You Will Be Microchipped

Parents worry about their little ones being abducted. Later they worry about their not-quite-so-little ones driving too fast and then stopping to hang with the wrong crowd. "Sandwich" generation parents also get to worry about elderly parents wandering off or injuring themselves. Microchips have been implanted in more than one million pets, and now humans may be next. While it may smack of Big Brother, people may soon be scanned like bread at the supermarket. Teens, too, can be "watched" using GPS technology as parents are alerted when junior exceeds the speed limit and/or goes to an unapproved location. There are infant protection systems - wearable RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags for mom and baby - designed to prevent infant abductions and inadvertent child mismatching. Parents can also find out everything their kids say and do online. One can track them by their cell phones, and read their text messages.

Pandora's Box Seen As Open Now

Any new technology becomes increasingly more accessible, cost-efficient and sophisticated. Its spread thereafter is very swift. For instance, look at photography, telephone, x-rays, radio, television and the Internet. Mostly, the proliferation is benign and makes life easier but sometimes it’s not that harmless and the danger is it can rapidly spin out of control. Nuclear weapons are a classic example. There was a time when the erstwhile Soviet Union and the US had gathered such an arsenal that the world teetered on the brink of disaster. Similarly, an area of concern right now is cloning because there are two sides to this coin. On the one hand, its therapeutic applications are undeniably valuable; on the other, there’s the fear of human cloning which society may not be prepared to deal with yet. However the really alarming development emanating from the same field is something that’s in its infancy today but can take off once the modes of technology transfer become simplified. This is the production of chimeras — organisms consisting of two or more different genetic compositions, produced as a result of bio-engineering.

Teaching Students To Be Global Citizens

Professors at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point are working to arm graduates with the skills needed to become global citizens. Robert McGough, a senior education specialist, researcher and program manager with the World Bank, encourages professors to take seriously the need to give students a global education. "Some see globalization as a destructive influence, as a bad thing ... at this time in history, globalization is here to stay, and we must learn to live with it," McGough told instructors recently during the 12th annual UWSP Teaching Conference, "Teaching with a Global Perspective: Preparing Students to be Global Citizens."

Earth's Climate Is Unbalanced

The world’s largest society of earth scientists, the American Geophysical Union, is warning that human beings have knocked the climate out of balance and that nations will need to sharply cut carbon-dioxide emissions to avoid widespread problems like melting the Greenland ice cap. In a position statement issued today, the society laid out the evidence that recent changes in climate are attributable to human activity. The organization, which has a membership of 50,000, stated that the world would need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by more than 50 percent to avoid warming the planet by 2 degrees Celsius, a level at which substantial disruptions would take place, it said.

Clothes That Track Your Vital Signs

I'm sitting in the offices of Smartex near Pisa, Italy, admiring a jogging bra into which a piezoelectric sensor has been woven. A muscular young man wearing a skin-tight gray tank suit walks in. Without a word, he sets up a laptop and begins jumping up and down. His heart rate pops up on the screen and climbs as his exertions become more vigorous. Since we're in Italy, of course, the tank looks fabulous. But that isn't the point. Smartex, cofounded by biomedical engineer Danilo De Rossi, aims to create clothing that not only provides cover, warmth, and style but also keeps its wearers healthy. "If I want to monitor a whole body," De Rossi says, "why not use clothes?"The "Wealthy" outfit (the name is a loose acronym for "wearable health care system") worn by the young man is the most developed of Smartex's recent designs. Powered by a tiny embedded lithium battery, it's a washable unitard that reads the wearer's vital signs and beams the data wirelessly to a computer. Information on posture and movement is measured by the stress on sensors built into the garment. Other components gauge electrical activity, yielding EKG data. Heat sensors measure temperature. In the not-so-distant future, De Rossi says, health professionals will be able to monitor cardiac patients by unobtrusively tracking their vital signs as they go about their lives. De Rossi, who has worked on robotic skin and motion-capture tech for Darpa and the US National Institutes of Health, began exploring the idea of fabric as a data-collection medium 12 years ago. Most of his designs employ thin, pliable strands of conductive steel spun with cotton or polyester fibers into yarn. The Wealthy suit has nine electrodes and conductive leads woven in, yet the fabric looks and feels completely normal. The challenge in incorporating sensors into clothing — even skin-tight unitards — is that the fabric shifts when the body moves, resulting in sloppy, irregular signals. To deal with this, De Rossi's team developed software algorithms to clean up the data, along with code to reconstruct the wearer's movements.

Mothman still bringing the curious

His name is on signs, in shop windows and restaurants, and he even has his own museum. The sculpture in the middle of town depicts his enormous wings and glowing red eyes. More than 40 years after the first reported sighting of the mysterious creature later dubbed "Mothman," residents here have embraced his legend, helping to turn the town into a tourist destination. But while there's no local consensus about whether the stories are true, most agree that Mothman is good for business. "It's helped the town," said Ruth Finley, who owns the 106-year-old Lowe Hotel on Main St. along with her husband. "People come because of Mothman and they stay at the hotel, they go to the restaurants." The first sighting was reported on Nov. 15, 1966, by a group of people in an area of town known as TNT, the site of a former World War II munitions plant. Others said later that they'd seen a gray creature about two metres tall with bright red eyes and wings like a bird. The sightings ended abruptly on Dec. 15, 1967, the day of the collapse of the Silver Bridge, which linked Point Pleasant to Ohio. Forty-six people were killed, and since then people have speculated the sightings were connected. Walking along Main St., conventioneers can have their picture taken near the statue, drink a "Mothman Frappachino" in a local café and drop into the Mothman Museum. Inside, they can look over everything from handwritten eyewitness accounts of Mothman sightings to voluminous newspaper clippings to props from the 2002 Richard Gere film The Mothman Prophecies. Jeremy Pitchford, an employee at the 2-year-old museum, said it's a valuable repository for a side of Point Pleasant that few were willing to even discuss until recently. "This has been something that's been kind of suppressed, in a way," he said. "A lot of people never knew that Point Pleasant had anything like its own folklore.'' Every September, Point Pleasant hosts the weekend-long Mothman Festival, which draws about 2,000 people a year to this town of roughly 4,500. Tourists drive out to TNT hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature, but usually have to settle for the Mothman pizza made at Village Pizza. The $10 pie depicts the creature with eyes made of red and green peppers dotted by an olive pupil, mushroom wings and a pepperoni body. It's such a classic that Bill Ward knew he had to leave it on the menu when he bought the restaurant four years ago. "We sell a lot of them when the convention's in town," he said. Even when it's not convention time, the town has its share of Mothman visitors, including film crews from as far away as Japan and Australia. Recently, a crew shooting an episode for the new A&E series Paranormal State was in town. But some chafe at the Mothman legend, pointing out the town is rich in real American history, from the Revolutionary War to the era of steamboat traffic. "With all the history we have here, what do people come here for? That darn Mothman," said Jack Fowler, executive director of the Point Pleasant River Museum. if you want to read a lot more about the Mothman, and several other creatures of Cryptozoology, visit the website: Unknown Creatures

One in ten RFID projects tag humans

Although privacy concerns have been aired over passports being RFID-tagged, let alone people, according to the report by RFID researcher ID TechEx, people should consider the benefits before becoming too concerned. The health sector is already taking up people-tagging, the ID TechEx report says, where it allows nurses to radio their location if they are being assaulted, reduce mother baby mismatches and baby theft, help severe diabetics with getting correct treatment, and monitoring disoriented elderly patients without the need for a dedicated member of staff. However Phillip Allen, analyst at research firm IDC, told ZDNet Australia that RFID does not seem to have gained a foothold in the Australian healthcare industry, and is unlikely to do so in the future. "The healthcare sector in Australia is classified as a late adopter of IT," Allen said, adding healthcare organisations are struggling to fund the "stock standard areas of IT", and are unlikely invest in forward-looking technologies such as RFID. "They have been technology laggards and under-investing in technology for over a decade," he said. Allen said that even if healthcare organisations were to consider people-tagging, the resulting data could pose a problem. "They don't have the systems in place to manage that volume of information," he said. One exception is Rockhampton hospital, where Allen said nurses are given an RFID pendant to allow the hospital to monitor their location. Despite the likely slow uptake in the Australian healthcare industry, the country is proving an enthusiastic adopter overall. According to ID TechEx, Australia clocked up the seventh largest number of new RFID projects worldwide. USA was number one, with the UK and China following in second and third place, all three of which were classed as "endemic surveillance societies" in the 2007 International Privacy Ranking report, released at the end of last year.

Israel To Build Skynet To Fight Doomsday

Israel has been hit in recent years by thousands and thousands of rockets, mortar shells, and missiles. And that could be just a preview of the onslaught Iran may one day unleash. So Israeli military leaders have begun early planning for a new, robotic defense system, armed with enough artificial intelligence that it "could take over completely" from flesh-and-blood operators. "It will be designed for... autonomous operations,' Brig. Gen. Daniel Milo, commander of Israel's air defense forces, tells Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome. And in the event of a "doomsday" strike, Opall-Rome notes, the system could handle "attacks that exceed physiological limits of human command.

Out of the ashes: a New World Order

As the United States faces an economic crisis that is being compared by experts to the 1929 Great Depression, the global elite are proclaiming the fall of the U.S and the rise of a new global order. The IOL reports that the recent meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which focused in part on the global economic meltdown, pointed to "global" solutions and the need for a strengthened United Nations in the face of world crises. Sovereignty, according to many who attended, must be weakened. The IOL reports, For Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister and now president of the International Crisis Group, even those countries with a deep resistance to intervention were starting to recognise that egregious crimes against humanity could not go unchallenged. "There is now the beginning of a global consensus that sovereignty doesn't mean a license to kill, doesn't mean a license to stand back and allow killing of that order to take place," Evans said. "This is a very real phenomenon, that sovereignty is not what it was and can't be what it was," he added. Writing in the evening standard, Anthony Hilton states regarding the Davos meeting, "World leaders have a similar problem in Davos as they try to think through the turmoil in world markets to focus on what is really happening to the global economy. Henry Kissinger picked up on the political implications. The challenge to the world, he said, was handling the structural changes taking place - the transfer of economic power from America to the Pacific, the shortages of water and energy and the threat of climate change, which require global not national solutions." A strengthened United Nations, also discussed at Davos, was promoted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently after secret talks with world leaders. Brown called for a "new world order" and a "global society". As the New Zealand Hearld reported, "British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has begun secret talks with other world leaders on far-reaching reform of the United Nations Security Council as part of a drive to create a "new world order" and "global society". The economic crises that the world is plunging into is being and will be used as the pretext to forge the new global order long sought after by the global elite. More centralized control will emerge. "New" solutions will be presented in slick packages to a despairing population begging for order.

Russia Could Use Nuclear Weapons

Russia's military chief of staff said recently that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes to protect itself and its allies, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky's comment did not mark a policy shift, military analysts said. Amid disputes with the West over security issues, it may have been meant as a warning that Russia is prepared to use its nuclear might. "We do not intend to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand ... that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons," Baluyevsky said at a military conference in a remark broadcast on state-run cable channel Vesti-24. According to the state-run news agency RIA-Novosti, Baluyevsky added that Russia would use nuclear weapons and carry out preventive strikes only in accordance with Russia's military doctrine. The military doctrine adopted in 2000 says Russia may use nuclear weapons to counter a nuclear attack on Russia or an ally, or a large-scale conventional attack that poses a critical risk to Russia's security. Moscow-based military analyst Alexander Golts said that when Russia broke with stated Soviet-era policy in the 2000 doctrine and declared it could use nuclear weapons first against an aggressor, it reflected the decline of Russia's conventional forces in the decade following the 1991 Soviet collapse. "Baluyevsky's statement means that, as before, we cannot count on our conventional forces to counter aggression," Golts told Ekho Moskvy radio. "It means that as before, the main factor in containing aggression against Russia is nuclear weapons."

Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006

Martial law is perhaps the ultimate stomping of freedom. And yet, on September 30, 2006, Congress passed a provision in a 591-page bill that will make it easy for President Bush to impose martial law in response to a terrorist "incident." It also empowers him to effectively declare martial law in response to what he or other federal officials label a shortfall of "public order" -- whatever that means. It took only a few paragraphs in a $500 billion, 591-page bill to raze one of the most important limits on federal power. Congress passed the Insurrection Act in 1807 to severely restrict the president's ability to deploy the military within the United States. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 tightened those restrictions, imposing a two-year prison sentence on anyone who used the military within the United States without the express permission of Congress. (This act was passed after the depredations of the U.S. military throughout the Southern states during Reconstruction.) But there is a loophole: Posse Comitatus is waived if the president invokes the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus Act aim to deter dictatorship while permitting a narrow window for the president to temporarily use the military at home. But the 2006 reforms basically threw any concern about dictatorial abuses out the window. Section 1076 of the Defense Authorization Act of 2006 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from "Insurrection Act" to "Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act." The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only "to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." The new law expands the list of pretexts to include "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition" -- and such a "condition" is not defined or limited.

Military UAV's the size of a cigarette

Researchers at Oklahoma State University are working with DARPA to deliver a sophisticated, unmanned aircraft small enough to fit into a soldier's pocket. A state-of-the-art propulsion system, one that uses plasma thrusters with no moving parts, could provide power for micro and nano unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV.)This class of airplane can measure anywhere from a foot to less than 6 inches long. "What we want the infantrymen to be able to do is pull a pack of six or so out of their pocket and have them ready for use," Jamey Jacob, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering said. The new line of aircraft would take over some of the duties performed by today's UAV fleet, mainly surveillance of hostile areas, and would be a significant improvement over the UAV equipment available to soldiers today, according to Jacob. OSU students are working on another DARPA project, an aircraft that can stay aloft for five years at a stretch.

Big Brother Really Is Watching

As soon as you walk into the airport, the machines are watching. Are you a tourist -- or a terrorist posing as one? As you answer a few questions at the security checkpoint, the systems begin sizing you up. An array of sensors -- video, audio, laser, infrared -- feeds a stream of real-time data about you to a computer that uses specially developed algorithms to spot suspicious people. The system interprets your gestures and facial expressions, analyzes your voice and virtually probes your body to determine your temperature, heart rate, respiration rate and other physiological characteristics -- all in an effort to determine whether you are trying to deceive. Fail the test, and you'll be pulled aside for a more aggressive interrogation and searches. That scenario may sound like science fiction, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is deadly serous about making it a reality. Interest in the use of what some researchers call behavioral profiling (the DHS prefers the term "assessing culturally neutral behaviors") for deception detection intensified last July, when the department's human factors division asked researchers to develop technologies to support Project Hostile Intent, an initiative to build systems that automatically identify and analyze behavioral and physiological cues associated with deception. That project is part of a broader initiative called the Future Attribute Screening Technologies Mobile Module, which seeks to create self-contained, automated screening systems that are portable and relatively easy to implement. The DHS has aggressive plans for the technology. The schedule calls for an initial demonstration for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) early this year, followed by test deployments in 2010. By 2012, if all goes well, the agency hopes to begin deploying automated test systems at airports, border checkpoints and other points of entry. If successful, the technology could also be used in private-sector areas such as building-access control and job-candidate screening.

Plan aligns U.S. with EU economy

Six U.S. senators and 49 House members are advisers for a group working toward a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015. The Transatlantic Policy Network – a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels – is advised by the bi-partisan congressional TPN policy group, chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah. The plan – currently being implemented by the Bush administration with the formation of the Transatlantic Economic Council in April 2007 – appears to be following a plan written in 1939 by a world-government advocate who sought to create a Transatlantic Union as an international governing body. An economist from the World Bank has argued in print that the formation of the Transatlantic Common Market is designed to follow the blueprint of Jean Monnet, a key intellectual architect of the European Union, recognizing that economic integration must inevitably lead to political integration. A key step in advancing this goal was the creation of the Transatlantic Economic Council by the U.S. and the EU through an agreement signed by President Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel – the current president of the European Council – and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at a White House summit meeting last April. Writing in the Fall 2007 issue of the Streit Council journal "Freedom and Union," Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., a member of the TPN advisory group, affirmed the target date of 2015 for the creation of a Transatlantic Common Market. Costa said the Transatlantic Economic Council is tasked with creating the Transatlantic Common Market regulatory infrastructure. The infrastructure would not require congressional approval, like a new free-trade agreement would.

Enter Real ID: Welcome To Amerika

With its recent issuance of rules for implementing the “Real ID” law - the requirement that states issue driver’s licenses according to federal dictates and link the information to a nationwide database - the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken another page from the Soviets’ playbook. Stalin required Russian citizens to carry an internal passport ostensibly because “counterrevolutionaries” posed a threat. Amerikans will be required to show their papers to prove they aren’t terrorists or illegal immigrants. Because an internal passport is the hallmark of totalitarianism, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff is trying to play Americans for fools.... Perhaps the most alarming aspect of Real ID is that it transfers to the government ultimate control over citizens’ movements. The ID card of a citizen not in good standing could have a hold put on it, just like a credit card can. If your ID card is declined, you will be unable to travel, access your money, get a job, enter buildings, or go about the basic routines of life until you have restored favor with your government.

Exploring 'Human Fear' Chemicals

American military researchers are working to uncover and harness the most terrifying chemical imaginable: that most primal odor, the scent of fear. Pheromones are chemicals released by animals as signals to their own kind: for sex, for territorial marking, and more. They're often detected in the olfactory membranes. But there's more to pheromones than attraction. Many animals have an alarm pheromone which is used to signal danger; aphids, for example, use it to cause their fellow lice to flee. Now, the US Army is trying to track down and harness people's smell of fear. The military has backed a study on the "Identification and Isolation of Human Alarm Pheromones," which "focused on the Preliminary Identification of Steroids of Interest in Human Fear Sweat." The so-called "skydiving protocol" was the researchers' method of choice.

The Son of Perdition's New World Order

For many years the idea that such an "Orwellian" society would arise—where a one-world government oversees the smallest details of our lives and where human liberties are abandoned—was considered an anathema. The concept that rugged individualism could be sacrificed for an anesthetized universal harmony was repudiated by America’s greatest minds. Then, in the 1970s, things began to change. Following a call by Nelson Rockefeller for the creation of a "new world order," presidential candidate Jimmy Carter campaigned, saying, "We must replace balance of power politics with world order politics." Evidently he struck a chord with world leaders. During the 1980s President George Bush, Sr. continued the one-world dirge by announcing over national television that "a new world order" had arrived... According to some Christians, this is the unfolding of an ancient scheme. At the core of the conspiracy, a leader of indescribable brutality is scheduled to appear. He will make the combined depravities of Antiochus Epiphanes, Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan, all of whom were types of the Antichrist, look like Pee Wee Herman’s Playhouse.

Hackers Shook Up Power Grids

Recently the nation's chief spy screeched about of the danger of cyber attacks -- and the need to monitor what everyone does online, in response. Now, the CIA has made an usually public warning about the perils that network strikes can pose. Hackers have tried to extort money from overseas utility companies. At least in one case, the online attackers messed with an electrical grid, disrupting ing power in several cities. "We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet," Tom Donahue, the CIA's top cybersecurity analyst, told a New Orleans trade conference. He did not specify where or when the attacks took place, their duration or the amount of money demanded. Little said the agency would not comment further. Cyber extortion is a growing threat in the United States, and attackers have radically increased their take from online gambling sites, e-commerce sites and banks, which pay the money to prevent sites from being shut down and to keep the public from knowing their sites have been penetrated, said Alan Paller, research director at the SANS Institute, the cybersecurity education group that sponsored the meeting.

Gov. access to any email or Web search

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity. "Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the autority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search," author Lawrence Wright pens.
“Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said," Wright adds. "Giorgio warned me, 'We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'" A zero-sum game is one in which gains by one side come at the expense of the other. In other words -- McConnell's aide believes greater security can only come at privacy's expense. McConnell has been an advocate for computer-network defense, which has previously not been the province of any intelligence agency. According to a 2007 conversation in the Oval Office, McConnell told President Bush, “If the 9/11 perpetrators had focused on a single US bank through cyber-attack and it had been successful, it would have an order of magnitude greater impact on the US economy.” Bush turned to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, asking him if it was true; Paulson said that it was. Bush then asked to McConnell to come up with a network security strategy. "One proposal of McConnell’s Cyber-Security Policy, which is still in the draft stage, is to reduce the access points between government computers and the Internet from two thousand to fifty," Wright notes. "He claimed that cyber-theft account for as much as a hundred billion dollars in annual losses to the American economy. 'The real problem is the perpetrator who doesn’t care about stealing—he just wants to destroy.'" The infrastructure to tap into Americans' email and web search history may already be in place. In November 2007, a former technician at AT&T alleged that the telecom forwarded virtually all of its Internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying. Whistleblower Mark Klein said that a copy of all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device. "My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room," Klein. said "And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those Internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the Internet." "As a technician, I had the engineering wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room," Klein continued. "And so I know that whatever went across those cables was copied and the entire data stream was copied." According to Klein, that information included Internet activity about Americans. "We're talking about domestic traffic as well as international traffic," Klein said. Previous Bush administration claims that only international communications were being intercepted aren't accurate, he added.

First Temple Seal Found In Jerusalem

A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said recently. The 2,500-year-old black stone seal, which has the name "Temech" engraved on it, was found earlier this month amid stratified debris in the excavation under way just outside the Old City walls near the Dung Gate, said archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, who is leading the dig. According to the Book of Nehemiah, the Temech family were servants of the First Temple and were sent into exile to Babylon following its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The family was among those who later returned to Jerusalem, the Bible recounts.

Noah’s Ark nestled on Mount Ararat

For the first time in the seven decade-long history of the search for the legendary Noah’s Ark, a Turkish-Hong Kong exploration team on Jan 15, came out with “material evidence”, to prove that the Ark was nestled on Mount Ararat, Turkey’s highest mountain peak bordering Iran and Armenia. A panel of experts, comprising Turkish authorities, veteran mountaineers, archaeologists, geologists and members of Hong Kong-based Noah’s Ark Ministries International, also displayed an almost one-metre-long peice of petrified wood before the media and specially invited international experts. The experts claimed it to be a part of a long structure they had unearthed during their February-August 2007 exploration. “It is for the first time in the history of the Ark search that an exploration team is getting a material evidence and graphic documentation. This makes it not only a the significant breakthrough in the Ark-search, but one that is supported with the most substantial evidence in recent history,” the panel said. The revelation is expected to open up a fresh chapter in the ongoing debates in the scientific community on the search for Noah’s Ark. Narrating the genesis of their exploration on Mount Ararat, the mount which has a direct reference in Holy Quran (Mount Judi) and Bible, the panel said the search team had made several foiled attempts before unearthing the evidence at an altitude of 4,500-metres of the estimated 5,165 metre volcanic mountain. “The structure was discovered in the interiors of an unusual cave. The 11.5m wide and 2.6m high white wooden texture was revealed after removing thick layers of volcanic ash on the cave wall,” panel members said at a press conference. One of the underlying issues in the search for the Ark is the proper identification of its wood fragments. A petrographic examination carried out by the Applied Geoscience Centre of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, identified the object as a petrified wooden structure, the panel said. “Some of the big holes found on the structure indicate the locations where branches used to grow on tree. In places, original holes are partly or completely replaced by individual minerals and crystalline materials that can be found in rock materials,” said Dr Ahmet Ozbek, a panel member, who is also a faculty of Geology Engineering Kahramanmara Suctcu Imam University. Located in the Far Eastern Turkey, Ararat is great prize for mountain collectors. Ark sighting has often been reported from this mountain. The observation of Vessel-shaped features in aerial photograph of Ararat had caused a stir in the late 1950’s. However, this is the first time an exploration team is coming out with “material evidence”.

