Eeyores news and view

Plan to protect D.C. from nuke EMP attack
Defense initiative focuses on saving government
Posted: June 25, 2009 12:00 am Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily
Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
Air Force One
WASHINGTON – As North Korea threatens a missile launch on Hawaii and Iran continues to develop its own nuclear war capabilities, President Obama has greenlighted a plan to save the federal government from the devastating capabilities of a nuclear electro-magnetic pulse attack on the U.S, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
As WND has reported, a high-altitude nuclear EMP attack potentially could disrupt or damage electronic systems over much of the U.S., William Graham, chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States From Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in July 2008.
The commission concluded Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons. Since 2005 Tehran has been testing ballistic missiles designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower.
Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers above the continental U.S., one nuclear warhead could cripple the country – knocking out electrical power and circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications impotent.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
In 2005, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired by Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., held a hearing on the EMP threat.
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies – terrorist or otherwise," wrote Kyl. "And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years."
While few preparations have been made since 2005 to protect the American heartland, the Defense Information Systems Agency plans to install a presidential network in the Washington area this year that will be able to survive an attack by a nuclear weapon that generates a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse.
The agency started work on the network last year to install communications equipment resistant to damage by an EMP attack. The network was developed at the direction of the "National Security Presidential Directive on Survivable Senior Leadership Communications in a HEMP Environment." It features Promina network switches from Network Equipment Technologies Inc. and manage communications over a specially designed and deployed Voice over Internet Protocol network.
DISA developed the HEMP system, which includes upgrades to a UHF network serving senior leadership in the Washington area, as part of a National Emergency Action Decision Network to serve the president, secretary of defense and other senior leaders. John Garing, DISA chief information officer and director of strategic planning, said the network supports radio systems on helicopters and feeds into the HEMP network. Funding for all systems in the National Emergency Action Decision Network is pegged at less than $1 million.
The systems will be installed in ground installations and executive aircraft, including Air Force One, four VIP Boeing 757s and two VIP Boeing 737 aircraft.
DISA also asked for $49.5 million in its fiscal 2010 budget for the Crisis Management System, a "high-performance, closed network that provides classified multimedia teleconferencing for the president, Cabinet secretaries, designated agency directors and their staffs," budget documents noted.
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102023

Well almost Judicial Restraint, i guess as close as we will come too it.
Court says strip search violated girl's rights
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's decision Thursday striking down the strip search of an eighth-grade girl for prescription-strength ibuprofen requires schools nationwide to weigh more carefully how intrusively they search for drugs.
By an 8-1 vote, the justices ruled that school officials in a rural Arizona district violated the Fourth Amendment rights of Savana Redding when they forced her to take off her clothes after an unverified tip that she had the pain relief pills. The court emphasized the difference between a routine search of a backpack and a search that exposes a student's private parts. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.
The decision, which differs from signals the justices sent during oral arguments in April, also departs from a recent trend giving administrators wide latitude to search for drugs in schools.
Writing for the court, Justice David Souter said an official must have a "reasonable suspicion of danger" regarding the drugs sought and a belief they could be hidden in a student's underwear before making "the quantum leap from outer clothes and backpacks to exposure of intimate parts."
Matthew Wright, lawyer for the Safford school district, predicted the decision would have a "chilling effect" on administrators responding to threats of drugs. Francisco Negron, lawyer for the National School Boards Association, said the decision could be confusing for school officials, who typically lack formal training in drugs yet would have to consider whether the contraband they seek is dangerous enough to do to a strip search.
Savana Redding, who was 13 at the time of the search and is now 19, said, "I'm so glad that they recognized that my rights were violated. I don't want this to happen to anyone else." Her lawyer, Adam Wolf, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case, added, "Today's ruling affirms that schools are not constitutional dead zones."
In October 2003, after Assistant Principal Kerry Wilson heard from a student that Redding might have ibuprofen, he asked a school nurse and administration assistant, both women, to search Savana in the nurse's office. They asked her to take off her shirt and pants, then to pull out her bra and underpants to see whether she was hiding any pills.
No pills were found. Savana's mother, April Redding, sued, saying school officials breached Savana's rights under the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches. A lower U.S. appeals court ruled for Redding and said Safford officials were financially responsible for harm to her.
In affirming that her rights were violated, Souter said a strip search requires officials to have an "indication of danger (and) reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear."
Souter was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito. Dissenting Justice Thomas said the decision allows judges "to second-guess" officials trying to ensure student safety.
By a separate vote of 7-2, the court said that because rulings in this area of the law have not been clear, Safford officials are shielded from financial responsibility for their actions. Stevens and Ginsburg dissented from that part of the ruling in Safford Unified School District No. 1 v. Redding.
During oral arguments April 21, many justices voiced more sympathy for school administrators than for Redding. Several, including Souter and Roberts, appeared open to arguments that administrators need considerable leeway to look for drug abuse. Ginsburg was most forceful on the other side. In a concurring opinion Thursday, Ginsburg emphasized the humiliation Savana endured, including being forced to sit on a chair outside Wilson's office even after the search found no pills.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2009-06-25-scotus-strip-search_N.htm

US swine flu cases may have hit 1 million June 26, 2009 - 12:53am AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA (AP) - Swine flu has infected as many as 1 million Americans, U.S. health officials said Thursday, adding that 6 percent or more of some urban populations are infected. The estimate voiced by a government flu scientist Thursday was no surprise to the experts who have been closely watching the virus.
"We knew diagnosed cases were just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert who was in Atlanta for the meeting of a vaccine advisory panel.
Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the 1 million estimate in a presentation to the vaccine panel. The number is from mathematical modeling, based on surveys by health officials.
Regular seasonal flu sickens anywhere from 15 million to 60 million Americans each year.
The United States has roughly half the world's swine flu cases, with nearly 28,000 reported to the CDC so far. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths.
The percentage of cases hospitalized has been growing, but that may be due to closer scrutiny of very sick patients. It takes about three days from the time symptoms appear to hospitalization, Finelli said, and the average hospital stay has been three days.
Other health problems have been a factor in most cases: About one in three of the hospitalized cases had asthma, 16 percent diabetes, 12 percent have immune system problems and 11 percent chronic heart disease.
The numbers again highlight how the young seem to be particularly at risk of catching the new virus. But data also show that the flu has been more dangerous to adults who catch it.
The average age of swine flu patients is 12, the average age for hospitalized patients is 20, and for people who died, it was 37. It seems to be deadliest to people 65 and older, with deaths in more than 2 percent of elderly people infected, Finelli said.
Also at the meeting, CDC officials made projections about flu vaccines expected to be available to protect against both seasonal and swine flu this fall.
More than 25 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine should be available by early September, CDC officials and vaccine manufacturers said.
The same five manufacturers that make the seasonal vaccine are producing swine flu vaccine as well. As many as 60 million doses of vaccine to protect against the new virus could be ready by September, said Robin Robinson, an official with the federal agency that oversees vaccine manufacture and distribution. That prediction seemed a bit optimistic, others at the meeting said.
The vaccinations might be given as two shots, spaced 21 days apart. But the vaccine has to be tested before it's made available to the public.
http://wtop.com/?nid=106&sid=1661303

