Official: Prisoners Riot, Take Hostages In New OrleansInmates at a prison in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have rioted, attempted to escape and are now holding hostages, a prison commissioner told ABC News affiliate WBRZ in Baton Rouge, La.
Orleans Parish Prison Commissioner Oliver Thomas reported the incident to WBRZ.
A deputy at Orleans Parish Prison, his wife and their four children have been taken hostage by rioting prisoners after riding out Hurricane Katrina inside the jail building, according to WBRZ.
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Bush's approval rating sinks lower: pollPresident George W Bush's approval rating sank to an all time low of 45 per cent, in a Washington Post-ABC poll published today that also said he could do more to ease soaring gasoline prices.
The August 25-28 survey of 1,006 adults with a three per cent margin of error found that 53 per cent of Americans disapproved of how Mr Bush was handling his job as president.
Only 45 per cent approved of his performance, the lowest approval rating ever recorded for Bush in th... (more)
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Russian Security Services Facilitated Beslan Raid — BasayevThe man behind the Beslan school siege said Tuesday a failed Russian special services sting had allowed his militants a free passage into the region to conduct the attack that killed 330 people almost a year ago, Reuters news agency reports.
Shamil Basayev, Russia’s most wanted man, issued the statement on separatist website www.kavkazcenter.com days before the anniversary of the bloodbath and at a time when authorities face criticism for failing to clarify what happened.... (more)
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Russia Releases Former Intelligence Officer Behind Probe of 1999 BombingsA court in the city of Nizhny Tagil has released former FSB officer Mikhail Trepashkin. As a former intelligence officer and lawyer, Trepashkin led a probe into the 1999 apartment bombings — attacks that claimed the lives of over 200 people in Moscow. His supporters claimed Trepashkin was punished for his attempts to reveal the truth.
The court released the former FSB officer on parole, his defense lawyer, Yelena Lipster said Wednesday. Trepashkin returned home today, she sa... (more)
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Iraq stampede deaths near 1,000Almost 1,000 people are known to have died in a stampede of Shia pilgrims in northern Baghdad, Iraqi health officials have said.
So far, there have been at least 965 confirmed deaths, making the incident the single biggest loss of Iraqi life since the US-led invasion in 2003.
The incident happened on a river bridge as about a million Shias marched to a shrine for a religious festival.
Witnesses said panic spread over rumours of suicide bombers.
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60,000 trapped in FEMA's Superdome concentration campFrom WWL-TV's wwltv.com:
"4:21 P.M. - WWL-TV Reporter quotes officials as saying there may now be 60,000 people in the Superdome and that more people are still being urged to go there."
Official spokesmen are now denying the numerous reports this morning from National Guardsmen and others that New Orleans is under martial law. But that is exactly what NO and southeast La. are under as the governor demands the entire city be evacuated..
Numerous media ... (more)
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Reader in Utah comments on police raidOn August 20 in Utah County, Utah (40 miles south of Salt Lake City) an event occurred indicative of a nation on the verge of becoming a police state. It was on this night at 11:30 p.m. that 90 members of the Utah County police department raided a “Rave” taking place on private land in Spanish Fork Canyon. Police raiding the party looked more like National Guard than local police, equipped with Kevlar vests, army fatigues and automatic weapons.
Conflicting stories have... (more)
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Reuters cameraman to be held in Abu GhraibA cameraman for Reuters in Iraq has been ordered by a secret tribunal to be held without charge in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison until his case is reviewed within six months, a US military spokesman said today.
Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani was arrested by US forces on August 8 after a search of his home in the city of Ramadi.
The US military has refused Reuters requests to disclose why he is being held. He has not been charged.
His brother, who was de... (more)
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FBI library records probe hits home Librarians are intently following the progress of a lawsuit after disclosures that federal agents have used the Patriot Act to try to seize users' records at a Fairfield County library.
A controversial provision of the Patriot Act, a landmark federal law passed a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, grants FBI officials unprecedented leeway in investigations.
Court papers indicate that the institution FBI officials demanded records from is a Bridgepor... (more)
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Patriot Act Defense In Homeless Transit Case Gets Boost From FedsWhen officials in Summit invoked the USA Patriot Act to justify kicking homeless people out of its train station, the move was ridiculed in many quarters; even the U.S. Justice Department said the city had no business applying the anti-terrorism law to justify its treatment of the homeless.
But now that the federal government has issued a warning in the aftermath of the London bombings that terrorists may pose as homeless people to watch buildings and mass transit stations while p... (more)
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Tortured Chinese fights deportationA Chinese man tortured for his Christian faith is fighting for the right to stay in the U.S. and not be deported back to his homeland where he faces two years of imprisonment for illegally practicing his religion.
The Alliance Defense Fund has taken up the asylum cause of Li Xiaodong of Ningbo, China, under the Convention Against Torture Act. On Aug. 9 a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit denied Li's request to stay in the U.S. The religious-liberty... (more)
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Britain uses hate law to ban animal rights campaignerCharles Clarke, the home secretary, has used the government's crackdown on preachers of hate to ban an American professor who speaks for the Animal Liberation Front.
Steven Best, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso, had intended to travel to the UK to take part in an event to celebrate the closure of a farm breeding guinea pigs for research.