UN To Create 'New World Order'

Gordon Brown has begun secret talks with other world leaders on far-reaching reform of the United Nations Security Council as part of a drive to create a "new world order" and "global society". The Prime Minister is drawing up plans to expand the number of permanent members in a move that will provoke fears that the veto enjoyed by Britain could be diluted eventually. The United States, France, Russia and China also have a veto but the number of members could be doubled to include India, Germany, Japan, Brazil and one or two African nations. Mr Brown has discussed a shake-up of a structure created in 1945 to reflect the world's new challenges and power bases during his four-day trip to China and India. Last night, British sources revealed "intense discussions" on UN reform were under way and Mr Brown raised it whenever he met another world leader.

Plague a growing but overlooked threat

The disease that devastated medieval Europe is re-emerging worldwide and poses a growing but overlooked threat, researchers cautioned recently. While it has only killed some 100 to 200 people annually over the past 20 years, the plague has shown up in new countries in recent decades and is now shifting into Africa, Michael Begon, an ecologist at the University of Liverpool and colleagues said. A bacterium known as Yersinia pestis causes bubonic plague, known in medieval times as the Black Death when it was spread by infected fleas, and the more dangerous pneumonic plague, spread from one person to another through coughing or sneezing. ‘Although the number of human cases of plague is relatively low, it would be a mistake to overlook its threat to humanity, because of the disease's inherent communicability, rapid spread, rapid clinical course, and high mortality if left untreated,’ they wrote in the journal Public Library of Science journal PloS Medicine. Rodents carry plague, which is virtually impossible to wipe out and moves through the animal world as a constant threat to humans, Begon said. Both forms can kill within days if not treated with antibiotics. ‘You can't realistically get rid of all the rodents in the world,’ he said in a telephone interview. ‘Plague appears to be on the increase, and for the first time there have been major outbreaks in Africa.’

Hospitals tagging babies with chips

Over half the birthing facilities in Ohio are being equipped with an RFID infant protection system placed on infants at birth to prevent them from being abducted from the hospital or from being given to the wrong mother. "Standard protocol in the hospitals using the VeriChip system is that the baby receives an RFID anklet at birth and the mother receives a matching wristband," VeriChip spokeswoman Allison Tomek told WND. "The mothers are not asked." VeriChip Corp., a publicly listed company headquartered in Delray Beach, Fla., is marketing though its wholly-owned subsidiary, Xmark, a HUGS brand tag-and-bracelet infant security system. The RFID tag is attached to an infant at birth by an ankle bracelet that is detected by monitors positioned throughout the hospital. Critics charge the VeriChip system is an intrusive technology solution to a problem that is rare. "The VeriChip infant security system is a technology looking for a solution," said Katherine Albrecht, founder and director of CASPIAN, Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering.

Strain of Superbug 'May be new HIV'

A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Jan 14. They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Sexually active gay men in San Francisco are 13 times more likely to be infected than their heterosexual neighbors, the researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," said Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who led the study. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention." According to chemical analyses, bacteria are spreading among the gay communities of San Francisco and Boston, the researchers said. "We think that it's spread through sexual activity," Diep said. This superbug can cause life-threatening and disfiguring infections and can often only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics. It killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005, most of them in hospitals, according to a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association. About 30 percent of all people carry ordinary staph chronically. It can be passed by touching other people or by depositing the bacteria on surfaces or objects. The bacteria can cause deep-tissue infections if they enter the body through a wound in the skin. Of those people who carry staph, most carry it in their noses but community-based MRSA also can live in and around the backside and is passed between sexual partners. Incidence of MRSA is rising along with the resurgence of syphilis, rectal gonorrhea, and new HIV infections partly because of changes in beliefs about the severity of HIV and an increase in risky behaviors, such as illicit drug use and having sex that abrades the skin, Diep's team wrote. "Your likelihood of contracting each of these diseases increases with the number of sexual partners that you have," Diep said. "The same can probably be said for MRSA."

Recent Texas UFO Sightings

On an otherwise unremarkable January night in Stephenville, Texas, dozens of people looked to the sky and saw a vast vessel with a combination of red, white and yellow lights flying fast over the area's farms. One observer said the vessel was a mile long. Several said they saw fighter jets chasing it. One said he feared the object's appearance might mean "the end of times." A pilot, a cop and some businessmen, housewives, and children all say they saw a UFO on Jan. 8. The spaceship moved over the area for several seconds, witnesses said, and then zoomed away 300 times faster than a Cessna jet can travel.

Millions want shots for yellow fever

Millions of Brazilians are lining up at hospitals and clinics to receive yellow fever shots as deaths and suspected cases fuel fears of a resurgence of the deadly disease. The death of a man in Brasilia during the week of Jan 6, prompted concerns yellow fever could swamp urban centers, from where it has been eradicated in the 1940s. A second person from a rural area of the central state of Goias also died of the disease, officials said on Jan 14. More than 20 other suspect cases, including a Spanish citizen who died in Goias during the weekend, are being investigated. The government has denied the country faces an epidemic of yellow fever, which is spread by mosquitoes, but authorities are warning tourists traveling to Brazilian forests, national parks and rural areas to vaccinate at least 10 days before the trip. More than half of Brazil's 27 states are partially or entirely considered yellow fever risk areas, including the Amazon and the nation's capital Brasilia. Most of the coast, which attracts the bulk of tourists, is considered free of the disease. As fears of an outbreak grew among Brazilians all over the country, the Health Ministry gave states more than 3.2 million doses of yellow fever vaccines this year, more than three times the average monthly distribution in 2007. People in Sao Paulo stood in line on Sunday for more than four hours at an airport health station to receive shots, according to local media. In Brasilia, hospitals temporarily ran out of vaccines last week as demand surged.

FBI: Access to British identity data

Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists. The US-initiated programme, "Server in the Sky", would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the "war against terror" - the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy. Biometric measurements, irises or palm prints as well as fingerprints, and other personal information are likely to be exchanged across the network. One section will feature the world's most wanted suspects. The database could hold details of millions of criminals and suspects. The FBI is keen for the police forces of American allies to sign up to improve international security. The Home Office yesterday confirmed it was aware of Server in the Sky, as did the Metropolitan police. The plan will make groups anxious to safeguard personal privacy question how much access to UK databases is granted to foreign law enforcement agencies. There will also be concern over security, particularly after embarrassing data losses within the UK, and accuracy: in one case, an arrest for a terror offence by US investigators used what turned out to be misidentified fingerprint matches. Britain's National Policing Improvement Agency has been the lead body for the FBI project because it is responsible for IDENT1, the UK database holding 7m sets of fingerprints and other biometric details used by police forces to search for matches from scenes of crimes. Many of the prints are either from a person with no criminal record, or have yet to be matched to a named individual. IDENT1 was built by the computer technology arm of the US defence company Northrop Grumman. In future it is expected to hold palm prints, facial images and video sequences. A company spokeswoman confirmed that Northrop Grumman had spoken to the FBI about Server in the Sky. "It can run independently but if existing systems are connected up to it then the intelligence agencies would have to approve," she said. The FBI told the Guardian: "Server in the Sky is an FBI initiative designed to foster the advanced search and exchange of biometric information on a global scale. While it is currently in the concept and design stages, once complete it will provide a technical forum for member nations to submit biometric search requests to other nations. It will maintain a core holding of the world's 'worst of the worst' individuals. Any identifications of these people will be sent as a priority message to the requesting nation."

Antarctic losing ice 'Super Fast’

The rate of annual ice loss in the Antarctic has increased by almost 80 billion tonnes in a decade, a study has found. Measurements using satellite radar readings revealed that in parts of the continent the rate of loss has speeded up by 140 per cent since 1996. Global warming is thought to be among the most likely factors and the data provides one of the most detailed assessments yet of the changes. The findings challenge suggestions from previous research that the overall quantities of ice and snow in Antarctica could increase over the next century because of greater snowfall. The total annual loss was estimated at 196 billion tonnes, almost 50 times as much as the 4 billion tonnes of drinking water supplied to Britain’s taps each year. The most extensive ice loss was found to be taking place in west Antarctica, where an estimated 132 billion tonnes disappeared in 2006. The annual loss increased by about 49 billion tonnes more than in 1996, when about 83 billion tonnes was calculated to have slipped into the water, mainly as icebergs. On the Antarctic Peninsula the rate of loss was even greater, though the overall quantities were lower. It was estimated that the amount of ice loss rose from 25 billion to 60 billion tonnes. Quantities of ice and snow disappearing from east Antarctica were thought to be much lower, at 4 billion tonnes each year, and researchers concluded that the rate was unchanged since 1996. Professor Jonathan Bamber, of the University of Bristol, was part of an international team of scientists that mapped changes in ice cover around 85 per cent of Antarctica’s coast. “What we have done is make some observations that show a very substantial and dramatic change in the breadth of the ice sheet,” he said. “It suggests changes in the climate system could have a rapid influence on the health of the Antarctic ice sheet.

Microchip Babies in U.S. and UK

Are you prepared to live in a world in which every newborn baby is micro-chipped? And finally are you ready to have your every move tracked, recorded and placed in Big Brother's data bank? According to the Finnish article, distributed to doctors and medical students, time is running out for changing the direction of military medicine and mind control technology, ensuring the future of human freedom. "Implanted human beings can be followed anywhere. Their brain functions can be remotely monitored by supercomputers and even altered through the changing of frequencies," wrote Dr. Kilde. "Guinea pigs in secret experiments have included prisoners, soldiers, mental patients,handicapped children, deaf and blind people, homosexuals, single women, the elderly, school children, and any group of people considered "marginal" by the elite experimenters. The published experiences of prisoners in Utah State Prison, for example, are shocking to the conscience. "Today's microchips operate by means of low-frequency radio waves that target them. With the help of satellites, the implanted person can be tracked anywhere on the globe. Such a technique was among a number tested in the Iraq war, according to Dr. Carl Sanders, who invented the intelligence-manned interface (IMI) biotic, which is injected into people. (Earlier during the Vietnam War, soldiers were injected with the Rambo chip, designed to increase adrenaline flow into the bloodstream.) The 20-billion-bit/second supercomputers at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) could now "see and hear" what soldiers experience in the battlefield with a remote monitoring system (RMS). "When a 5-micromillimeter microchip (the diameter of a strand of hair is 50 micromillimeters) is placed into optical nerve of the eye,", Dr. Kilde indicates "it draws neuro-impulses from the brain that embody the experiences, smells, sights, and voice of the implanted person. Once transferred and stored in a computer, these neuro-impulses can be projected back to the person's brain via the microchip to be re-experienced. Using a RMS, a land-based computer operator can send electromagnetic messages (encoded as signals) to the nervous system, affecting the target's performance. With RMS, healthy persons can be induced to see hallucinations and to hear voices in their heads. " "Every thought, reaction, hearing, and visual observation causes a certain neurological potential, spikes, and patterns in the brain and its electromagnetic fields, which can now be decoded into thoughts, pictures, and voices, " Dr. Kilde adds. "Electromagnetic stimulation can therefore change a person's brainwaves and affect muscular activity, causing painful muscular cramps experienced as torture."

'Dolly Burgers' A Step Closer

Meat and dairy products from cloned animals have been deemed safe for human consumption by the European Union's food safety agency. The European Food Safety Authority has published a report which states cloned animals were not likely to pose a health risk when eaten, but also highlighted the "limited data" available. Just over a decade after British scientist Professor Ian Wilmut announced the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, the prospect of meat from genetically produced livestock has come a step closer.

Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs'

Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails. Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals. But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record. The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are already used around the world to keep track of dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor offenders in the community. The chips are also being considered as a method of helping to keep order within prisons. A senior Ministry of Justice official last night confirmed that the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles. "All the options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue," the source added. The move is in line with a proposal from Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders in order to track them more easily. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is seen as the favoured method of monitoring such offenders to prevent them going near "forbidden" zones such as primary schools. "We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area," a senior minister said last night. "We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it's time has come."

Bush says Iran threat to world security

President George W. Bush said on Sunday, Jan 13, that Iran was threatening security around the world by backing "extremists" and urged its Gulf Arab allies to "confront this danger before it is too late." Speaking in Abu Dhabi, the third stop of his tour of Arab allies, Bush said that Shi'ite Muslim Iran was the world's number one sponsor of terrorism and accused it of undermining peace by supporting the Hezbollah guerrilla group in Lebanon, Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Shi'ite militants in Iraq. "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late," he said in his keynote speech which, with the auditorium two-thirds full, received only polite applause at the end. "Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terror. It sends hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world while its own people face repression and economic hardship at home."

Davos NWO Conference To Open

The Davos event, a unique spectacle of wealth, power and debate, begins today, Jan 23, when chief executives and heads of state gather in the chic Alpine ski resort for five days of public discussions and private deal-making. Started in 1971 and known as the World Economic Forum, the gathering provides a unique opportunity to gauge the mood and preoccupations of some of the world's most powerful people. This year's invitation list includes 27 heads of state or government, 113 cabinet ministers and a smattering of stars from the world of entertainment... Other big name attractions include UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The prospect for peace in the Middle East is likely to be a major theme -- US Secretary of State and top negotiator Condoleezza Rice is to open the event.

Synbio: The New Microbe Monopoly

Synthetic biology has been called ‘genetic engineering on steroids’ and any concern people may have over GM applies equally to synbio. And just as biotech companies tried to sell to the public the idea of GM on the basis that it would feed the world, synbio is also being sold on the issue of the day – climate change. With governments so desperate for climate solutions that won’t impact on levels of consumption that they are reconsidering nuclear power, the time is ripe for this controversial technology to advance with little regulatory oversight... synbio could lead to the proliferation of cheap bio-weapons and accidental releases of dangerous pathogens and artificial lifeforms which pose a serious threat to human health and the environment. To pre-empt these concerns, synbio’s proponents have published proposals on how this new technology should be regulated. Unsurprisingly, given the vested interests of those involved, the report is partial, partisan and essentially an attempt to stave off state regulation by advocating voluntary measures. But their report fails to answer the key questions of who owns, controls and makes the decisions about this new technology. Perhaps that’s because their answer is the same as it has been for other new technologies, such as GM and nanotechnology, the key decisions are made by capital alone.

REAL ID = End Of US Freedom

I remember growing up and seeing movies in the 1950's with scenes that included Russian soldiers and enforcers in other dictatorships demanding to see the national identification papers of citizens as they traveled. "Papers, please," was the common refrain. While watching those movies, American citizens sneered at such countries and how they treated their people. We said how lucky we are to live in a country where we have freedom from such tyranny. It seemed strange to track where people traveled within their own country and to ask for their ID at every turn. Now, the United States of America, which under President Ronald Reagan only a few years ago would have shuddered at such a notion of requiring its citizens to carry "papers", is in the process of requiring its citizens to carry a national ID card.

Pentagon: Create Remorseless Soldiers

Penny Coleman at Alternet.com gives us a look at a new program designed to dull the moral sensibilities of American soldiers in combat on the imperial frontiers: Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War. But as we'll see below, this attempt to peddle magic pills to chase away the horrors of war is just one front in a long-term, wide-ranging "warfighter enhancement program" -- including the neurological and genetic re-engineering of soldiers' minds and bodies to create what the Pentagon calls "iron bodied and iron willed personnel": tireless, relentless, remorseless, unstoppable... DARPA remains undeterred in its bold quest to "push the limits of human input/output," advance the "symbiotic relationship between man and machine," and customize "pharmaceutical technology" to "embolden the warfighter and his superiors," as military scientists declared at a Pentagon-sponsored conference on "future warfare." What happens to the burnt-out husks of these "iron" soldiers after their minds and bodies have been eaten way by relentless modification and ceaseless toil is, of course, of no concern to the Bush Regime. Even now, the White House is cutting back on health benefits to military veterans -- even going so far as to order veterans hospitals not to advertise their available services, lest broken soldiers actually seek to claim the promise of support their government once gave them.

Attacks on Indian Christians exploding

A new report confirms what Christians in India already feared: 2007 was the worst year since their nation's independence in 1947 for attacks on Christians. The report from Compass Direct cited statistics compiled by the All India Christian Council in confirming that the number of attacks on Christians in 2007 surpassed 1,000 for the first time in India's history. At least 200 anti-Christian attacks, including four murders, had been documented before the recent violence erupted in Orissa State's Kandhamal district, the report said. There, at least another four Christians were killed and about 800 attacks were reported. At least 730 homes and 95 churches were burned, the report said. "It is a matter of serious concern to the country that violence has been widespread in different parts of the country in general and against the Christians in particular," said Babu Joseph, a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference of India. "In all the villages we have visited, people testify that the attacks, destruction and looting was done in the presence of the police," the report continued, with Hindu extremists from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad suspected in many of the gun, knife and bomb assaults. There exists a "conspiracy to hide the bodies of Christians killed by VHP cadre to destroy evidence … Many are missing – both adults and children – in every village," the report said. In one area around the Barakhama village, 415 of the 450 homes belonging to tribal Christians were burned, the AICC wrote. A Christian, Bhogra Naik of Barakhama, was "cut into three pieces" by attackers after his house was destroyed, the report said.

Governments Plan To Enslave Ideas

Do you like Cell phones? How about using Email? Have you ever Text message anyone? Do you classify yourself as normal, someone who projects a truly nice guy image? Do you visit websites, maybe you even have one. What is on it? Do you publish an online newspaper? Do you like alternative media and news? If you do any of these things then you are part of the characteristic alignment of a Terrorist. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Terrorism Brochure, INT-78. This piece of three part fold out information is produced by the Counterterrorism Intelligence Unit and is meant to help the public identify terrorists. The problem, just who or what is a terrorist? When we hear the word terrorist, we think of some mad bomber in the Middle East or Asia somewhere. We do not think of people that have websites and put out alternative news or have talk shows on satellite and shortwave as a terrorist. But the recent flurry of legislation by our Government under George Bush is doing a hatchet job on constitutional freedoms many Americans enjoy today.

Cloning opens door to 'farmyard freaks'

Moves to clone and genetically modify farm livestock have opened the door to the creation of "Farmyard Freaks", experts have warned. News that the daughter of a US clone cow has been born on a British farm has moved the issue from science fiction to consumer reality. A former government adviser has painted a nightmarish picture of "zombie" and fast-growing supersize animals. Professor Ben Mepham, of Nottingham University, said the impact of bio-engineering, creating GM and cloned animals, is huge. Factory farming techniques, most commonly used with pigs and chicken, often involve keeping animals confined in cramped conditions. For pigs, who are highly intelligent, these conditions can lead to stress and aggression. However, GM scientists are actively investigating ways to remove the stress and aggression gene from animals, effectively turning them into complacent zombies. The professor said it might become technically possible to produce "animal vegetables" - beasts which are "highly prolific and oblivious to their physical and mental status". However, he argued that while this could reduce the pain and stress of factory farming, this did not mean it should be allowed to develop without question. The professor of applied bioethics warned that many of the GM experiments on animals have resulted in cruelty, producing mutants or animals which grow so large in the womb that they can only be surgically removed. He said: "The question of whether humanity should take it upon ourselves to alter animals by GM, involving in many cases mixing the genes of different species - and sometimes those of human origin - is undoubtedly critical for many people." The professor said that religious groups would see it as "an attempt to usurp God's role" while others would be unhappy about "so fundamentally altering the natural order".

Bush urges end to Israeli 'occupation'

US President George Bush, hardening his tone towards Israel, urged an end to "the occupation" of the West Bank and pushed for a peace treaty to be signed within a year to create a Palestinian state. The United States rarely uses the politically charged word "occupation" to describe Israel's hold on lands captured in a 1967 war. It is a term Palestinians seeking a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip employ frequently to describe their plight. "The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it," Bush said in a statement he read to reporters in a Jerusalem hotel. Bush's language, after he travelled to the West Bank city of Ramallah past Israeli checkpoints and settlements, could cause political pain to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose right-wing coalition partners usually bridle at such remarks. "There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967," Bush said. He had earlier met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and visited Bethlehem, also in the West Bank. Bush pressed the Palestinians to rein in militants. He said any negotiations must also ensure Israel has "secure, recognised and defensible borders" alongside a "viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent" Palestine. Challenging sceptics of his new push for peace on the first US presidential visit to Ramallah, he told a news conference with Abbas: "I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office."

Woman loses right to wear cross

A Christian British Airways employee who sued the company after it required her to cover up a cross necklace while on the job has lost her discrimination suit, but she vows to return to work on Jan 11, wearing the cross. Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida, who is a Coptic Christian and whose father is Egyptian and mother English, was sent home after refusing to remove the cross, which British Airways claimed violated its dress code. Eweida, who was placed on unpaid leave, sued her employer, charging religious discrimination, since the company allowed employees of other religions, such as Islam and Hinduism, to wear faith-related items, including clothing, jewelry and religious markings. The suit continued despite the airline loosening its cross prohibition last year. An attorney affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund represented Eweida in court. "Christian employees should not be singled out for discrimination. This decision will be appealed," said ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull, in a statement. "According to British Airways, it's OK for employees to wear a symbol of their faith unless it's a Christian cross. The airline took no action against employees of other religions who wore jewelry or symbols of their religion. That type of intolerance is inconsistent with the values of civilized communities around the world." The 56-year-old Eweida is quoted by BBC as saying: "I'm very disappointed. I'm speechless really because I went to the tribunal to seek justice. But the judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff." Eweida lost her initial suit against the company but won an injunction on appeal in the Reading Employment Tribunal. However, in yesterday's ruling in the case, Eweida v. British Airways, the court ruled the airline can continue to prohibit Eweida from visibly wearing her cross. The court concluded that other types of religious symbols, such as turbans, bangles and other religious markings, are unable to be concealed and are therefore acceptable. "No Christian should be forced to hide her faith in the workplace, particularly when a double-standard exists targeting only Christians for discriminatory treatment," said Bull. "This case should be of particular interest to the American customers of British Airways who understand and value religious liberty."

Scholar Thinks UFO 'Cover Up' is Real

Dom Armentano, who lives in Vero Beach, is professor emeritus in economics at the University of Hartford and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington. He writes, "The most astonishing news story of all time would be the confirmation of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Such a discovery would have multi-faceted social, religious, scientific and economic ramifications that can only be described as out-of-this-world. As an example, try to imagine the price of crude oil or the gyrations of the stock market just one day after such a revelation. The existence of off-the-planet intelligence could change what most people believe about almost everything. Yet in some ways an even more significant story, perhaps even more significant than the discovery of extraterrestrial life itself, would be the revelation that certain elements of the U.S. government may have known about — and covered up — that discovery (even from elected officials without a “need to know”) for more than 50 years. Now, that story, a deliberate half-century of deception to cover an inconvenient truth, likely would shake this nation to its very political foundations. That outrageous disclosure could change almost everything, too. Yet outrageous as it may seem, many who have studied the UFO phenomenon now conclude that starting with Roswell in July 1947, elements of the U.S. government may have systematically lied to the American people (and to elected officials) concerning the actual nature of the UFO phenomenon.