H1N1 / 6,000 Deaths / The Pandemic is Here
Those who dismiss H1N1 as a panic-fest are profoundly wrong - even the mild version in a country like Canada could kill thousands. And the nightmare scenario? That would be really scary
So it's here at last. After months of will-it-won't-it anticipation, H1N1 officially went pandemic on June 11.
Yet despite increasing numbers of cases in over 70 countries, many still think it a fuss over nothing: "What's the big deal? It's just ordinary flu." It is worrying that even Canadians are saying this, although they know from recent memory what it is to experience a big disease outbreak.
Many in Britain are saying the same thing. One high-profile commentator, Simon Jenkins in the Guardian newspaper, asserted that swine flu was a panic stoked in order "to posture and spend," saying that health scares such as this enable media-hungry doctors, public-health officials and drug companies to benefit by manipulating fright.
Those who dismiss H1N1 as a panic-fest are profoundly wrong. This "ordinary flu" might have real consequences to many Canadians.
Canada has an excellent flu vaccination program and good access to medical care. Nonetheless, 6,000 to 8,000 Canadians die of seasonal flu each year, mostly older people or those with other health problems. These are people's mothers and grandfathers, uncles and fathers. Ordinary flu causes a great many deaths, even in a country such as Canada.
Let's say that H1N1 continues to be mild and is no worse than seasonal flu. "Mild" means having up to five days feeling really unwell with fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches, and then a further week before one feels able to return to work and normal life.
The old story about the difference between flu and a cold holds good: If a $50 bill is dropped outside your front door, if you've got a cold, you'll go pick it up; if you've got flu, not even $50 will get you out of bed.
This is a novel flu. While people over 50 seem to have some immunity, perhaps because of the Asian flu of 1957, those who are younger have not been exposed before and have no defences in place. Current H1N1 attack rates are about 20 per cent. That is, one in five people exposed to this new flu will come down with symptoms like the ones above; exposure can result from merely touching a surface where there are viruses, because someone else has touched it. Pretty much everyone who comes into contact with other people will be exposed to this flu, sooner or later.
4-PER-CENT IMPACT ON GDP
That means 20 per cent of the population becoming sick, with perhaps another 10 per cent of the working population home looking after them. Think about the effects on business, on transport, on day-to-day life, of so many people being off sick at the same time. Flu is estimated to have a 4-per-cent impact on a country's GDP.
And think about its effect on hospitals. Not on its effect on patients requiring intensive care, but its effect on staffing. A tanker drivers' strike in Britain bought our hospitals to a halt in less than a week. Why? Because schools didn't have fuel for heating and were closed, working mothers had to stay home to look after their children. Where are there are large proportion of working mothers? In nursing and allied health services.
There are 33 million people in Canada. At an attack rate of 20 per cent, six million people would develop flu. The death rate in Canada is currently tiny, at roughly 0.1 per cent (12 deaths, 4,905 cases). But 0.1 per cent of six million is 6,000. These 6,000 will not be just the old and the sick, whose deaths, extraordinarily, don't seem to greatly concern many commentators, but will include previously healthy twentysomethings (such as three of those admitted to intensive care units in Britain), pregnant women and a disproportionate number of those sections of the population that are genetically particularly susceptible. Such effects are already appearing in Canada with outbreaks of severe illness among previously healthy native people in Manitoba.
This is not scaremongering. This is reality.
Many people expect that all medical staff will turn up for work during a flu pandemic. Toronto's experience of SARS in 2003 shows that they won't, and cannot be made to do so. Many of them won't be able to, because they are looking after family at home, and some will fear catching flu and its effects. Normal hospital schedules will grind to a halt, meaning that far fewer elective procedures such as hip replacements and heart surgery can take place. It will inevitably cause deaths that should have been preventable. This is without the strain on services from many more people requiring respiratory support because of flu.
So why couldn't the hospital authorities make flu vaccines mandatory for health-care staff when they become available? Britain does not make this mandatory, and only 13 per cent of National Health Service Staff front-line staff voluntarily had seasonal flu vaccination in 2008-2009. Why? It's principally because staff think of flu as "ordinary," not something that causes severe illness. Recently, unvaccinated NHS staff were shown by Britain's Health Protection Agency to have been the cause of a major outbreak of flu among patients who were already critically ill in a hospital in Liverpool.
When people look upon the threat to themselves as "mild," they will not consider vaccination, which they feel has greater risks than the illness.
Playing in the background are current attitudes to vaccines, coloured by the long-running contention that the MMR vaccine is linked to autism, but also by the experience of swine flu in the United States in 1976.
THE FORT DIX PRECEDENT
In January, 1976, scores of army recruits at Fort Dix, N.J., complained of flu symptoms - not unusual at that time of year. But 18-year old Private David Lewis, with the bravado of youth, decided to ignore medical advice to go to bed; he went out on a strenuous all-night exercise in the bitter cold. At the end of the exercise, he collapsed. He died a few hours later. An autopsy revealed that his death was caused by a previously unknown variant of swine flu A/H1N1. But what really spooked the Centers for Disease Control was its similarity to the strain that had killed more than 40 million people across the world in 1918.
The CDC rightly decided to develop a swine-flu vaccine for use in the following flu season. But there were many production problems. It was on the point of being cancelled, when there was an outbreak of fatal pneumonia after the Pennsylvania convention of the American Legion. The media linked it with swine flu (although today it is known to have been what is called legionnaires' disease), and politicians joined in the clamour to push forward the swine-flu vaccination program.
The threat from swine flu was vastly exaggerated in the media, although it was already clear that the outbreak (which involved no more than 300 people) was over. President Gerald Ford took personal charge of a mass vaccination program, and it had deadly consequences.
With all manufacturing capacity devoted to swine flu, seasonal flu production stopped. That year, there was a particularly virulent strain of seasonal flu, and there were thousands more regular flu deaths than normal, largely in unvaccinated seniors. There was also the problem of vaccine side effects.
SIDE EFFECTS BECOME NUMEROUS
When millions of people are vaccinated, very rare side effects become numerous. About nine in every million of those vaccinated then developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralytic disease. There were 500 cases and 25 deaths.
The batches may have been contaminated with a bacterium. In any case, the vaccination program was stopped, having only treated 24 per cent of the population.
This is not then. There are already thousands of cases, and vaccine technology is better than it was. But no vaccine is absolutely safe. There will be very rare side effects with new H1N1 vaccines too, and most have not yet been tested on children, who are one of the groups that are most likely to be vaccinated as a priority, because they seem to be especially affected. But people can only ever see risk from their own perspective.
It seems probable that, despite knowing that 6,000 or more Canadians might be prevented from dying and tens of thousands more prevented from having serious illness, people will concentrate on their own individual risks, with many choosing to remain unvaccinated. This places individuals at risk but also friends, family and loved ones and those who are unable to be vaccinated for one reason or another.
All this comes from a mild illness that many people think is not a risk and claim to be overhyped. Everyone should think again about the seriousness of pandemic flu.
Let us hope that the nightmare scenario of a new virus with the virulence of H5N1 (bird flu) and the transmissibility if H1N1 does not come to pass. That really would be scary.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/h1n1-6000-deaths-the-pandemic-is-here/article1190655/

Dollar Falls on China Call for World Currency; Stocks Pare Gain
June 26 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar weakened and stocks pared their advance after China’s central bank reiterated a call for a “super sovereign currency” and said the country’s financial institutions face a tougher environment this year.
The Dollar Index that measures the currency’s performance against six trading partners fell as much as 0.8 percent at 1:01 p.m. in London after China’s central bank also said the International Monetary Fund should manage part of members’ foreign reserves. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index of European shares added 0.3 percent, trimming an advance of as much as 1.3 percent. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures fell 0.2 percent.
China, the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasuries, cut its holdings of government notes and bonds by $4.4 billion to $763.5 billion in April, according to data released on June 15 in Washington. People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan in March urged the IMF to expand the functions of its unit of account and move toward an international reserve currency to reduce dependence on the dollar.
“In the longer term there will be diversification among global central banks,” said Beat Siegenthaler, chief emerging markets strategist at TD Securities Ltd. in London. “These comments tend to remind traders of that, but there’s still a question about the time horizon.”
The Dollar Index fell below 80 as the People’s Bank of China said that the IMF relies on too few foreign currencies. The central bank was commenting in an assessment of the country’s financial situation at the end of 2008 posted on its Web site today.
Special Drawing Rights
Group of 20 leaders on April 2 gave approval for the IMF to raise $250 billion by issuing Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, the artificial currency that the agency uses to settle accounts among its member nations. It also agreed to put another $500 billion into the IMF’s war chest.
"There’s a very strong case to be made for reducing the reliance on the dollar,” said Steven Barrow, a currency strategist with Standard Bank Plc in London. “But the market is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Among the BRIC countries, China seems the least positive about the idea. If they talk down the dollar they’re talking down a vast bulk of their assets.”
The asset quality and profitability of China’s financial institutions face challenges and the correction in the country’s property market may raise banks’ credit risks, the central bank also said today.
The yen also headed for a weekly loss against the euro. Japan’s benchmark interest rate is 0.1 percent and the U.S.’s is between zero and 0.25 percent, compared with 1 percent in the euro region and Norway’s 1.25 percent.
OECD Forecast
Today’s gains in European stocks trimmed the Stoxx 600’s second-straight weekly drop to 1.5 percent after a three-month, 36 percent rally drove price-earnings valuations to the highest level in five years. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development boosted its forecast for the economy of its 30 member nations for the first time in two years this week, while a U.S. government report today may show consumer spending rose in May for the first time in three months.
“Risk appetite is coming back,” Peter Redward, the head of Asian emerging-markets research at Barclays Plc in Singapore, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We’re now seeing the effects of fiscal and monetary stimulus beginning to kick in and those themes are going to continue.”
Stocks gained in Asia and Europe after Bridgestone Corp., the world’s largest tiremaker, narrowed its loss forecast. Bridgestone gained 8.5 percent in Tokyo.
Emerging Markets
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 1.8 percent. While the 22-country benchmark has dropped 1.2 percent this month, it’s headed for the best quarterly gain on record, up 34 percent since March.
OAO Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer, advanced 1.6 percent as crude gained, while OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the country’s biggest mining company, added 6.7 percent as copper climbed 1.8 percent this week to $5,119 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. The Micex is recovering from a retreat this month that sent it down more than 20 percent from its June 1 peak, the world’s first benchmark equity index to enter a bear market since global stocks began rallying in March.
Crude oil for August delivery rose as much as 1.5 percent to $71.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after Nigerian militants said they attacked a Royal Dutch Shell Plc offshore oil field late yesterday, hours after an offer of an amnesty by President Umaru Yar’Adua.
New Zealand’s dollar weakened 0.3 percent versus the U.S. dollar after the nation’s statistics bureau said gross domestic product declined 1 percent in the first quarter. The median of 11 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 0.7 percent contraction.
U.S. Consumer Spending
A report at 8:30 a.m. in Washington will show consumer purchases in the U.S. increased 0.3 percent after falling 0.1 percent in April, according to the median forecast of 76 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
A U.S. report yesterday showed gross domestic product shrank last quarter at a 5.5 percent pace, slower than the 5.7 percent decrease previously estimated by the government.
Futures on the S&P 500 slid 0.3 percent today after the GDP report helped send the gauge up 2.1 percent yesterday.
Stocks and credit markets have rebounded since the U.S. government and Federal Reserve pledged $12.8 trillion to combat the first global recession in five decades and almost $1.5 trillion in losses and writedowns at financial firms from the collapse of subprime mortgages.
The cost of borrowing in dollars for three months in London fell below 0.6 percent for the first time today, according to the British Bankers’ Association. The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge for three-month loans fell less than half a basis point to 0.598 percent.
Libor-OIS
The Libor-OIS spread, which measures banks’ reluctance to lend, has narrowed to 38 basis points, from a record 364 basis points in October, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Analysts covering S&P 500 companies began to boost 2009 profit estimates for the first time this year in May as economists predicted the U.S. economy will start to expand next quarter, weekly data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Global market liquidity is at its strongest level since November, according to an index updated today by the Bank of England. The index, which measures market prices, including gaps between bid and offer prices, the ratio of returns to trading volumes, and spreads in the credit market, reached a low in April.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLpv3.MFL1Oc