The closure of the Newchurch Farm business following years of harassment and intimidation, including... (more)
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City to review Taser use during protestPittsburgh will scrutinize why city police used Tasers and police dogs to control a crowd of protesters Aug. 20 outside a military recruiting post in Oakland.
Police officers used a Taser to subdue a man and a woman in a crowd of more than three dozen protesters and allowed a second woman to be bitten by a police dog during the anti-war protest and march.
Pittsburgh City Council members plan to hold a televised public meeting with Pittsburgh Police Chief Robert W. M... (more)
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Global Aerial Surveillance Announces Plans to Develop an Amphibious Surveillance VehicleGlobal Aerial Surveillance (OTC: GARS), a developer and manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for both commercial and military applications, announced today that it is planning to develop a fully autonomous amphibious UAV designed for surveillance and search and rescue missions.
Global's new design, named the 'Sea Wraith,' is a fallback on an old maritime surveillance vehicle that has been used for spotting submarines and ships in the past. During WW2, sea planes were use... (more)
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Russia Planning More Military Exercises With China — Defense MinisterRussia is interested in holding new military exercises with China involving Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday.
“We have not yet reached any specific accords but the General Staff and I would like to plan such exercises in the future and involve SCO member states,” Ivanov was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying at a meeting with President Putin in Sochi.
The first Sino-Russian joint military exercis... (more)
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Russia Maintaining Offensive Bio Weapons — U.S. ReportEvidence indicates that Russia along with Iran, North Korea and Syria continues to maintain biological weapons programs, AP reported Tuesday citing a U.S. State Department report.
The study, mandated by Congress, assesses compliance by foreign countries with arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament agreements. It covers developments over a two-year period ending in December 2004.
Available evidence shows that Russia “continues to maintain” an offen... (more)
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Flu pandemic is possible, official saysAn official of the state Department of Health raised the possibility yesterday of a worldwide outbreak of the avian flu, citing the shortage of vaccines in recent years and the ability for the virus to mutate and travel globally.
Barbara Wallace, director of communicable disease control for the agency, told health professionals at the Nassau County Bar Association in Mineola that in the event of a pandemic - or widespread outbreak - a flu shot would not be immediately available. C... (more)
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Giant water plume spews from Saturn’s moonFour fissures in the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus are spewing out a plume hundreds of kilometres high, the Cassini probe has revealed, and the ejecta is leaving a vapour trail that rings Saturn.
Scientists are shocked by this volcanic activity on what should be a small, quiet moon. "It is a stunning surprise," said Dennis Matson, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US. But researchers are beginning to develop theories about what is going on.
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Students run for new world orderTheir zeal to make the world a better place to live-in surpassed their age, as 7000 students of City Montessori School came together in a World Unity March, from Kailashpuri Chauraha to CMS, Kanpur Road branch, today.
This march was organised with an aim to provide a platform to children demanding from the world leaders- who would participate in the UN World Summit, New York (between September 14 to 16)- a new world order, ensuring a safer tommorrow for all the two billion childre... (more)
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NY Times Skews the News… Again"By the charter that my job was given when it was set up, I have the guaranteed right to go not just to the executive editor with any misgivings I have, but directly to the publisher. On one occasion, when I thought that there was too much opinion seeping into the news pages, I went to both of them simultaneously. But that's the only time I've felt it necessary to involve the publisher."
- Allan M. Siegal, "standards editor" of the New York Times, Aug. 28, 2005 (emphasis added)
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CIA banned from Danish air spaceThe Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs says unauthorized flights by the CIA will not be allowed into Danish airspace
The government has told the United States that the CIA can no longer use Danish airspace for flights to transport suspected terrorists around the world, reported the Copenhagen Post.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made it quite clear to U.S. officials that Denmark does not want its airspace used for purposes that are in conflict with internation... (more)
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Superdome of ShameWatching news coverage of the refugees trying to enter the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans for safety from the approaching force-five Hurricane Katrina, I was incredulous how the people attempting to enter the stadium were being treated by the National Guard troops and local police. The people were made to stand for hours outside in the awful Louisiana climate while they were admitted one or two adults at a time so they could be searched "for firearms and alcohol."
The frail el... (more)
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Did Time intentionally deceive its readers in Plame case?For some time, the central mystery in the Valerie Plame saga was which members of the White House staff leaked the undercover CIA operative's identity to reporters. Although there are still many unanswered questions, at least part of the mystery has been solved: Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper has testified that he was told about Plame by White House senior adviser Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Yet while Cooper and his editors at ... (more)
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Zarqawi replaces Osama as terror world Numero Uno:New York: Iraqi separatist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi seems to have overshadowed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, as far as the world most wanted terrorist is concerned.
Quoting US intelligence officials interrogating al Qaeda deputy Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who was captured in May in Pakistan, the New York Post today reported that both al-Libbi and al-Zarqawi discussed setting up terror training camps in various parts of the Middle East, including Turkey, Syria, Lebanon or Jordan.
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Saturn moon delights and bafflesSpace scientists say their discoveries about Saturn's moon Enceladus are stunning, if just a little baffling.
Using the instrument-packed Cassini probe, they have confirmed that the 500km-wide world has an atmosphere.
They have also seen a "hotspot" at the icy moon's south pole, which is riven with cracks dubbed "tiger stripes".
But the US and European scientists told a London meeting they could not yet explain fully the energetic processes driving al... (more)
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