HAARP probes the moon with radar

How long does it take to radio the Moon? 2.4 seconds. Radar pulses from the HAARP research station outside Gakona in Alaska’s Copper River basin have been bounced off the moon and picked up by a radio telescope system in New Mexico — the lowest frequency radar echo from the moon ever detected on the home planet. The signals, beamed skyward from antennas at the sometimes controversial High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, zapped the moon in a manner somewhat like sonar, and then illuminated secrets of the ionosphere as they returned to Earth. These pulses were then caught by newly developed receivers at the Longwave Length Array in the New Mexico desert, an ongoing project to create a ground-breaking (and inexpensive) radio telescope that will listen to space for as-yet unknown low frequency signals. “Detecting the very weak radio signals after their round trip to the moon and back was challenging and required careful modification of the LWA antennas to improve their performance at these frequencies,” says NRL Remote Sensing Division scientist, Dr. Kenneth Stewart. The HAARP, sometimes the focus of criticism and outright paranoia from the tin-foil-hat crowd, conducts research into Earth’s ionosphere and magnetic field using radio waves. Aside from basic exploration of the weird electrically-charged world at the edge of space, HAARP helps military scientists and engineers figure out new possibilities for radio communications.

Mexican soldiers found invading U.S.

A federal document obtained and released by Judicial Watch reveals that there were dozens of armed incursions by Mexican soldiers and police into the United States during Fiscal Year 2007. The report was obtained by the Washington-based organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and it documents 29 confirmed incidents along the U.S.-Mexican border involving Mexican military and/or law enforcement personnel during that time. "These documents not only show the dangerous and chaotic situation at the Mexican border, but also the complicity of some Mexican government agents in violating U.S. law," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The U.S. government must begin to take these incidents more seriously, publicize them and take measures to bring the crisis at our border under control," he said.

UFO Sightings Increase

The mysterious orange orbs have also been spotted by residents in Chester, and last week the Leader received a report via the website of two sightings of them in San Diego, California. User rduke222, from California, wrote: "My wife and I saw four orange glowing objects just after midnight on New Year's Eve, which had the same characteristics described in this article. "They approached from the east and departed to the west. My impression was that they were the exhaust from propulsion. These objects were at great altitude and appeared to follow a flight test corridor that passes over San Diego from the Edwards AFB area. "These objects were not meteors or falling 'space junk'. It is likely they were 'Black Project' aircraft that had just taken off from the Edwards AFB (or Area 51) area and were already very high and going very fast.

Dozens in Texas town report seeing UFO

In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO. Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it. "People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times," said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. "It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts." While federal officials insist there's a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object's lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object. Machinist Ricky Sorrells said friends made fun of him when he told them he saw a flat, metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a pasture behind his Dublin home. But he decided to come forward after reading similar accounts in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune. "You hear about big bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal," Sorrells said. "It feels good to hear that other people saw something, because that means I'm not crazy." Sorrells said he has seen the object several times. He said he watched it through his rifle's telescopic lens and described it as very large and without seams, nuts or bolts.

Dark Energy and Fate Of The Universe

Anywhere on Earth this would be a big telescope, as high as a seven-story building, with a main mirror measuring 32 ½ feet across. But here at the South Pole, it seems especially large, looming over a barren plain of ice that gets colder than anywhere else on the planet. Scientists built the instrument at the end of the world so they can search for clues that might identify the most powerful, plentiful but elusive substance in the universe — dark energy. First described just nine years ago, dark energy is a mysterious force so powerful that it will decide the fate of the universe. Having already overruled the laws of gravity, it is pushing galaxies away from one another, causing the universe to expand at an ever faster rate. Though dark energy is believed to account for 70 percent of the mass of the universe, it is invisible and virtually undetectable. Nobody knows what it is, where it is or how it behaves. “If you see it in your basement,” jokes University of Chicago cosmologist Rocky Kolb, “you better get back on your medication.” But he knows better than most the high priority the world’s governments and scientists have placed on coming to a fuller understanding of the invisible force. “Many think dark energy is the most important problem in physics today,” said Kolb, who recently served as chairman of the Dark Energy Task Force, convened in 2005 by the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA and the National Science Foundation. Figuring out what dark energy is would explain the history and future of the universe and generate new understanding of physical laws that, applied to human invention, almost certainly will change the way we live — just as breakthroughs in quantum mechanics brought us the computer chip.

Convince the UN to release UFO info

A non profit campaign has taken up steam to impress or should I say convince the United Nations to disclose all it knows about UFO’s. According to the World Disclosure Campaign website, the group is calling on the U.N. to "hold open and secrecy free hearings on the UFO/Extraterrestrial presence on and around Earth." Second they are calling as well to "hold open hearings on advanced energy and propulsion systems related to the subject that, when publicly released, will provide solutions to global environmental and other challenges." The current campaign has many backers today around the world. Moreover, the list of people who have joined in this disclosure campaign has grown to over 34,000.

Pig Gives Birth To Glowing Piglets

A fluorescent green Chinese pig has given birth to two piglets that share their mother’s transgenic characteristic after she mated with an ordinary pig, state media said. The mother sow is one of the three fluorescent green pigs successfully bred by a research team in December 2006 after they injected fluorescent green protein into pig embryos. “The mouths, trotters and tongues of the two piglets glow green under ultraviolet light, which indicates the technology to breed transgenic pigs via cell nuclear transfer is mature,” Liu Zhonghua, a professor at Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, was quoted as saying.

666 draws comment in House of Commons

The Times Online reports: “A motion calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England has been listed in the House of Commons as 666 - the Number of the Beast. Labour MP John Austin, who has repeatedly tabled Early Day Motions urging disestablishment, put down his latest motion on Jan 10, as MPs debated scrapping Britain's blasphemy laws. It appeared on the House of Commons order paper numbered 666, the number associated with the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation. The King James Bible renders Revelation 13:8 as: ‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.’ Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester and one of the signatories, said: ‘It is incredible that a motion like this should have, by chance, acquired this significant number. ‘This number is supposed to be the mark of the Devil. It looks as though God or the Devil have been moving in mysterious ways. ‘What is even stranger is that this motion was tabled last night when MPs were debating blasphemy.’ The motion is unlikely to be debated. But momentum for looser ties between Church and State is growing, as the support for the repeal of the blasphemy law illustrates. The blasphemy law favours Christianity and in particular the Church of England.

Bigfoot expert says creature exists

Larry Battson has seen the smirks, the winks, the rolling of the eyes. But that doesn't bother him in the least. When you profess to believe in Bigfoot, that comes with the territory. "When I used to talk about Bigfoot at sports shows, I'd have skeptics," said Battson, a nationally known educator on wildlife, who was displaying rattlesnakes and other reptiles at the Kansas City, Mo., Sportshow last week. "I'd have `good old boys' come up and say `What are you trying to feed us?' But I'd always tell them, `You believe what you want to believe. I'm convinced it exists.'" Call it what you like _ Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, the Abominable Snowman _ it's out there, Battson says. He's convinced that secretive, mysterious, apelike creatures inhabit the deep forests of the United States. He and others describe them as 7 to 10 feet tall, weighing more than 500 pounds, with feet 20 to 25 inches long. They are covered in brown hair, walk on two feet and have a pronounced brow ridge, believers claim. They are highly intelligent, keeping to themselves and offering only fleeting exposure to humans. That explains why they are so seldom seen and why scientific proof of their existence is so scarce, believers say. But many, including the scientific community, remain unconvinced. If colonies of this Bigfoot creature do indeed exist, they say, get us the documentation. Battson has heard such skepticism before. Be he remains undeterred. He has been studying Bigfoot for about 30 years now, traveling the country to research alleged sightings. He has taken molds of footprints, he has audiotape of the sounds the creatures make in the wild, he has read journals of families that had close encounters with them, and he has mountains of testimony from people who claimed to have seen the primate. He spotted what may have been a Bigfoot, but he isn't certain. One of those testimonies came from his wife, who spotted what she believed to be a Bigfoot in the headlights of her car as she returned to the Battsons' home in rural Indiana one night.
That sighting came as no surprise to her husband. There have been other alleged spottings in Putnam County, Ind., where the couple lives. If you want to learn a lot more about Bigfoot and numerous other creatures of Cryptozoology, visit the website: Unknown Creatures

Bush predicts Mideast peace treaty

President Bush, summing up meetings with both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, said recently that a peace accord will require "painful political concessions" by each. Resolving the status of Jerusalem will be hard, he said, and he called for the end of the "occupation" of Arab land by the Israeli military. "Now is the time to make difficult choices," Bush said after a first-ever visit to the Palestinian territories, which followed separate meetings with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem the day before. Bush is in the Mideast for eight days, trying to bolster his goal of achieving a long-elusive peace agreement by the end of his presidency in a year. Speaking at his hotel in Jerusalem, he said again that he thinks that is possible. "I am committed to doing all I can to achieve it," Bush said. Within minutes, Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley said the president would return to the Middle East "at least once and maybe more" over the next year. He wouldn't elaborate on possible destinations, but another White House official said Bush is likely to attend Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations in May. Bush gave his most detailed summation yet of what a final peace should include, including U.S. expectations for the resolution of some of the hardest issues in the violent conflict, one of the world's longest-running and most intractable. He used tough language intended to put both sides on notice that he sees no reason they cannot get down to serious business, "starting right now." In his set of U.S. bottom lines were security for Israel, a "contiguous" state for the Palestinians and the expectation that final borders will be negotiated to accommodate territorial changes since Israel's formation. He also suggested international compensation for Palestinians and their descendants who claim a right to return to land they held before Israel's formation.

Iran Accelerating Missile Development

The head of the United States' missile defense program sought Wednesday to bolster Washington's argument for anti-missile sites in Europe by warning that Iran has sped up development of long-range missiles. Facing tough opposition from Russia and increasing skepticism from Poland, where the US wants to place part of the system, the American officials are trying to convince Europeans that program is crucial to guarding against an emerging threat from Iran. "They are developing missiles today in an accelerated pace," Lt. Gen. Henry Obering said in remarks at the Foreign Ministry in the Czech Republic, where Washington wants to install a radar facility as part of the system.

Al Qaeda Coming to Washington

In the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, about 20 masked supporters of an al-Qaida-inspired group calling itself the "Army of the Nation," displayed weapons in a first public appearance. The men wore black robes over black pants. Some wore red headbands with the words "death squad." A spokesman for the group, who only gave his nom de guerre, Abu Hafs, said Bush was "not welcome" in the Palestinian territories. "We are coming, not to Bush in Tel Aviv, but God willing to Washington," he said. He described members of the terror network al-Qaida as "brothers," with similar methods and ideology, but added that "there is no complete connection" to his group. Abu Hafs's group has claimed responsibility for several recent mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli border communities. In recent months, several al-Qaida-inspired groups have emerged in Gaza, though their actual links to the terror network, if any exist, are murky. An almost complete closure of Gaza since the Hamas takeover in June has driven Gazans deeper into poverty, creating fertile ground for militant groups. There has been intense speculation about a possible al-Qaida presence in the Palestinian territories since the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington. Palestinian intelligence officials believe the terror network has formed some sleeper cells in Gaza, and suspect possible al-Qaida involvement in several spectacular attempts to assassinate Palestinian security commanders since 2004. Israel also insists al Qaida has put down roots in Gaza, a claim denied by Hamas.

Has the mythical bird Garuda arrived!

The recent sighting of an unidentified bird in Lahori Village near Bhopal has many villagers believing that it is the mythical bird Garuda. Garuda, it is believed, was Lord Vishnu's vehicle. Although the bird is yet to be identified by zoologists and ornithologists, it has become a cynosure of all eyes particularly with the devout Hindus. "Its face and its beak are similar to Garuda," said Kamal Naagar, temple priest, Lahori Village. Zoology experts contend that it may be one of the migratory birds. "It is certainly not an owl since the beak of this bird differs from the face of an owl. They are different. It might be related to owl's family, but it's not an owl," said S.Shrivastava, a zoology professor at Bhopal. "I have seen many zoos, but I have never come across this bird. It might be a migratory bird," Shirvastava added. In another village of Madhya Pradesh, named Sonara, the same or similar bird was sighted along with three of its young ones. The devout in Lahori, the Madhya Pradesh village, hope that Lord Vishnu may visit them, now that his 'vehicle' is there!