Eeyores news and view

Saeed Mortazavi: butcher of the press - and torturer of Tehran?
The Iranian regime has appointed one of its most feared prosecutors to interrogate reformists arrested during demonstrations, prompting fears of a brutal crackdown against dissent.
Relatives of several detained protesters have confirmed that the interrogation of prisoners is now being headed by Saaed Mortazavi, a figure known in Iran as “the butcher of the press”. He gained notoriety for his role in the death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer who was tortured, beaten and raped during her detention in 2003.
“The leading role of Saeed Mortazavi in the crackdown in Tehran should set off alarm bells for anyone familiar with his record,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch.
As prosecutor-general of Tehran since 2003 and as a judge before that, he ordered the closure of more than 100 newspapers, journals and websites deemed hostile to the Establishment. In 2004 he was behind the detention of more than 20 bloggers and journalists, who were held for long periods of solitary confinement in secret prisons, where they were allegedly coerced into signing false confessions.
Mr Mortazavi has also led a crackdown in Tehran that has seen women arrested for wearing supposedly immodest clothing.
Earlier this year he oversaw the arrest and trial of Roxana Saberi, the American-Iranian journalist sentenced to eight years for spying, and his name has appeared on the arrest warrants of prominent reformists rounded up since the unrest started, such as Saeed Hajarian, a close aide of Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former President. With more than 600 people now having been arrested, including dozens of journalists, many fear the worst.
Mr Mortazavi became notorious for his role in the death of Zahra Kazemi while in Iranian custody on July 11, 2003. Kazemi, a freelance photojournalist with dual Iranian-Canadian nationality, was arrested while taking photographs outside Evin prison, Tehran, during an earlier period of reformist unrest in the city, also ruthlessly repressed.
The first news of what happened to Kazemi, 54, came in a statement from Mr Mortazavi, which said that she had died accidentally of a stroke while being interrogated.
Two days later a contradictory statement was issued, saying that she had fallen and hit her head.
On July 16 Mohammad Ali Abtahi, the Vice-President, admitted that Kazemi had died of a fractured skull after being beaten.
Mr Abtahi, who is no longer in office, was also arrested in the round-up of hundreds of dissidents and reformists overseen by Mr Mortazavi last week.
On July 21, Mr Mortazavi was appointed to head the official investigation into Kazemi's death. Reformists protested, saying that he lacked independence as he was involved in the case, and that as prosecutor general it had been his duty to ensure Kazemi's well-being in custody. The appointment went ahead anyway.
Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel prize-winning lawyer who represented Kazemi's family at the subsequent trial of a junior intelligence officer in July 2004, tried to sub-poena Mr Mortazavi to give evidence, but the judge declined. The defendant was cleared of the charge of semi-intentional murder.
There the matter rested until March 2005, when Shahram Azam, an Iranian military doctor, claimed asylum in Canada and revealed that he had examined Kazemi's body after her death. He said he had seen obvious signs of torture, including a fractured skull, broken nose, crushed toe, missing fingernails, broken fingers, marks from flogging, deep scratches on her neck, and severe abdominal bruising. A female nurse who examined Kazemi's genitals - he said he was forbidden to do so as a male doctor - told him there were signs of brutal rape.
Dr Azam's evidence reignited concern at Kazemi's death, with blame coalescing around Mr Mortazavi. The Canadian government continues to maintain that Mr Mortazavi not only ordered Kazemi's arrest but supervised her torture and was present when she was killed.
Reporters without Borders concurs: "It was Mortazavi who was chiefly responsible for Canadian-Iranian press photographer Zahra Kazemi's death."
Mr Mortazavi has repeatedly been accused of human rights abuses in the treatment of other detainees, including journalists who said they received death threats after reporting their alleged torture on Mr Mortazavi's orders while in custody in 2005, and students who say they were mistreated after they were pre-emptively arrested in 2008 because they were suspected of planning protests.
It was seen as a black joke when, in 2006, Iran selected Mr Mortazavi to lead its delegation to a meeting of the the United Nations Human Rights Council. Human Rights Watch appealed unsuccessfully for him to be dropped from the delegation, or for other nations to refuse to meet the Iran delegation while he remained in it.
Mr Mortazavi used his right to address the council to give a speech arguing that all nations had the right to free access to nuclear power, and accusing the council of being a catspaw of Western powers. He urged it to turn its attention to human rights abuses by the West, including bans on Holocaust denial, hostility to the burka, and atrocities committed by America during its War on Terror.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6570089.ece


Roadable airplane. Will it be a hit?
UNDATED - Don't call it a flying car. It is a roadable airplane.
That is what team over at a Boston-based company is saying about their vehicle, The Transition.
Terrafugia is hoping the Transition will be a hit at $194,000 piece.
It is designed to both fly and drive on the same 100-horsepower engine, that runs on super unleaded.
The plane can only be flown by a trained pilot. It also has to land and take off from an airport.
Taking a look at the prototype, the car controls and airplane controls are blended together, from the dash to the pedals on the floor.
The car's steering wheel is a bit higher than most cars, while the stick to fly the plane is between your legs in the driver's seat/cockpit.
The prototype was on display this past Saturday at the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport. It caught the eye of many visitors, especially when it opened and closed its wings.
Dietrich, one of the co-founders of Terrafugia, tells WTOP that the company is hoping to start full production in 2011.
Dietrich adds that the prototype has completed a round of flight testing and that they will make some changes to the Transition.
http://wtop.com/?sid=1704354&nid=25

