer parents from sending their children to school, robs schools and pupils of equipment, lowers teaching standards and thus education standards generally, and compromises the future of our youth. We cannot let it go unchecked."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/6729537.stm

Published: 2007/06/07 10:40:00 GMT

© BBC MMVII

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Students go on rampage in China

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Students go on rampage in China

Students go on rampage in China
By James Reynolds
BBC News, Beijing

Hundreds of students have rioted against the police in central China.

Witnesses said the unrest, in the city of Zhengzhou in Henan province, was sparked on Wednesday after a student was beaten by police.

She had been selling items on the street, apparently without a licence. There was an argument and reports say officials broke her front teeth.

At this point other students began to gather round and witnesses say hundreds clashed with police and burned cars.

The police called in reinforcements.

Roads were blocked into the night. On Thursday morning, the city was reported to be quiet.

Six police officers have now been arrested for their part in the disturbances and their superiors have also been reprimanded.

This kind of large protest makes the Chinese Communist Party very uneasy. It is deeply wary of social unrest.

But the central government also wants to show that it is prepared to take action against heavy-handed local authorities.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6729557.stm

Published: 2007/06/07 09:14:30 GMT

Israel fears Syrian attack | International News | News | Telegraph

Israel fears Syrian attack | International News | News | Telegraph

Israel fears Syrian attack

By Charles Levinson in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 1:55am BST 07/06/2007

Israel was seeking peace with Syria, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, said yesterday amid tensions over a reported military buildup on both sides of their border.

The Israeli army takes part in a military manoeuvre; Israel was seeking peace with Syria, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, said yesterday amid tensions over a reported military buildup on both sides of their border
Helicopters and tanks are mobilized as the Israeli army takes part in a military manoeuvre to conquer a Syrian outpost

Israeli intelligence officials have been warning for weeks that Syria is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in anti-tank weapons, antiaircraft rockets, and other missiles, and bolstering its presence along the Israeli border.

Mohammad al Habash, a Syrian parliament member, meanwhile, told the Al Jazeera satellite channel this week that his country was actively preparing for war with Israel, which he said he expected to break out this summer.

Israel has similarly fortified its own border defences and on Tuesday conducted well-publicised war games which included a simulated attack on a Syrian village and a surprise attack by Syrian commandoes on the Golan Heights. With both sides on alert and deeply mistrustful of the other's intentions, it is widely feared that a misstep could spark a war that neither side wants.

"Israel seeks peace with Syria," Mr Olmert told his security cabinet. But the Israeli premier warned of "miscalculations that could cause the security situation to worsen".

His comments were the latest indication that the Jewish state is ready to resume long dormant peace negotiations with Syria.

Fears of an accidental war have prompted a handful of senior officials including Amir Peretz, the defence minister, and army Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi to call for reviving talks with Syria.

Shaul Mofaz, the transportation minister and former army Chief of Staff, left for Washington yesterday to seek the Bush administration's blessing for opening direct communication with Syria.

Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright

U.S. gives terror informants $10 million - International Terrorism - MSNBC.com

U.S. gives terror informants $10 million - International Terrorism - MSNBC.com

U.S. gives terror informants $10 million
Four men rewarded for tip that led to killing of two top terror suspects
The Associated Press
Updated: 7:30 a.m. ET June 7, 2007

MANILA, Philippines - The U.S. ambassador to the Philippines handed over a $10 million reward Thursday to four Filipino informants whose tip led to the killing of the country’s two top terror suspects, the U.S. Embassy said.

It was the largest reward given so far by Washington in a campaign to wipe out al-Qaida-linked militants in the southern Philippines, where the U.S. military has been training and advising Filipino troops.

The U.S. promised a reward of up to $5 million each for Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani, who was slain in a September clash on southern Jolo island, and his presumed successor, Abu Sulaiman, who was killed on Jolo in January.

“Information provided by the brave Filipino citizens recognized today was instrumental in assisting the Armed Forces of the Philippines to track down and locate these two terrorist leaders,” the embassy said in a statement.

The four men, wearing masks to protect their identities, received the money in five black plastic suitcases at the Jolo provincial capitol complex from embassy officials.

Jolo offensive
More than 7,000 Filipino soldiers, backed by U.S. military surveillance and other noncombatant assistance, have been waging an offensive on Jolo since last August.

Authorities have declined to discuss the precise role of the informants and how their information contributed to the slayings of the two terror suspects, citing concerns for their safety.

Philippine officials have said the four informants included former Abu Sayyaf members who surrendered to the military and led troops in January to a jungle grave where remains were found. DNA test results later confirmed they were Janjalani’s.

Days earlier, U.S.-trained Philippine army special forces gunned down Abu Sulaiman, a veteran Abu Sayyaf guerrilla.

Accused of deadly kidnapping, ferry blast
The two men were accused of plotting the kidnapping of American and Filipino tourists from a resort on the southeastern island of Palawan in 2001, during which one of the Americans was beheaded, as well as a 2004 ferry blast that killed 116 people in Manila.

A manhunt continues for other Abu Sayyaf commanders and two top Indonesian militants who are wanted for their alleged roles in the 2002 nightclub bombings that killed 202 people on Indonesia’s Bali island.

Dulmatin and Umar Patek are key operatives of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network. Washington has offered a $10 million reward for Dulmatin’s capture and $1 million for Patek.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19085956/