Creating Animals With Human DNA

Scientists eager to splice human genes with animal cells are seeking public feedback on the prospect of such controversial research, the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC) said recently. The city-state, with its ambitions to become a global bio-medical powerhouse, has the technology to create these "mixed animals" that can be created by infusing a human nucleus, the cell's nerve centre, with an animal egg or cell, Lim said. Most countries prohibit so-called chimera research, although a parliamentary bill is up for discussion in Britain. "Science in the distant future may even allow us to grow human organs in animals for transplants," Lim said. Websites against such research say scientists would be playing God by creating half-human, half-animal monstrosities.

ET Signal Heard by Arecibo

Across the globe, researchers searching for signs of life in space were abuzz this week with word that a mystery signal has been picked up by a giant radio-telescope in Puerto Rico. Now the dilemma is -- how do you answer it? Dan Wertheimer of the UC Berkeley SETI Project, said the dilemma is compounded by the fact that the signal may never be completely decoded. ‘We probably won't be able to decode it,’ he said. ‘We'll know something's out there, but we won't know much about their civilization.’”

Concern over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal

The head of the UN atomic watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei has voiced concern over the possibility that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal could fall into extremist hands, in statements published recently. "I fear that chaos... or an extremist regime could take root in that country which has 30 to 40 warheads," ElBaradei told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat in an interview. He stressed that he was "worried that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of an extremist group in Pakistan or in Afghanistan." There has been worldwide concern over the security of Pakistan's estimated 50 nuclear warheads since Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in the troubled country in November. Musharraf said in December that Pakistan's nuclear weapons were under control. Tensions have been running high in the Islamic country since the December 27 assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto after an election rally. "I fear that a war in the Middle East or in the Muslim world could have grave repercussions in Pakistan, more than in Iran," ElBaradei said.

New Survey Supports Evolution

A new study of 1,000 likely U.S. voters apparently confirms that the majority of Americans support evolution, its role in science, and the importance of teaching evolution in schools. But critics say the survey is another attempt by evolutionists to defy any opposition to their claims, even within the scientific community. "The bottom line is that the world is round, humans evolved from an extinct species, and Elvis is dead," said Gerald Weissman, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal , describing the survey in a press release earlier this month. "In an age when people have benefited so greatly from science and reason, it is ironic that some still reject the tools that have afforded them the privilege to reject them," said Weissman. But reactions to the report by some who reject the idea that evolution is irrefutable say the survey reveals more than statistics.

Tony Blair Up For EU Presidency

Tony Blair is to return to the front line of European politics in Paris this weekend - amid growing signs of a campaign to install him as the European Union's first fully fledged president. Mr Blair has agreed to speak alongside Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, who is actively promoting the former prime minister for a role that would make him the most influential figure in EU affairs. Mr Sarkozy told The Daily Telegraph he held talks with Mr Blair over Christmas while both were holidaying in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh. While he refused to be drawn about the detail of their discussions, Mr Sarkozy said he was "delighted" that Mr Blair had agreed to attend the conference of his centre-Right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP). Mr Blair's speech will be his most important since he left Downing Street last June and he is expected to dwell on the EU's role in world affairs. It will be followed by his attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month and an appearance soon after at a meeting of French socialists. Hailing his decision, the UMP's website says the meeting is "assuming a particular and exceptional character with the participation of the former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair". Gordon Brown is likely to be less enthusiastic about the prospect of his old rival returning to centre stage - both within the EU and at the Davos gathering attended by world statesmen and business leaders. A spokesman for Mr Blair said he remained "fully focused" on his job as a Middle Peace Envoy for the quartet of powers - the EU, United Nations, United States and Russia. But he refused to rule Mr Blair out for the new EU post, which will begin in January next year. The President of the EU Council of Ministers - which could be taken on a three-day working week - will carry a package worth around £200,000 a year and would make Mr Blair the most important figure in EU politics. Last October, Mr Sarkozy said choosing Mr Blair would be a "smart move" because he remained one the EU's most outstanding figures.

People Of Faith Leaving Religion

Stetzer says "If you went back 100 years in North America, there would have been a consensus that God is the God in the Bible. We can't assume this any longer. We no longer have a home-field advantage as Christians in this culture." Most of the unchurched (86%) say they believe they can have a "good relationship with God without belonging to a church." And 79% say "Christianity today is more about organized religion than loving God and loving people."

American Hiroshima Will Happen

About every three days, unknown to most Americans, an elite team of federal scientists hits the streets in the fight against nuclear terrorism. The deployments are part of an effort since 2001 to ratchet up the nation's defenses. More than two dozen specialized teams have been positioned across the nation to respond to threats of nuclear terrorism, and as many 2,000 scientists and bomb experts participate in the effort. Spending on the program has more than doubled since it was launched. And an evolving national policy aims to create a system of nuclear forensics, in which scientific analysis could quickly identify the source of a nuclear attack or attempted attack. A key report on nuclear forensics is due next month... If the many layers of federal defense against nuclear smuggling break down, these unarmed weapons designers and physicists, along with experts from the FBI, could be the last hope of staving off a catastrophic attack. They are supposed to rush up to a ticking nuclear explosive (or a "dirty" bomb, which would disperse radioactive material) and defuse it before it's too late -- a situation often depicted by Hollywood that seems less fictional every year. "After everything else fails, we come in," said Deborah A. Wilber, the scientist who directs the Office of Emergency Response at the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration. "I don't believe it is a question of if it will happen. It is a question of when."

Risk to Earth: Supernova Explosions

If a star named Eta Carina were to explode like SN 2006gy, it would quickly become the brightest object in the sky other than the sun and the moon. For those living where Eta Carina is always above the horizon (Antarctica, New Zealand and extreme southern regions of Australia and South America) the light would vastly outshine Venus, visible even during the day. The radiation would illuminate the evening sky with a bluish glow nearly strong enough to read by, and the effect would likely last for months — perhaps six or more. The cumulative effects of long-duration exposure to blue-enhanced light would begin to interfere with life on Earth. Those who study chronobiology, or the effects of biological timing, have found that low levels of blue light can strongly affect the endocrine systems of mammals by causing physiological and alerting responses. Blue-enhanced light is associated with reduced levels of melatonin production and affects circadian rhythms. For these reasons, it is sometimes prescribed to counteract seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or winter depression. "This is not going to be an 'everything dies immediately' kind of event," Thomas said. "But with the risk factors associated with higher levels of this kind of light it's certainly something that could be important in the longer run."

Real I.D. Rules To Limit Your Movements

Come May 11 this year, Georgia and Maine residents without passports may not be allowed into federal buildings and the lines at Hartsfield-Atlanta airport could stretch to Alabama, according to federal rules designed to morph state driver's licenses in a national identification card that were released Friday. The Department of Homeland Security announced the final regulations Friday that implementing the Real ID act, legislation that requires states to standardize their driver's licenses, forces current license holders to re-apply with certified copies of birth certificates and marriage licenses, and penalizes states that don't comply by making their licenses unacceptable for federal purposes, such as entering Federal buildings. Without any hearings, the measure was slipped into a must-pass military spending bill in 2005 by Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI).

Witchcraft Ritual Kills Two Teenagers

A misunderstood witchcraft ritual could have caused the deaths of two teenage girls, police said. Police charged Lawrence Douglas Harris Sr. with two counts for the first-degree murder of his stepdaughters after authorities arrived Sunday, Jan 6, at his burning home in Sioux City, Iowa, and found the girls in their second-story bedroom and blood on Harris, police said. "You're talking about people casting spells, spells gone bad," Sioux City Police Chief Joe Frisbie said. "Obviously, there is a lot more going on here than a straightforward homicide." The victims were Kendra Suing, 10, and her sister, Alysha Suing, 8, whose bodies were found in the afternoon. An official cause of death won't be available for several days, police said. Professor Helen A. Berger, author of three books on witches, told the Sioux City Journal she doubted anyone claiming to have killed children while casting a spell is a true practitioner of witchcraft, the Associated Press reported. "This is not a group that participates normally in violence, but it is a group that doesn't have firm boundaries, which means that anyone can make a claim to be a member," she said.

HAARP Could Capsize Planet

Just when you think you've heard all the possible far-out theories behind the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska, leave it to the Russians to come up with one better. Forget mind control, the Russians think HAARP is a "geophysical weapon" that's gonna capsize the planet. HAARP, just by way of a reminder for those who don't obssessively follow its progress, is a military project that's supposed to study the ionosphere and "use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes." In more recent years, the Pentagon has also expressed interest in using HAARP to mitigate the effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions. However, HAARP's use of an antenna array operating in the High Frequency (HF) range has also prompted tons and tons of other theories about its uses, ranging from weather control to altering human behavior. According to this article published in a Russian military journal (and helpfully translated by the CIA-funded Open Source Center), HAARP is the ultimate superweapon: "The layer of ionosphere which is excited by HAARP influences the radio and electronic equipment which is installed in the military hardware: Fire control and guidance systems, fire adjustment equipment, navigation systems, etc. As a result, an aircraft or a missile will be damaged if they fly through the beam," Col Plaksin said. And this is by far not the only consequence of implementation of the HAARP program. Compared to, say, nuclear weapons, geophysical weapons are much more powerful. And if, say, the beam is sent to Britain, it can make the country dysfunctional in a matter of seconds. So, some scientists say that a group of the military who use the geophysical weapon might bring the economy of an entire country on its knees in a few years' time - and no one will understand anything. The most dangerous thing is that even developers cannot say with certainty what will happen to the planet and how ionosphere will react to the attack with these rays if the system is switched to the maximum power. As is known, ionosphere and the ozone layer protect the Earth from the deadly cosmic radiation. The electromagnetic cannon of the HAARP system will damage ionosphere, and the cosmic radiation will be able to reach the surface of the planet. Moreover, the effects of this know-how (as published) cannot be controlled, some researchers say. Even a single use of this weapon may result in so-called trigger effect which no one will be able to stop: Earthquakes, sudden cooling on the global scale, etc. In the opinion of Canadian scientist Rosalie Bertel, who is studying the effects of wars on the environment, intense disturbance of ionosphere may result in a release of huge masses of free electrons - so-called electron showers. For its part, this might result in the change of electric potential of the poles and ensuing shift of the magnetic pole of the Earth. Simply speaking, the planet will "capsize." So the location of the north pole will become uncertain.

FDA Backs Food From Clones

Having completed a years-long scientific review, the Food and Drug Administration is set to announce as early as next week that meat and milk from cloned farm animals and their offspring can start making their way toward supermarket shelves, sources in contact with the agency said yesterday. The decision would be a notable act of defiance against Congress, which last month passed appropriations legislation recommending that any such approval be delayed pending further studies. Moreover, the Senate version of the Farm bill, yet to be reconciled with the House version, contains stronger, binding language that would block FDA action on cloned food, probably for years.

Banks Introducing Microchip Tech

The President’s Choice Financial® team is always looking for ways to improve your overall banking experience and to provide you with the most secure system of bank and credit card fraud protection. That’s why we’re† incorporating the added security of chip technology into our President’s Choice Financial bank card, President’s Choice Financial MasterCard and bank machines. What is chip technology? Cards with chip technology use an embedded microchip to encrypt information making it more difficult for unauthorized users to copy or access the data on the card. The move to chip card technology is the latest innovation in an evolving payment card environment. Chip technology is already tested, proven and in wide use around the world, and chip cards are quickly becoming the new global standard for enhanced safety and security. How will chip technology impact me? Over the next few years, point-of-sale terminals and bank machines across the country will be outfitted to accept bank cards and credit cards with chip technology. Your new President's Choice Financial bank card will still feature the familiar, magnetic stripe on the back to ensure it is accepted everywhere you use your cards today. In early 2008, President’s Choice Financial, Canadian banks and credit card companies will conduct a trial in Kitchener-Waterloo to actively test this technology. After the successful conclusion of the market trial, President's Choice Financial will begin introducing new bank and credit cards enabled with chip technology to its customers across the country in a process that will take a few years to complete.