Cities' gun restrictions begin to topple
Atlanta - It's been a disappointing year for American cities seeking to curb violence via tough gun laws.
Since last June, when the US Supreme Court struck down key parts of the District of Columbia's gun-control ordinance, cities have seen the 20,000 local gun regulations enacted over the years begin to slip from their grip, one by one.
Philadelphia's ban on assault weapons and limits on handgun purchases are the latest to succumb, struck down Thursday by a state court. An appeal to the state Supreme Court is expected. In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an ordinance in California's Alameda County that banned gun shows, saying the Second Amendment of the US Constitution applies in the states.
For years, strict gun laws in primarily Midwestern, Northeastern, and California cities have created an uneasy tension between the Second Amendment and crime-fighting realities on the ground. Then, the US Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, affirmed the constitutional right of individual Americans to own handguns, in a case known as District of Columbia v. Heller. In striking down parts of D.C.'s law, it opened the door to court challenges of other cities' ordinances restricting access to certain kinds of guns.
Gun-control laws in "New York and Chicago are next," says Bill Vizzard, a criminologist at California State University at Sacramento. Though the Heller ruling doesn't give a carte blanche right to "have a gun anywhere, under any circumstance," he says, its effect "could still be extensive. We just don't know yet how courts are ultimately going to interpret it."
Post-Heller, US appeals courts have divided over whether the ruling means that other city and state gun-control laws should be invalidated. The US high court could resolve the matter, but legal scholars say it's hard to tell if the justices are interested in setting a broad precedent on the issue.
The two laws in Philadelphia stuck down Thursday were enacted in 2008. One banned assault-style weapons, which are semi-automatic rifles altered to combat specifications. The other restricted an individual's ability to buy handguns to one a month.
Mr. Vizzard characterizes the gun rights movement as a long-term, deliberate, and scholarly based march akin to that of the civil rights movement. But the pro-gun legal effort, he notes, is moving counter to trends that show Americans becoming increasingly distant from their pioneer roots, with gun-rights stalwarts primarily consisting of middle-age and older white men.
That paradox puts more focus on the makeup of courts, including the US Supreme Court.
In January, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, as part of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, was part of a majority that ruled against invoking the Second Amendment in a challenge to New York's ban on nunchaku sticks, a martial arts weapon. The ban stands.
The Pennsylvania high court ruled in 1996 that cities can't preempt the state's gun laws to create their own, but Philadelphia is now hoping that a court with a different makeup will rule differently, says Scott Shields, the lead National Rifle Association attorney.
Not all cities have lost in court. One challenge to Chicago's handgun ban was turned back earlier this month by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Polls show that most Americans believe in the Second Amendment, but most also want stronger gun laws. The percentage of Americans who support an assault-weapons ban, however, has slid several percentage points in the past few years. In 2007, gun groups spent nearly $2 million to lobby Congress; pro-gun control groups spent $60,000.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0620/p02s02-usgn.html

Wyoming Toad Recovery Program
(excerpt)
Description
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wyoming Ecological Services Field Office, has regulatory authority for the recovery of the endangered Wyoming Toad (Bufo baxteri). The Wyoming Toad is endemic to the Laramie Basin of Wyoming. The acquisition of Mortensen Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the enrollment of private lands within the Laramie Basin under the Laramie Rivers Conservation District’s Wyoming Toad Safe Harbor program have recently provided the Wyoming Toad with multiple recovery sites within its historic range. One of the new needs, therefore, of the recovery program is the ability to breed sufficient numbers of healthy toads for release at release sites. The University of Wyoming Department of Zoology and Physiology Red Buttes Environmental Biology Laboratory, provides a world-renowned aquatic laboratory to help ensure the Wyoming toad recovery program meets this need. The result of such captive breeding is expected to benefit both the goals and purpose of the Wyoming Toad recovery program and the University, including, but not limited to: Wyoming Toad related research, teaching, and opportunities to assist on the ground recovery efforts.
http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=48044

Eeyores news and view

Sign of the times, in which we are living in

Government Land-Grab Moves Forward
The nation took a step closer to the largest federal land grab in the nation’s history last week, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
That’s thanks to passage of the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
In basic terms the CRWA (S. 787) would grant the federal government authority of all water – both navigable, which it now presides over, as well as non-navigable.
Without defining and confining federal authority to navigable waters, an NCBA spokesman said, “…the CWRA would expand federal regulatory control to unprecedented levels – essentially putting stock tanks, drainage ditches, any puddle or water feature found on family farms and ranches – potentially even ground water – under the regulatory strong-arm of the federal government.”
Though the bill was amended last week, NCBA officials explain, “The amendment is a smoke screen that allegedly takes care of agricultural concerns by exempting prior-converted croplands from federal jurisdiction. Cattle are generally not grazed on prior-converted croplands, so this amendment does nothing to mitigate the potential damage to livestock production from this legislation. The amendment is a diversion from the real issue, which is the removal of the word ‘navigable’ from the definition of waters.”
NCBA and Public Lands Council oppose the legislation because it obviously infringes on private property rights, but also because it limits the state partnerships and flexibility that have made the current Clean Water Act successful.
http://beefmagazine.com/beefstockertrends/0623-government-land-grab-moves-forward/

On Nixon Tapes, Ambivalence Over Abortion, Not Watergate
WASHINGTON — On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.
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Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases — like interracial pregnancies, he said.
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”
Nine months later, Nixon forced the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate affair, Archibald Cox, and prompted the resignations of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus. The next day, Ronald Reagan, who was then governor of California and would later be president, told the White House that he approved. Reagan said the action, which would become known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” was “probably the best thing that ever happened — none of them belong where they were,” according to a Nixon aide’s notes of the private conversation.
Those disclosures were among the revelations in more than 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents made public on Tuesday by the Nixon Presidential Library, a part of the National Archives. The audio files were posted online, as were a sampling of the documents.
The tapes were recorded by the secret microphones in the Oval Office from January and February 1973. They shed new light on an intense moment in American history, including Nixon’s second inauguration, the Vietnam War cease-fire, and the trial of seven men over the break-in at the Democrats’ headquarters at the Watergate complex amid mounting revelations about their ties to the White House.
The tapes also capture more mundane details of life in the White House — conversations about what to pack for a trip, when to schedule a trip to the barber, whether the president’s wife would enjoy going to Trader Vic’s for dinner.
Most segments of the tapes relating to the Watergate scandal, which would lead to Nixon’s resignation 20 months later, have already been released. But there are some new materials that were previously held back because the audio quality was so poor that archives officials could not be certain whether they contained discussion of any classified topics. Improvements in audio technology have allowed archives staff to clear additional ones.
They include a Jan. 5, 1973, conversation between Nixon and his aide Charles W. Colson in which they discussed the possibility of granting clemency to E. Howard Hunt Jr., one of the Watergate conspirators, according to a log compiled by archives staff. Scholars say the same topic was addressed in several other tapes that were previously made public.
The documents also include nine pages of handwritten notes by a domestic policy aide about plans for what the White House would say about the dismissal of the Watergate special prosecutor, Mr. Cox.
The tapes also provide new material about the circumstances surrounding the Paris treaty to end the United States’ military involvement in Vietnam.
A call between Nixon and Mr. Colson just after midnight on Jan. 20 showed that Nixon anticipated, when the treaty was announced, that he would be vindicated for continuing to bomb North Vietnam. He especially relished the hit that he believed members of Congress who opposed the war — whose public statements he pronounced “treasonable” — would suffer.
Several conversations center on the pressure Nixon placed on South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen Van Thieu, to accept the cease-fire agreement. Ken Hughes, a Nixon scholar and research fellow at the Presidential Recordings Project at the University of Virginia, said he was struck by listening on one of the new tapes to Nixon’s telling his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, that to get Thieu to sign the treaty, he would “cut off his head if necessary.”
Mr. Hughes said the conversation bolstered his view that Nixon, Thieu and Mr. Kissinger knew at the time that the cease-fire could not endure, and that it was not “peace with honor,” as Nixon described it, so much as a face-saving way for the United States to get out of the war. In 1975, North Vietnam would violate the cease-fire and conquer South Vietnam.
The tapes also include a phone call from February 1973 between Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, during which Mr. Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders were opposing efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade. The two men agreed that the Jewish leaders risked setting off anti-Semitic sentiment.
“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said.
At another point he said: “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”
The documents also include three newly declassified pages from a National Security Council brief discussing secret Israeli efforts to build a nuclear weapon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixon.html?_r=1

Md. officials announce swine flu-related death
June 23, 2009 - 2:30pm
BALTIMORE - Maryland health officials are announcing the state's first confirmed swine-flu related death.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Tuesday that an elderly Baltimore-area resident with a swine flu infection and serious underlying medical conditions has died.
Health officials say that swine flu was a contributing factor in the death, but they will not release personal details about the case, including specific underlying health conditions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 87 people who contracted swine flu have died.
Maryland officials have confirmed 370 swine flu cases, but say it is likely a fraction of the total cases statewide as many people are not tested and recover within a week.
http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1702853

NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.
Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.
The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.
The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the start of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in state of war.
The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect against an outbreak of hostilities.
Tensions have been high since North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April and then conducted its second underground atomic test on May 25.
Reacting to U.N. condemnation of that test, North Korea walked away from nuclear disarmament talks and warned it would fire a long-range missile.
North Korea has banned ships from the waters off its east coast starting Thursday through July 10 for military exercises, Japan's Coast Guard said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday that the North may fire a Scud missile with a range of up to 310 miles (500 kilometers) or a short-range ground-to-ship missile with a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers) during the no-sail period.
A senior South Korean government official said the no-sail ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
U.S. defense and counterproliferation officials in Washington said they also expected the North to launch short- to medium-range missiles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
South Korea will expedite the introduction of high-tech unmanned aerial surveillance systems and "bunker-buster" bombs in response to North Korea's provocations, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing unidentified ruling party members.
Meanwhile, a flurry of diplomatic efforts were under way to try getting North Korea to return to disarmament talks.
Russia's top nuclear envoy, Alexei Borodavkin, said after meeting with his South Korean counterpart that Moscow is open to other formats for discussion since Pyongyang has pulled out of formal six-nation negotiations.
In Beijing, top U.S. and Chinese defense officials also discussed North Korea. U.S. Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy was heading next to Tokyo and Seoul for talks.
South Korea has proposed high-level "consultations" to discuss North Korea with the U.S., Russia, China and Japan.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_91

Eeyores news and view

I do this occasionally when the events in a day over run the amount i limit myself to for this blog.
So today you get a second edition of the blog, It is a shame that the government both local and federal are so quick to limit the rights of the honest hard working crowd in this great country. They trample the God given rights with out a second thought and then are not willing to correct the problem.
So today you get a second edition, of just Government Abuses. If i were truly diligent i could fill a blog daily about just abuses, but then, it would not really mean anything. The blog was designed to try and highlight trends and post up the important news of the day. It will end sometime after the fourth of July, after a little more then a year. I hope some of you all found it helpful.

