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30. mars 2005
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Iraqi terrorist leader Zarqawi is planning chemical attacks in Europe, according to German intelligence.
Iraq's most wanted man, the fugitive Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been planning a chemical weapons attack in Europe, a German magazine said on Wednesday, citing intelligence sources.
"We in Europe have been afraid that a big bang is coming sometime and that Zarqawi is planning it," an official at Germany's BND federal intelligence service told the April edition of the political monthly "Cicero".
According to the magazine, the Jordanian extremist and his supporters, who are linked to the Al-Qaeda network, have been trying to get hold of arms components in Russia's volatile north Caucasus region and in Georgia.
Another BND source said that it was unclear whether Zarqawi's attempts had been successful. "We only know that he is working on it," the source said.
Cicero said intelligence sources presume he has at least 150 supporters.
Some of them are thought to have operated in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg and the capital Berlin where they have tried to set up terrorist cells for a "holy war", it said.
Apparently German opposition to the Iraq war didn't please men like Zarqawi. The Germans, of everyone, should know that appeasement doesn't work. The terrorists are not only hate you just as much, they will also consider you an easier target.
No, that isn't totally relevant to the news above, but it's worth keeping in mind the next time you hear the far left crowd argue that terrorism is a well-deserved "blowback" for America's perceived past sins.
5:50:29 PM 
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Burger King gave you a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, cheese and onions? That's a real emergency, so call 911 right away.
3:37:37 PM
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Radio David Byrne. On of my favourite musicians has set up an Internet radio station to share what he's listening to!
Via BoingBoing, who also has a short interview where Byrne says what he means about file sharing:
But the argument of record companies standing up for artists rights is such a load of hooey. Most artists see nothing from record sales -- it's not an evil conspiracy, it's just the way the accounting works. That's the way major record labels are set up, from a purely pragmatic point of view. So as far as the artist goes -- who cares? I don't see much money from record sales anway, so I don't really care how people are getting it.
There should be a way to fix the system from the ashes of the record companies. Easy payment and quick downloads, and the artists could still receive more than they do now.
4:43:14 AM
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CNN: Many Americans too sleepy for sex, report finds
Yet, as the subheading says, "few believe they have a problem."
I guess it was a too tempting headline for a study not dealing with sex, but sleep disorders. Which explains a lot about me blogging around the clock, so it can't be all bad...
4:25:09 AM
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The recent tsunamis in the far east was just Allah's rehearsal, if we are to believe Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.
A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.
The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia.
"The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007," the researcher concluded in his study. "The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah's force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."
Considering that Allah's aim is so disastrously off target, mostly killing Muslims on the other side of the planet, I suggest that Bush can sleep safely well beyond 2007.
12:58:11 AM
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Kofi Annan is 'cleared' of wrongdoing by the second interim report from Paul Volcker, the headlines say. It is indeed true that the report said there was no evidence that Kofi Annan directly influenced the UN to award a big oil-for-food contract to Cotecna, where his son Kojo worked. That is as far as the good news for Kofi goes.
If you listened to Volcker himself at the press conference, you would have heard the chairman stress that there was not sufficient evidence that Annan had been directly involved in or even knowing about Cotecna's involvement. There was more than a hint there that the lack of an investigation by the secretary-general certainly raise suspicions that he knew there was something there he would not want to find.
The interim report details an investigation of the events surrounding Swiss Cotecna being awarded the lucrative oil-for-food contract. Due to some unfortunate dealings earlier, the company was under investigation for corruption, more specifically making illegal payments to former Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto. None of this affected the UN's decision to award the contract to Cotecna, contrary to UN rules.
After the Telegraph raised the issue of Kofi's son Kojo working for the company, Annan reportedly asked S. Iqbal Riza, his chief of staff, to check whether there was any conflict of interest. The UN staff reported back, after raising the issue with Cotecna, that everything was proper, and Kojo was no longer working with the company. Kofi spoke to his son every week on the phone, yet he supposedly didn't know this was a flat out lie. Cotecna went to great lengths to hide that Kojo received money from them until February 2004.
We're getting back to S. Iqbal Riza.
On April 21, 2004, the Security Council passed Resolution 1538, which supported Kofi Annan's decision (taken under hard pressure) to launch a high-level investigation into the oil-for-food programme. The very next day, Mr Riza's assistant passed an innocent-seeming note complaining about lack of office space and asking if he could shred the chronological files of 1997, 1998 and 1999. Riza certainly had no objections! This was obviously a huge archive, as the shredding, going on as the investigation was taking form, lasted all the while until December 7.
And, imagine, now Kofi Annan is cleared of wrongdoing because there are no documents proving his direct involvement in the selection of Cotecna.
PDF report here.
Roger L. Simon has more.
Earlier UNSCAM coverage.
12:41:22 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.04.2005; 01:59:54.
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