Trigger for Bird Flu Pandemic Found

Scientists have identified a key mechanism necessary for bird flu to morph from a rare but deadly infection into a pandemic that could kill millions of people. MIT scientists reported in a recent issue of Nature Biotechnology that the shape of certain structures in the virus could be key to allowing it to easily pass from human to human. In birds, the shape of the structures match the shape of sugars in the animals' respiratory tracts, allowing the infection to easily latch onto the animals. In humans, those shapes don't match up -- but if the virus morphed so they did, it could lead to a pandemic. "We’re like a sitting duck, waiting for an H5N1 virus that can attach to us," said Richard Cummings, an Emory University biochemist and influenza cell specialist who did not participate in the study. "This research moves us to the point where we can start anticipating what might happen."

ACLU Rips Plan to Track R.I. Students

A tech company with ties to a school district plans to test a tracking system by putting computer chips on grade-schoolers' backpacks, an experiment the ACLU ripped recently as invasive and unnecessary. The pilot program set to start next week in the Middletown school district would have about 80 children put tags containing radio frequency identification chips, or RFID chips, on their schoolbags. It would also equip two buses with global positioning systems, or GPS devices. The school and parents will be able to track students on the bus, and the district hopes the program will improve busing efficiency, Superintendent Rosemarie Kraeger said. The devices are intended to record only when students enter and exit the bus, and the GPS would show where the bus was on it's route. Parents could opt out of the program, Kraeger said. The pilot program, made by MAP Information Technology Corp., is to run for several months at the Aquidneck School, she said. The district, which serves about 2,500 students, is the company's only client, said Deborah Rapp, the company's director of marketing and communications. Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, sent a letter to Kraeger and members of the school committee calling the plan "a solution in search of a problem" and saying the school district should already have procedures in place to track where its students are. On Monday, Jan 7, he said the program raises enormous privacy and safety concerns. "There's absolutely no need to be tagging children," he said. "We are not questioning the school district's ability to use GPS to monitor school buses. But it's a quantitative leap to monitor children themselves."

Mars Rover Finds Possible Hot Springs

NASA scientists have taken ‘the most significant step’ forward in finding evidence for former conditions on Mars suitable for life. That’s according to Steve Squyres, the principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers, called Spirit and Opportunity. Squyres said that a rock split open by the wheels of the Spirit rover revealed that it, and those surrounding it, were made of more than 90 percent silica.

Mystery of 60 year old P-51 crash

First, it was 60 years ago that Capt. Thomas Mantell died while chasing what, at the time, was a UFO. Second, his close encounter happened six months to the day after a “flying saucer” crashed at a Roswell, N.M., ranch. Americans were gaga over green men. Third, Mantell and his P-51 Mustang fighter squadron happened to enter the Army post’s airspace at about the same time as the UFO, which reports say looked like a white ice cream cone with a glowing red tip. The supervisor at Godman Airfield tower that afternoon asked Mantell for an obvious favor: If you’ve got enough fuel, would you mind checking this out for us? Before he crashed, he managed to describe to those at the tower what appeared to be a “metallic object” of “tremendous size,” which varied in speed between about 180 to more than 300 mph, according to testimony of the airport’s chief operator posted on the Web site of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. When Mantell had positioned himself directly behind and slightly below the UFO, he uttered his final communication: “I am trying to close in for a better look.” The chase had drawn him to 20,000 feet or higher. Above 10,000 feet, a pilot in that kind of plane would need supplemental oxygen, said Lt. Col. Tim Moore, a state representative and member of the Kentucky Air National Guard. Mantell — who didn’t have this resource (a problem that could explain why he thought the object sped up so much) — passed out and his plane plunged to the ground south of Bowling Green. The incident received a lot of media coverage and myths about it sprouted up. For instance, rumor has it Mantell saw windows on the craft, and his wrecked plane had strange holes as if some sort of laser beam had shot it down. What happened, exactly, wasn’t made clear until quite a few years after the encounter, Reid said.
Most now agree the object was a balloon. Specifically, Reid believes it was a Skyhook balloon the Navy had launched the day before in Minnesota. Operation Skyhook was a secret initiative to collect atmospheric data and put spy cameras over the Soviet Union, Reid said. While Reid is quick to give a terrestrial explanation of Mantell’s sighting, he “wobbles” about whether we ever have been visited by an intelligence beyond our own. Regardless of what Mantell saw, the fact it led to his death darkened our views of UFOs. “It was a very sobering incident,” Reid said.

Russia to search Europa

Russia plans to participate in a European mission to investigate Jupiter's moon Europa and search for simple life forms, the Interfax news agency reported recently, quoting a senior researcher. The head of the Space Research Institute, Lev Zelyony, said a project to explore the giant gaseous planet Jupiter would shortly be included in the programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) for the years 2015 to 2025. "The main task is to explore its satellite Europa, on which under a thick layer of ice a liquid water ocean has been detected," said Zelyony. Russia is to participate in the programme, called Laplace after French astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace, and has suggested landing a craft in one of the fissures in Europa's icy crust. Having landed, the craft would melt some of the ice and search for life forms, he said. "Where there is an ocean, life could arise. In this respect, after Mars, the Europa satellite is probably the most intriguing place in the solar system," said Zelyony.

Is Time Literally Slowing Down

Remember a little thing called the space-time continuum? Well what if the time part of the equation was literally running out? New evidence is suggesting that time is slowly disappearing from our universe, and will one day vanish completely. This radical new theory may explain a cosmological mystery that has baffled scientists for years. Scientists previously have measured the light from distant exploding stars to show that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. They assumed that these supernovae are spreading apart faster as the universe ages. Physicists also assumed that a kind of anti-gravitational force must be driving the galaxies apart, and started to call this unidentified force "dark energy". However, to this day no one actually knows what dark energy is, or where it comes from. Professor Jose Senovilla, and his colleagues at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, have proposed a mind-bending alternative. They propose that there is no such thing as dark energy at all, and we’re looking at things backwards. Senovilla proposes that we have been fooled into thinking the expansion of the universe is accelerating, when in reality, time itself is slowing down. At an everyday level, the change would not be perceptible. However, it would be obvious from cosmic scale measurements tracking the course of the universe over billions of years. The change would be infinitesimally slow from a human perspective, but in terms of the vast perspective of cosmology, the study of ancient light from suns that shone billions of years ago, it could easily be measured. The team's proposal, which will be published in the journal Physical Review D, dismisses dark energy as fiction. Instead, Prof Senovilla says, the appearance of acceleration is caused by time itself gradually slowing down, like a clock with a run-down battery.

SETI Ramps Up Search For ETI

The longest-running search for radio signals from alien civilizations is getting a burst of new data from an upgraded Arecibo telescope, which means the SETI@home project needs more desktop computers to help crunch the data. Since SETI@home launched eight years ago, the project based at the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory has signed up more than 5 million interested volunteers and boasts the largest community of dedicated users of any Internet computing project: 170,000 devotees on 320,000 computers. Yet, new and more sensitive receivers on the world's largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and better frequency coverage are generating 500 times more data for the project than before. The SETI@home software has been upgraded to deal with this new data as the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) enters a new era and offers a new opportunity for those who want to help find other civilizations in the universe.

Machine knows what you are thinking

Scientists have developed a machine which is capable of reading our mind and revealing our most private thoughts. American researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, found that, with the aid of a sophisticated scanner and computer programme, they were able to determine how the brain lights up when thinking about different subjects. Using an advanced form of MRI scanner, they analysed how the brain reacted to ten drawings of tools and buildings. They then used a computer programme to work out whether a person was thinking about a tool or a building. The researchers' analysis was found to be 97 per cent accurate but they went on to show that they could distinguish between two similar objects, such as two different tools, almost as successfully. This is the first time the technique has been finetuned to distinguish between similar objects. The brain scans also showed many different brain regions are involved in processing information even in the case of something as simple as a line drawing of a hammer. Thinking about how a hammer is used activated the areas involved in movement, while thinking about the shape of a hammer and what it is used for lit up other regions. Despite being limited to picking up the thoughts behind just ten pictures, the researchers are confident that they will soon be able to identify entire sentences. One of the team, Dr Svetlana Shinkareva, said: "We hope to progress to identifying the thoughts associated not just with pictures but also with words and eventually sentences." The technique could also have medical applications by, for example, providing valuable insights into conditions such as autism.

Pat Robertson: Violence, Recession

Sharing what he believes God has told him about the year ahead is an annual tradition for Robertson. On a recently "700 Club" broadcast, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network predicted that evangelism will increase and more people will seek God as the chaos develops. Robertson said, "We will see the presence of angels and we will see an intensification of miracles around the world." Last year, Robertson predicted that a terrorist act, possibly involving a nuclear weapon, would result in mass killing in the United States. Noting that it hadn't come to pass, Robertson said, "All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us."

Happy New Year from the New Age Christ

On New Year’s Day, New Age leader Marianne Williamson got the new year off to a rousing start on Oprah & Friends XM Radio as she began to systematically teach the New Age principles of A Course in Miracles. While most of the Christian world was relaxing, Williamson was hard at work teaching this occult Course on her radio show. Her program, which now airs each weekday for an hour, is completely devoted to teaching A Course in Miracles. Both Oprah Winfrey and Marianne Williamson have openly stated that they believe its principles can change the world. A Course in Miracles is reputedly “new revelation” from “Jesus,” channeled through a university professor in New York City by the name of Helen Schucman. But the Course is actually the Bible turned upside-down, as it teaches that “a slain Christ has no meaning” and that “the journey to the cross should be the last useless journey.” Its teachings state that “there is no sin” and that “the recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.” Kicking off the new year in high gear, Williamson cleverly avoided any direct reference to biblical Christianity when she stated that over the coming months on her program she would be methodically “dismantling a thought system based on fear.” She emphasized that the dismantled thought system would be replaced by “a thought system based on love” – a thought system that would be inspired by the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles.

Judge Says He Was Bothered By A 'Demon'

A judge confronted about a recording of his personal fantasies remarked at the time that he had been bothered by a "demon" for decades, a prosecutor testified recently. Circuit Judge John B. Hagler of Cleveland, Tenn., resigned last month after District Attorney General Steve Bebb and an investigator asked him about the tape he had recorded years earlier. The case is before a Chattanooga court because Hagler is trying to stop the Chattanooga Times Free Press and other news media, including The Associated Press, from obtaining a copy of the tape. The open records law hearing ended recently with Chancery Court Judge Frank Brown III saying he would make a decision "in due course" on whether it should be released to the media. Hagler contends that the tape is his private property and that the original was stolen from his office by a former secretary. Hagler's attorney, Roger Jenne, said afterward that the hearing was fair, although Brown did not return the original recording to Hagler immediately, as requested. Tom Griscom, publisher and executive editor of the Chattanooga newspaper, said he was satisfied with the two days of arguments for release of the tapes. "I believe we made a strong case that the tape by Judge Hagler is a public record," Griscom said. Chattanooga police who investigated the recording in late 2005 said it "sounded like someone being tortured," but they concluded it wasn't connected to a crime. Two years later, the tape made its way to Bebb in Hagler's district. "John said this had been a demon ... that bothered him for 20 years," Bebb testified. An objection stopped him from elaborating on Hagler's comment. Last month, the Times Free Press learned about the recording from an unidentified source. Hagler confirmed its existence and resigned.