Men Face Charges After Police Raid Wrong House
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - A father and son are furious after surviving a terrifying experience. They face criminal charges after police responded to their home by mistake.
Murfreesboro officers responded to a 911 emergency call and somehow ended up at the wrong apartment.
Roger and Justin Chilton woke to a pounding on their door at 3 a.m. Sunday. Justin - a decorated military policeman who had just returned from Iraq - answered the door holding his gun.
The officers then arrested Justin and his father.
"They held us at gunpoint, slammed us to the ground, stomped my hands and butted me in the back of the head with a shotgun," said Justin.
The officers charged the Chilton's with resisting arrest and aggravated assault for the incident.
Police did not drop the charges even after learning they responded to the wrong house.
Murfreesboro police chief Glenn Chrisman has opened an internal investigation.
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9915358

How a Heartwarming, "Great" Father's Day Photo Shoot Ended Up Face Down in Handcuffs on the Addison Airport Tarmac
Saturday afternoon, friend of the show Danny Hurley sent word that they were offering quite the Father's Day gift out at Addison Airport -- flights on a B-24 Liberator, where everyone calls shotgun. (Pretty cool too, as only two Liberators are still flying). Danny wanted to go out and shoot some photos of the circa-'44 bomber and the men who ponied up for the ride; I told him sure, go 'head, sounds great -- very heartwarming. And, sure enough, he got some awfully nice shots and stories to go with them, as among those taking part yesterday were two men treating their terminally ill stepfather, a Vietnam vet, to a spin in the sky that might just be his last. Danny was collecting several such tales.
But when he sent along his pictures -- which you can see in this terrific slide show -- he noted that, well, he sure wishes he could've come back with more, "but my day was cut short." How so? Well, his version of the day's events follow after the jump. But I''ll provide this small hint: the Department of Homeland Security. Which, if you've ever met Danny, is hilarious. To everyone except Danny.
So, anyway. Danny had been out shooting all morning with the plane's owners and pilot's permission when he suffered a horrible case of photographicus interruptus:
I got an early Father's Day surprise from Homeland Security. It seems the public is not allowed on the tarmac. I thought the tarmac was the cement runway, but it's actually a hundred yards or so on each side.
Waiting for the plane to take off, I was surprised by the Addison police. An officer unholstered his gun, then handcuffed and held me until Homeland Security cleared my name.
I was not arrested, but according to Officer Pierce, I did break federal law and a report would be sent to Homeland Security. I will be hearing from them. I apologized to every one involved. The pilot told me the airport was shut down for a short while.
But according to one of the crew, they had ID'd me as one of theirs, and the tower knew and tried to call it off. But once the wheels were set in motion, it could not be stopped. The pilots were pretty much cool and laughed at me and were even willing to escort me to take more shots. One old-timer gruffed under his breath, "It's the U.S.A., not U.S.S.R. -- I didn't fight to protect this shit." One even offered me his seat on a ride.
However, the officer had asked me to leave, so I did. The police were professional, and I consider myself lucky.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/06/how_a_heartwarming_kick-ass_fa.php

Here is an update on the TSA heavy handed handling of the Ron Paul supporter i mention a couple of days ago.
Passenger says TSA agents harassed him
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Steve Bierfeldt says the Transportation Security Administration pulled him aside for extra questioning in March. He was carrying a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution and an iPhone capable of making audio recordings. And he used them.
Steve Bierfeldt is accusing the Transportation Security Administration of "harassing interrogation."
On a recording a TSA agent can be heard berating Bierfeldt. One sample: "You want to play smartass, and I'm not going to play your f**king game."
Bierfeldt is director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an outgrowth of the Ron Paul presidential campaign. He was returning from a regional conference March 29 when TSA screeners at Lambert-St. Louis (Missouri) International Airport saw a metal cash box in his carry-on bag. Inside was more than $4,700 dollars in cash -- proceeds from the sale of political merchandise like T-shirts and books.
There are no restrictions on carrying large sums of cash on flights within the United States, but the TSA allegedly took Bierfeldt to a windowless room and, along with other law enforcement agencies, questioned him for almost half an hour about the money.
The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up Bierfeldt's cause and is suing Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, whose department includes the TSA. Their complaint alleges that Bierfeldt was "subjected to harassing interrogation, and unlawfully detained."
Larry Schwartztol of the ACLU said the TSA is suffering from mission creep.
"We think what happened to Mr. Bierfeldt is a reflection that TSA believes passenger screening is an opportunity to engage in freewheeling law enforcement investigations that have no link to flight safety," he said.
Schwartztol believes many other passengers have been subjected to the same kind of treatment, which he claims violates constitutional protections against unlawful searches.

The TSA wouldn't comment on the lawsuit, but said in a statement that the movement of large amounts of cash through a checkpoint may be investigated "if suspicious activity is suspected."
Unbeknownst to the TSA agents, Bierfieldt had activated the record application on his phone and slipped it into his pocket. It captured the entire conversation.
An excerpt:
Officer: Why do you have this money? That's the question, that's the major question.
Bierfeldt: Yes, sir, and I'm asking whether I'm legally required to answer that question.
Officer: Answer that question first, why do you have this money.
Bierfeldt: Am I legally required to answer that question?
Officer: So you refuse to answer that question?
Bierfeldt: No, sir, I am not refusing.
Officer: Well, you're not answering.
Bierfeldt: I'm simply asking my rights under the law.
The officers can be heard saying they will involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and appear to threaten arrest, saying they are going to transport Bierfeldt to the local police station, in handcuffs if necessary.
Bierfeldt told CNN he believes their behavior was inappropriate.
"You're in a locked room with no windows. You've got TSA agent. You've got police officers with loaded guns. They're in your face. A few of them were swearing at me."
But the officers did not follow through on their threats. Near the end of the recording an additional officer enters the situation and realizes the origins of the money.
Officer: So these are campaign contributions for Ron Paul?
Bierfeldt: Yes, sir.
Officer: You're free to go.
According to the TSA, "Passengers are required to cooperate with the screening process. Cooperation may involve answering questions about their property. A passenger who refuses to answer questions may be referred to appropriate authorities for further inquiry"
Bierfeldt contends he never refused to answer a question, he only sought to clarify his constitutional rights.
"I asked them, 'Am I required by law to tell you what you're asking me? Am I required to tell you where I am working? Am I required to tell you how I got the cash? Nothing I've done is suspicious. I'm not breaking any laws. I just want to go to my flight. Please advise me as to my rights.' And they didn't."
The TSA says disciplinary action has been taken against one of its employees for inappropriate tone and language.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/20/tsa.lawsuit/index.html#cnnSTCText

Bid to expand knife ban doesn't cut it with critics
CBP rule would redefine switchblades
Hunters, whittlers and Boy Scouts, beware - your knives may soon be on the government's chopping block.
The Obama administration wants to expand the 50-year-old ban on importing "switchblades" to include folding knives that can be opened with one hand, stirring fears the government may on the path to outlawing most pocket knives.
Critics, including U.S. knife manufacturers and collectors, the National Rifle Association, sportsmen's groups and a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, say the rule change proposed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would rewrite U.S. law defining what constitutes a switchblade and potentially make de facto criminals of the estimated 35 million Americans who use folding knives.
"Boy Scout knives, Swiss Army knives - the most basic of knives can be opened one-handed if you know what you are doing," said Doug Ritter, executive director of Knife Rights, an advocacy group fighting to defeat the measure.
"The outrage is gaining steam," he said.
Customs officials dismiss fears that the new language will outlaw ordinary pocket knives, saying the change was issued to clear up conflicting guidelines for border agents about what constitutes an illegal switchblade that cannot be imported into the United States. The rule could be imposed within 30 days if not blocked.
A review of case law and "in consideration of the health and public safety concerns raised by such importations" prompted the agency to revoke the ruling that allowed the importing of knives with spring- and release-assisted opening mechanisms, CBP spokeswoman Jenny L. Burke said.
Customs officials argue the rule deals only with imported merchandise, and thus does not affect knives already in the country or that are manufactured domestically.
The rule change would affect the interpretation of the Switchblade Knife Act of 1958, which defined a "switchblade" as any knife having a blade that opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button or other device in the handle, or by operation of inertia or gravity.
The new definition would include any spring-assisted or one-handed-opening knife.
The 1958 law bans the possession of switchblades on federal lands and prohibits the mailing or sale of switchblades across state lines. It does not mandate prohibition within states and localities, though a number of states, including Maryland, have passed their own statutes banning or limiting the possession and carrying of switchblades.
Possession of switchblades is legal in Virginia if not intended for sale.
Critics of the rule say that broadening the definition of switchblades in federal law would instantly make previously permitted knives illegal in states that have adopted the ban. Hunters and hikers who cross state lines with their knives in tow may find themselves guilty of a federal felony, they warn.
The bipartisan Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, boasting one of the largest memberships on Capitol Hill, last week sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who oversees CBP, urging her to quash the proposed rule change. The letter was signed by 61 Republican and 18 Democratic lawmakers.
"This classification could render millions of law-abiding knife owners in violation of the law and expose major market retailers, manufacturers, dealers and importers to possible federal felony charges, and could drive domestic manufacturers and importers out of business, potentially costing thousands of jobs," said caucus member Rep. Robert E. Latta, Ohio Republican.
In much the same way that gun rights issues have cut across the partisan divide in Congress, the threat of a government knife grab has especially rankled members from Western and Southern states, regardless of their party.
Miss Napolitano has not responded, according to congressional staffers.
The knife lobby does not believe the agency's assurances that the rule has only a narrow application.
"The language used ... is so broad and uses virtually every term ever applied to any knife that opens with one hand. We fear that they are attempting to bypass the will of Congress and that once they succeed in getting assisted-openers defined as switchblades, they could move against all folding knives," said the American Knife and Tool Institute, which represents knife manufacturers, distributors, retailers and custom-knife artisans.
Boy Scouts of America spokesman Deron Smith said he did not want to comment because he was not familiar with the details of the proposed rule. But he said the Boy Scout Handbook does include many references to pocket knives.
"Knives are a part of the scouting program," Mr. Smith said. "We primarily stress safe knife usage and maintenance of knives. ... We will just continue to stick to what's in the handbook."
The relatively quick pace of the rule-making process - a 30-day comment period that ended Monday, followed by a 30-day implementation schedule - has opponents looking to head off the measure in Congress.
Mr. Latta and Rep. Walt Minnick, Idaho Democrat, introduced legislation Tuesday that would block CBP from broadening the definition of switchblades.
The legislation was offered as an amendment to the appropriations bill for the Homeland Security Department, which is expected to come to the House floor soon.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/24/bid-to-expand-knife-ban-doesnt-cut-it-with-critics/



Report: NKorea ship suspected of carrying missiles
SEOUL, South Korea – A U.S. Navy destroyer is tailing a North Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons toward Myanmar in what could be the first test of new U.N. sanctions against the North over its recent nuclear test, a leading TV network said Sunday.
The South Korean news network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, said the U.S. suspects the cargo ship Kang Nam is carrying missiles and related parts. Myanmar's military government, which faces an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union, has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.
YTN said the U.S. has deployed a destroyer and is using satellites to track the ship, which was expected to travel to Myanmar via Singapore.
South Korea's Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report. Calls to the U.S. military command in Seoul were not answered late Sunday.
The ship is reportedly the first North Korean vessel to be tracked under the new U.N. sanctions.
Two U.S. officials said Thursday that the U.S. military had begun tracking the ship, which left a North Korean port Wednesday and was traveling off the coast of China.
One of the officials said it was uncertain what the Kang Nam was carrying, but that it had been involved in weapons proliferation before. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked since North Korea defiantly conducted its second nuclear explosion on May 25. It later declared it would expand its atomic bomb program and threatened war to protest the U.N. sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear test.
The sanctions toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea and authorize ship searches in an attempt to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels on the high seas "if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo" contains banned weapons or material to make them, and if approval is given by the country whose flag the ship sails under.
If the country refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel "to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities."
A senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday that a Navy ship, the USS John S. McCain, is relatively close to the North Korean vessel but had no orders to intercept it under the Security Council resolution and had not requested that authority. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive issue of ship movements.
The Navy ship, a guided missile destroyer, is named after the grandfather and father of former U.S. presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. Both were admirals.
McCain said Sunday that the U.S. should board the Kang Nam even without North Korean permission if hard evidence shows it is carrying missiles or other cargo in violation of U.N. resolutions.
"I think we should board it. It's going to contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to rogue nations that pose a direct threat to the United States," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
President Barack Obama said the U.N. sanctions would be aggressively enforced after talks Tuesday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington. Obama also reaffirmed the U.S. security commitment to South Korea, including nuclear protection.
In its first response to the summit, North Korea's government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said Obama's comments revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.
"It's not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion," it said in a commentary published Saturday.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. The U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons there.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090621/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_45

And i have a bridge for sale
White House to Abandon Spy-Satellite Program
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to kill a controversial Bush administration spy satellite program at the Department of Homeland Security, according to officials familiar with the decision.
The program came under fire from its inception two years ago. Democratic lawmakers said it would lead to domestic spying.
The program would have provided federal, state and local officials with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery — but no eavesdropping capabilities— to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism.
It would have expanded an Interior Department satellite program, which will continue to be used to assist in natural disasters and for other limited security purposes such as photographing sporting events. The Wall Street Journal first revealed the plans to establish the program, known as the National Applications Office, in 2007.
"It's being shut down," said a homeland security official.
The Bush administration had taken preliminary steps to launch the office, such as acquiring office space and beginning to hire staff.
The plans to shutter the office signal Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's decision to refocus the department's intelligence on ensuring that state and local officials get the threat information they need, the official said. She also wants to make the department the central point in the government for receiving and analyzing terrorism tips from around the country, the official added.
Lawmakers alerted Ms. Napolitano of their concerns about the program-that the program would violate the Fourth amendment right to be protected from unreasonable searches-before her confirmation hearing.
Once she assumed her post, Ms. Napolitano ordered a review of the program and concluded the program wasn't worth pursuing, the homeland official said. Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa declined to speak about the results of the review but said they would be announced shortly.
The lawmakers were most concerned about plans to provide satellite imagery to state and local law enforcement, so department officials asked state and local officials how useful that information would be to them. The answer: not very useful.
"In our view, the NAO is not an issue of urgency," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, wrote to Ms. Napolitano on June 21.
Writing on behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Chief Bratton said that were the program to go forward, the police chiefs would be concerned about privacy protections and whether using military satellites for domestic purposes would violate the Posse Comitatus law, which bars the use of the military for law enforcement in the U.S.
Rep. Jane Harman (D., Calif.), who oversees the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said she was alarmed when she recently saw that the Obama administration requested money for the program in a classified 2010 budget proposal. She introduced two bills that would terminate the program.
"It's a good decision," Ms. Harman said in an interview. "This will remove a distraction and let the intelligence function at [the department] truly serve the community that needs it, which is local law enforcement."
Supporters of the program lamented what they said was the loss of an important new terrorism-fighting tool for natural disasters and terrorist attacks, as well as border security.
"After numerous congressional briefings on the importance of the NAO and its solid legal footing, politics beat out good government," said Andrew Levy, who was deputy general counsel at the department in the Bush administration.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124572555214540265.html

Ohio governor backs plan for livestock standards
June 23, 2009 - 4:25am By TERRY KINNEY Associated Press Writer
CINCINNATI (AP) - Ohio should have a state board to set guidelines for livestock care, Gov. Ted Strickland said Monday, adding to the debate between farm interests and the nation's biggest animal welfare organization.
The head of the Washington-based Humane Society of the United States said such a board would give farmers too much leeway and wouldn't guarantee a ban of crates that are used to confine breeding sows or cages that are too small for laying hens.
"It provokes us to do a ballot initiative," said society president Wayne Pacelle, who has guided successful initiatives and legislation in several states. "It almost forces our hand to seek a measure for November 2010 on confinement practices."
The constitutional amendment backed by Strickland, who didn't cite any current standards for the care of farm animals, would create a 13-member Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board. If approved by the Legislature, which planned to take it up Wednesday, the plan would go before voters this year.
"The board," Strickland said in a statement, "will ensure that Ohioans continue to have access to a safe and affordable local food supply and will make our state a national leader in the level of animal care and responsibility."
He didn't say who would be on the board.
Pacelle called the council "a transparent attempt by agribusiness interests" to thwart a ballot initiative on animal confinement.
"It would create an industry-dominated council that would seek to embrace the status quo in Ohio agriculture," he said.
State Rep. John Domenick, who heads the House agriculture committee, said even though he was named the Humane Society's Ohio legislator of the year for his bill last year that would have made cockfighting a felony, he doesn't necessarily agree with all of the society's ambitions.
"It's important that we stand up for our rights as agriculture people," Domenick said. "We're a farming state. We don't need a downturn in farming at this point to affect us even more."
The 11 million-member Humane Society already had targeted Ohio for its next comprehensive action on a range of issues from livestock confinement to puppy mills. On Monday it released a survey it said shows Ohio is ripe for the taking, with 67 percent public support for a ballot initiative in November 2010.
Domenick, noting that the Humane Society waged a $10 million campaign to win in California, said, "If it makes it to the ballot, the Humane Society is going to win."
Pacelle has said that Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington state also are in the group's sights.
One farm group, the Ohio Farm Bureau, is bracing for a fight. Another, the Ohio Farmers Union, says a fight is pointless, expensive and unwinnable.
"We've come to the conclusion that a negotiated settlement is the best way to go," said Roger Wise, a third-generation farmer and president of the Ohio Farmers Union. "It's misguided to draw a line in the sand and say it's us versus them."
He said a fight would result in acrimony, vitriol and "ugly images on television to portray extremes as the norm to drive a wedge between producers and consumers."
The Farm Bureau is going the other way, saying it doesn't want debate on the issue to be driven by one point of view. It has created a Center for Food and Animal Issues to address all farm animal, family pet, zoo and research issues.
"It's very easy for the public not to have all the facts," spokesman Joe Cornely said. "We hope to bring a lot of voices to the discussion and not lose out in the public policy area because we didn't show up."
___

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ North Carolina agriculture leaders urged farmers Monday to have their wheat tested after officials found high levels of a toxin in wheat samples from parts of the state.
Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said vomitoxin has been found in samples from central and northeastern North Carolina. The toxin is a byproduct of a fungus often caused by wet weather during the early April pollination stage.
Troxler said testing is urgent because farmers harvesting their wheat now may not know the fungus is on their crop, so he warned it may continue contaminating wheat as it moves storage bins. He said the state would provide free testing.
Dan Weathington of the North Carolina Small Grain Growers Association said he's confident there are enough protections in place to prevent harmful grain from entering the food supply.
North Carolina wheat brought in more than $100 million in 2007, according to state statistics. http://wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1680226

GAO Cites Gun Sales to Those on Watch List
People named on the government's terrorism watch list have successfully purchased firearms hundreds of times since 2004, government investigators reported yesterday. In one case, a known or suspected terrorist was able to obtain an explosives license, the Government Accountability Office reported.
U.S. lawmakers requested the audit to show how people on the watch list can be stopped from boarding airplanes but not from buying guns. Under federal law, licensed firearms dealers must request an FBI background check for each buyer but cannot legally stop a purchase solely because someone is on the watch list. The study found that people on the list purchased firearms 865 times in 963 attempts over a five-year period ending in February.
Those who were denied gun purchases were disqualified for other reasons, such as a felony conviction, a drug violation or being an illegal immigrant.
Citing a "terror gap," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Robert C. Scott (D-Va.) released the study, and Lautenberg introduced legislation yesterday to give the U.S. attorney general authority to stop the sale of guns or explosives to terrorists.
"The special interest gun lobby has so twisted our nation's laws that the rights of terrorists are placed above the safety of everyday Americans," Lautenberg said in a written statement. "The current law simply defies common sense."
Chris W. Cox, the National Rifle Association's chief lobbyist, said that his group opposes terrorists having access to firearms but that many people are placed on the watch list erroneously. The NRA cited a Justice Department inspector general's report in March that found that about 24,000 of 400,000 people on the list -- or about 6 percent -- were named based on outdated or irrelevant information in FBI files, sometimes after their cases had been closed.
"Law-abiding Americans should not be treated like terrorists," Cox said in a written statement. "To deny law-abiding people due process and their Second Amendment rights based on a secret list is not how we do things in America."
In 2005, the GAO reported that people on the watch list were able to buy weapons in 35 of 44 attempts between February and June 2004.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the department had no comment on the GAO audit, which was first reported by the New York Times. Boyd added: "We're reviewing the [Lautenberg] bill."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062201766.html?hpid=topnews

Eeyore's News and View

Homeland Security drone patrolling NNY
A monitor inside an operations trailer shows a close-up view of a boat skimming across the water on Lake Ontario.

The image was taken from an unmanned aircraft more than three miles away.
A Predator B Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) has been temporarily based at Fort Drum since early June in an experiment by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office.
The Department of Homeland Security is using the extensive restricted air space over Fort Drum to test whether the drone could be a good fit along this stretch of the northern border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has five of the aircraft but so far none of them based permanently in the Northeast.
The Predator will operate out of Fort Drum for about three weeks for testing and training, and to evaluate its use to law enforcement.
John Stanton, director of CPB's Office of Air and Marine, said state, provincial and local law enforcement agencies were quick to take up the offer of added surveillance of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.
"So while we were flying, we were asked by our partner law enforcement agencies if we would be kind enough to be on the lookout for suspicious activities," Stanton said.
The surveillance also includes the land border between the U.S. and Canada after the border peels away from the St. Lawrence River.
By flying in restricted air space at 19,000 feet, the Predator avoids lower-level air traffic, cutting the risk of collisions, Stanton said.
The aircraft is virtually identical to Predators used by the military, with the exception of lower-power engine and no weapons, he said.
http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story/Homeland-Security-drone-patrolling-NNY/8ujqf9M2YkCXVlOmBVxFOg.cspx

Taliban averts attacks with U.S. equipment
Some Taliban fighters have been able to ward off attacks by U.S. aircraft by wearing special infrared patches on their shirts that signal that they are friends rather than foes.
The patches, which can also help suicide bombers get close to U.S. targets, are supposed to be the property of the U.S. government alone, but can be easily purchased over the Internet for about $10 each. Also available online: night-vision goggles and military-grade communications systems like the ones used by the terrorists who attacked the Indian city of Mumbai last year.
While stealing uniforms is as old as warfare itself, the Internet has made purchases of military equipment much easier and increased the risk to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some of the patches have been stolen during raids on U.S. resupply convoys in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But they can also be purchased in the United States and sent overseas with little detection.
In a recent investigation, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) bought patches using fake names and a front company with only a valid credit card. The patches reveal an American flag when looked at with an infrared light and were designed to avoid friendly fire during nighttime battles.
Jonathan Meyer, assistant director of forensic audits and special investigations for the GAO, told The Washington Times, "Based on our conversations with the Department of Defense, terrorists have used U.S. uniforms and the infrared patches to get close to U.S. and allied forces on the battlefield and at bases. This is more of a potential suicide-bomber risk."
Mr. Meyer helped lead the GAO investigation, which concluded that few regulatory controls exist for dual-use and military technology sold domestically.
Rep. Bart Stupak, Michigan Democrat, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee, said the infrared patches are also made in China.
"It is rather simple technology," he said. "We not only sell this to domestic people here, and they sell them to anybody, but you can get them from China, and the Chinese will sell them to others.
"They have been used by the enemy in the war. It's of grave concern because you don't know who is friendly or not," Mr. Stupak added.
Newsweek magazine first reported in 2007 that 4,800 such patches had been sold inadvertently in 2006 to 23 U.S. and Canadian companies by an Arizona-based company, Government Liquidation. The patches were still sewn onto uniforms that were sent out.
The GAO was able to purchase the patches from a New York-based military-supply dealer, but did not identify the seller's name.
"An enemy fighter wearing these [infrared] flags could potentially pass as a friendly service member during a night combat situation, putting U.S. troops at risk," the June 4 report said. "Nevertheless, these items are completely legal to buy and sell within the United States."
The report followed up on a 2008 GAO study that exposed the fact that military-surplus items, such as spare parts for fighter jets, could be purchased on eBay and Craigslist. That same year, an NBC team also was able to procure the infrared patches and have them sent to a mailing address in Amman, Jordan. Earlier, the Associated Press reported that F-14 spare parts had found their way to Iran from U.S. suppliers after the Pentagon sold the equipment to military wholesalers.
Rep. Brad Sherman, California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that deals with export controls, said that it may be time to treat the infrared patches as a munition that would need to be controlled through the Arms Export Control Act.
"If there is an item that has only a military use, like the patches, the fact that they are nonlethal doesn't mean we should not treat them as munitions," he said. "The term 'munitions' perhaps should apply to anything that does not have a legitimate civilian use."
However, a retired four-star general, Jack Keane, said the risk had been overstated.
"Since the beginning of warfare, people have been dressing up as the enemy to infiltrate," he said. "We certainly have done this in the past to our enemies, and our enemies have done this to us."
Mr. Keane, who played a key role in developing the counterinsurgency strategy for Iraq, added, "There are other safeguards in addition to [these patches]. A visual identification and other identification is in the soldier's possession. There are multiple things that are being checked. When it comes to the tactical situation, infrared certainly helps identify where we are, but there is also a dialogue that is taking place describing the situation."
But "it would seem to me that something we are using to help identify ourselves should not be available to the general public, and it should be something that is only acquired through military channels," Mr. Keane said.
Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military was reviewing the GAO report.
"The Department of Defense takes force protection very seriously. As a matter of course, we are concerned any time sensitive equipment has the potential to fall into enemy hands," he said.
Other items acquired from U.S. companies by the GAO included a "triggered spark gap," a specialized medical component the size of a spool of thread that is also a necessary component for detonating a nuclear weapon. The investigators were also able to purchase an oscilloscope and an accelerometer, important gauges for measuring elements of nuclear explosions.
David Albright, president for the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank, said the triggered spark gap "can be used in a nuclear weapon to fire high explosives and compress the nuclear core." He added that this sensitive item, whose medical use is to dissolve kidney stones, has shown up in the nuclear programs of Pakistan, North Korea and Iran.
The GAO concluded that "sensitive dual-use and military technology can be easily and legally purchased from manufacturers and distributors within the United States and illegally exported without detection."
At issue is a loophole in the U.S. arms-export control regime. Many kinds of dual-use items would require licensing and an end-user certificate - specifying the ultimate purchaser - if sold to a buyer overseas. But no such safeguards exist if the buyer is in the United States. It is also relatively easy to send sensitive equipment purchased in the U.S. to foreign countries through the mail.
Ed Timperlake, a former senior technology official in the Defense Department and an expert on what is known as "defense critical assets," said the loophole for domestic sales of sensitive technology is a counterintelligence risk.
"There are a lot of Chinese espionage agents and others grabbing anything they can, anything they can find. And with our free market they can find a lot," he said.
Mr. Timperlake added, "The GAO report is fair, and everyone I worked with knew their mission had life-and-death consequences, especially for troops in combat. The issue really comes down to more resources" for the FBI and other agencies.
A former U.S. undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, Mario Mancuso, said he did not find it surprising "that many of these items can be easily sold in the U.S."
"It would have been a more balanced report if the GAO had highlighted the many legitimate commercial uses these items have," he said. "This is important because, in my experience, most manufacturers are not trying to equip U.S. adversaries or turn a blind eye to illicit procurement efforts."
A spokesman for the Justice Department's National Security Division, Dean Boyd, said that since October 2007, the U.S. government has created 20 counterproliferation task forces to look at the issue.
Mr. Stupak said, however, that "no one is really taking responsibility" in the U.S. government for dealing with the problem.
The National Security Council, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have declined comment on the GAO report.
Matthew Borman, acting assistant secretary of commerce for export administration, said, "We are currently reviewing the findings in the GAO report, and we are always looking for ways to improve interagency cooperation. We know an effective export-control system requires a combination of domestic and international activities to educate parties on their export-control responsibilities, proactive compliance efforts and the conduct of enforcement investigations. We are committed to protecting U.S. national security, foreign-policy and economic interests by ensuring secure trade in high-technology items."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/22/taliban-averts-attacks-with-us-equipment/print/

Iran Police Quash Rally as Revolutionary Guards Warn Protesters
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian police massing in force broke up a demonstration over the disputed presidential election just hours after the Revolutionary Guards said they would crush further protest.
Police used tear gas and fired shots into the air to quell yesterday’s rally in central Tehran, the Associated Press reported. Witnesses said helicopters hovered overhead as about 200 protesters gathered in Haft-e-Tir Square before they were dispersed, AP said.
Security forces were deployed in the capital to prevent further demonstrations after hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in more than a week of rallies. At least 17 people have been killed in the worst internal violence in the oil-producing nation of 66 million since the shah was overthrown in 1979.
Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main challenger in the disputed June 12 election won by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urged his supporters to continue peaceful protests. Another of the three defeated presidential candidates, former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, yesterday called for a ceremony June 25 in memory of those killed in the protests.
The Revolutionary Guards, who answer directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and act as a counterweight to the Iranian army, warned the protesters to halt their activity.
‘Saboteurs Must Stop’
“The saboteurs must stop their actions” or face “the decisive and revolutionary action of the children of the nation in the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij and other security and military forces, to put an end to the chaos,” the state-run Mehr news agency cited the Revolutionary Guards as saying in a statement.
Also yesterday, the clerical Guardian Council, the top election body, acknowledged that the number of ballots cast in 50 districts surpassed the number of eligible voters in those areas, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
A council spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, said the discrepancies, in areas with a total electorate of about 3 million, may have sprung from voters being allowed to cast their ballot in cities or provinces other than those where they live.
The council has rejected a call from Mousavi for a new vote, offering only a partial recount. Opponents of Ahmadinejad’s victory say the ballot was rigged.
The protests and the divisions within the regime mark an unprecedented challenge to the authority of Khamenei, the successor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the revolution.
Nations Warned
The Guards warned the international community including the U.S., U.K. and Israel to stop stirring unrest in the country. Iran has accused foreign nations of provoking the protests, a charge denied by Western diplomats.
The U.K.’s Foreign Office said yesterday it is evacuating families of diplomats and other Iran-based officials. The Italian Foreign Ministry discouraged that nation’s citizens from non-essential travel to Iran, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the police response “totally unacceptable.”
The 125,000-strong Guards, established to protect the Islamic Revolution, have their own ground, air and sea forces. Club-wielding members of the Basij volunteer militia, which is linked to the Guards, have played a role in suppressing the protests.
Without the Guards’ intervention, the protests won’t stop, Yossi Mekelberg, director of international relations at Regent’s College, London, said in an interview.
“This shows that it is very serious and can destabilize the regime,” he said.
Labeled as Terrorists
The U.S. designated the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force a terrorist organization in October 2007, accusing the paramilitary group of supporting attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. The focus of the Quds Force has been assistance to Islamic militant groups in other countries.
The Guards’ intervention came as splits within Iran’s ruling elite deepened after police arrested relatives of an ex- president and after Parliament’s current speaker said that most Iranians questioned Ahmadinejad’s electoral victory.
Security forces temporarily detained five relatives of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, believed to be rallying support within the clerical establishment for Mousavi, state media said yesterday.
Rafsanjani, who heads the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body with the power to appoint or dismiss the supreme leader, may try to dislodge Khamenei, said Anoush Ehteshami, a professor of international relations at Durham University in the U.K.
Speaker Ali Larijani, who served as Iran’s nuclear negotiator until 2007, criticized the top election body for siding with Ahmadinejad and said most Iranians don’t accept the results.
‘Eat Its Own’
“There is some serious dissatisfaction within the ranks,” said Ilan Berman, an analyst with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington. “Anytime a regime begins to eat its own, it signals significant transformation.”
On June 19, Khamenei reaffirmed Ahmadinejad’s electoral victory. The president was re-elected for a second four-year term with 63 percent of the vote to Mousavi’s 34 percent, according to the official tally.
Iran’s ril weakened 0.4 percent to 9,929.3 to the dollar yesterday, compared with 9,894.6 at the close of trading on June 19. The currency’s rate is managed by Bank Markazi, the central bank.
Iran’s governor at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, said the protests haven’t affected the country’s oil industry or crude exports. Iran is OPEC’s second-biggest producer.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTMTGmuvvDkM

Ammonia leak at NC plant kills 1, injures 3
June 20, 2009 - 5:30pm
LUMBER BRIDGE, N.C. (AP) - An ammonia leak Saturday at a poultry processing plant in North Carolina killed one worker and injured three others, authorities said.
Robeson County Sheriff Kenneth Sealey said the leak occurred about 10 a.m. Saturday at the Mountaire Farms plant in Robeson County in southern-central North Carolina, about 16 miles south of Fayetteville.
Sealey identified the worker who died as Clifton Swain of Fayetteville at a mid-afternoon briefing. Sealey did not have additional details about Swain. It was not immediately clear how he died or what caused the leak.
County Emergency Management Director Charles Britt told The Fayetteville Observer that the leak has been contained. The three injured workers, who were not identified, were taken to hospitals.
Two of the injured men were being treated at Southeastern Regional Medical Center in Lumberton, N.C., said spokeswoman Amanda Crabtree. She did not provide further details.
Authorities have said that 30 to 40 people were at the plant when the leak occurred. Sealey said all workers have been accounted for at the plant, which employs 2,500 people.
A call to Mountaire Farms was not immediately returned Saturday. However, the company issued a statement expressing condolences for the victims and promising to cooperate with authorities.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1701098