Bug-Like Robo-Bombs for Indoor Ops

Air Force scientists are looking for robotic bombs that look -- and act -- like swarms of bugs and birds. In a recent presentation, Colonel Kirk Kloeppel, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory's munitions directorate, announced the Lab's interest in "bio-inspired munitions." These, "small, autonomous" machines would "provide close-in [surveillance] information, in addition to killing intended targets," the Colonel noted. And they'd not only take out foes in urban canyons -- the self-guided munitions would "operat[e] within buildings," too. Perhaps, like birds and bees, these tiny machines could maneuver by sensing "air flow." Maybe they could be led to targets by smell, sound, or " electrosensing." For sure, they would flap their wings in order to stay aloft. And, naturally, they'd all have "morphing airframes." The military has all kinds of research efforts underway to try to bring the animal and robot worlds together -- everything from slithering snake-bots to mechanical pack mules to dragonfly drones. But Col. Kloeppel's ideas are some of the most radical I've seen, so far. Other long, long-term goals he and the Lab have in mind include "psycho-cultural situational awareness," "ubiquitous swarming sensors & shooters," and "dominant offensive cyber engagement."

Court ends Bible distribution in school

A rural school district's long-standing practice of allowing the distribution of Bibles to grade school students is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled. An attorney for the southeastern Missouri school district said recently he will appeal the judge's injunction against the practice. For more than three decades, the South Iron School District in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis in the heart of the Bible Belt, allowed representatives of Gideons International to give away Bibles in fifth-grade classrooms. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit two years ago on behalf of four sets of parents. In August, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary injunction against the practice. The district altered its policy, saying the Gideons and others were still welcome to distribute Bibles or other literature before or after school or during lunch break, but not in classrooms. On Tuesday, Jan 8, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry ruled both practices were illegal and granted a permanent injunction. The purpose of both practices "is the promotion of Christianity by distributing Bibles to elementary school students," Perry wrote. "The policy has the principle or primary effect of advancing religion by conveying a message of endorsement to elementary school children." Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based law group that represented the school district, said he would appeal. "I think the current policy creates an open forum that allows secular as well as religious persons or groups to access the forum to distribute information," Staver said. "The court has clearly misread the First Amendment and the cases regarding free speech." The parents who sued are Christian but believe religious beliefs should be taught in the home, not school, said Anthony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

Military Mindfields

Recently, while at a Phoenix, Arizona conference on UFOs, crop circles, alternative archaeology and other such fringe matters, I encountered, to my surprise, a true American hero. A straightforward and unassuming man whose father was a well-respected Alaskan congressman, Dr. Nick Begich has been waging a long and often lonely campaign to raise the public’s awareness of the extraordinary perils and potentials of new technologies that can act upon the brain and influence our cognitive and somatic capacities, often without us knowing about them. At first, many of the military initiatives and scientific research projects described by Dr. Begich sound like science fiction — the stuff of Philip K. Dick’s most paranoid visions — but they are quite real, and in many cases already available.

Cloning: Solutions Create Questions

Remember that Dr. Josef Mengele, called "The Angel of Death," gruesomely experimented on humans in Auschwitz camps. Is cloning not similar to his conducting grotesque tests on humans? And speaking of Nazis -- have you ever wondered what happened to them since they arrived in our country through our government's "Operation paperclip"? This was a cover-up that allowed our administration to sneak them and their companions in to the U.S. so as to avoid the Nuremberg Trials. Some German Nazis are still here, and many of them are offspring of the defectors, but more of them are offspring of offspring. With the Jew-killing Nazis' arrival in this country, so came their "superbreed" philosophy as witnessed through Hitler's attempt to, and Nietzsche's support for, eugenically engineering an Aryan society. Could their ideologies have found host in today's Neo-Nazis and other similar followers?

Dangerous Asteroids Located

By the end of this year, NASA hopes to find about 90% of the largest asteroids that could potentially strike Earth, a blast that could throw dust into the atmosphere and cause firestorms and acid rain. These asteroids can be as large as mountains but are at least 1 kilometer (3,280.8 feet) in diameter. NASA estimates that 900 of these objects are in potentially hazardous range of Earth. But the more immediate threat is from much smaller asteroids, such as the asteroid that has a 1-in-25 chance of hitting Mars on Jan. 30. The asteroid, which has the unglamorous name of 2007 WD5, is only 50 meters (164 feet) and is barely a chip off the massive, 10-kilometer-wide (6.2 miles) asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. Small, yes, but such an asteroid has the explosive force of a 10-megaton nuclear weapon.

Mars Asteroid Stirs Concern for Earth

It's been 100 years since a sizeable space rock smacked into Earth, leveling more than 1,200 square miles of trees in a Siberian forest. But a visceral reminder of just how much devastation an asteroid impact can have may be just around the corner. Astronomers are keeping a close watch on a 160-foot wide asteroid designated 2007 WD5, which on Wednesday had a one in 20 chance of striking Mars on Jan. 30. Of course there are no cities or ecologies to worry about, and the prospect of Mother Nature boring a hole into the Martian terrain actually has scientists quite excited.

Patent System To Spy On Workers

An invention described in a newly published Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) patent application aims to make sure workers meet their deadlines and do what they're supposed to. The patent application, published Dec. 27, describes a program that would monitor users' computer activity, automatically offer help solving problems or links to information resources, and even allow supervisory monitoring of users to make sure they're working or so others can give employees' guidance if they're stuck on a certain task. The application centers on "activity-centric monitoring," which could be anything from "designing a new ad campaign" to "resizing an image." Either way, the program as described would be capable of monitoring related activity and providing advice or gentle nudging to carry out the task properly. The program would even be able to determine performance levels across a group of employees and identify lower performers who might then be given additional training, be reassigned to other tasks, or, potentially, even be fired because they can't keep up with the work. It's all reminiscent of a hyperactive and potentially more controversial version of Microsoft's maligned "Clippy" Office assistant that would pop up on the screen and interact with users, asking them if they'd like help writing the letter that they're apparently trying to write. However, such a system wouldn't be all bad news for workers. In addition to weeding out the low performers, it also could single out good workers who do their jobs well, allowing higher-ups to identify future group leaders and reward those who excel. The system also could find the right person to help another with a task. For example, Microsoft describes a situation in which a worker might need to replace a toner cartridge in a printer, but doesn't know how to do so. If the system monitors toner changes, it could assess who's changed the toner most and with the most success and recommend that employee to help the one who's having problems.

Religious Belief in Global Warming

Commentary from 400 prominent scientists from around the world, which was included in a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report released last week, warns of a religious-like belief in global warming in the scientific community. In opposition to the "consensus" reached by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last year, the committee report, sponsored by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), presents writings and statements from scientists who expressed skepticism or disbelief in global warming throughout 2007. "It seems that in the climatic area a new faith fight has broken out, which has all the characteristics of historical religion," warned professor Francis Massen of the Physics Laboratory in Luxemburg, one of the scientists included in the report.

Why Israel Might Rush to Strike Iran

Iran turned up the heat recently on still-simmering concerns about its atomic aspirations. It crowed that its 1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear power plant would be "online" as early as this spring, putting in place another important building block of its nuclear program. That sort of news can't help but rattle the steadiest of nerves, no matter what the (narrowly focused) US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran 's nuclear-weapons program said about the current state of affairs. Seemingly not swayed one iota by the NIE's conclusions, you have to wonder if Israel - the country most threatened by an Iranian nuclear (weapons) breakout - might take matters into its own hands. It has done so twice before - and the time may be here again.

Why Israel Might Rush to Strike Iran

Iran turned up the heat recently on still-simmering concerns about its atomic aspirations. It crowed that its 1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear power plant would be "online" as early as this spring, putting in place another important building block of its nuclear program. That sort of news can't help but rattle the steadiest of nerves, no matter what the (narrowly focused) US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran 's nuclear-weapons program said about the current state of affairs. Seemingly not swayed one iota by the NIE's conclusions, you have to wonder if Israel - the country most threatened by an Iranian nuclear (weapons) breakout - might take matters into its own hands. It has done so twice before - and the time may be here again.

Witchcraft Expanding Rapidly IN USA

When the day's news is about "witches," many Americans reflexively conjure up images of ugly, wicked hags from stories like "Snow White" and "The Wizard of Oz" – or more recently, the smiling "good witches" of Harry Potter books and films. But none of these fictional fantasies has anything to do with the real thing. The real thing – that is, the stunning phenomenon of more and more American housewives, students, professors, and even soldiers self-identifying as "witches" – is the topic of the January edition of WND's elite monthly Whistleblower magazine. Titled "WITCHCRAFT IN AMERICA," Whistleblower explores Wicca in particular, and the New Age movement in general, in this dramatic, entertaining, but powerfully eye-opening and mind-boggling investigation. What is witchcraft? Is it the same as Wicca? Is it a form of Satan worship, as critics allege? Or can witches be good? Can they really cast spells that somehow call forth the spirits beyond the world of nature to help them accomplish their will – whether good or evil? Is magic real? Why do witches often perform their ceremonies naked? And most of all, why do so many people today aspire to be witches? Wicca is an official, legal religion in the U.S., and a fast-growing one at that. Judges have ruled that witches must be allowed to lead prayers at local government meetings, and that Wiccan convicts must be provided with requested "sacred objects" so they can perform spells in their cells. Witches in the armed services have even formed covens and routinely "worship" on U.S. military bases.

Terminators Growing Rapidly In Military

The military's reliance on unmanned aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, The Associated Press has learned. And new Defense Department figures obtained by The AP show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones between January and October, forcing it to take pilots out of the air and shift them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand. The dramatic increase in the development and use of drones across the armed services reflects what will be an even more aggressive effort over the next 25 years, according to the new report.

A Blueprint for Homeland Security

We must protect our people and economy, secure our borders, and prevent terrorist attacks here at home. These responsibilities are the domestic dimension of the larger struggle, and they require a focus on more than terrorism. As Stephen Flynn points out in his book The Edge of Disaster, “Nearly 90 percent of Americans are currently living in locations that place them at moderate to high risks of earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, or high-wind damage.” Preparing for terrorist attacks and for natural disasters are complementary goals: when cities and states prepare for natural disaster, they also strengthen our response to potential terrorism. The next administration’s approach to homeland security should be based on three core principles: prevention, preparedness, and resilience.

Mystery over UK UFO sighting

Harry Hughes, of Grays Road, Mynydd Isa, was returning some extra chairs to the shed after enjoying Christmas dinner with his family at about 7.20pm. He said: "I looked up and saw what looked like five bright orangey-red fireballs flying through the sky, coming from the Bodfari direction. "They were travelling quite fast, about 10-12 seconds apart and were revolving. They were travelling too fast to be aircraft and they were completely silent." Harry called to his wife Pam to look at the strange objects before they disappeared and as she followed him out to the garden, they began to change direction. Harry said: "They had been travelling west, but then they began to change direction one by one and started heading north. They were travelling at a high speed when they began to go north and were slanting upwards. "My wife saw the last two and she looked at them through binoculars. The last one, which was bigger than all the rest, stopped momentarily then shot upwards, following the others north. "The police helicopter travelled past our house about 10 minutes later. If it had been a bit earlier, then I'm sure police would have noticed these objects." Harry's description of the mysterious fireballs matches that of Leigh and Lynn Williams, of Borras, Wrexham, who caught sight of several strange orange orbs in the sky in July, and he said he believed they were similar.

Implantable Chip For Soldiers

Soon the Army may issue more than combat gear to deploying soldiers. University of Connecticut researchers are developing an implantable chip that would be injected under soldiers' skin to help monitor vital health information while they are out in the field. “It sounds like science fiction but it's not,” said Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, professor of chemistry and associate director of the Institute of Materials Science at UConn. “We're taking components from traditional biology and nanotechnology and trying to marry them.” Six UConn faculty members have been working to create a nanosensor, just millimeters in length and width, that will be used to monitor soldiers' glucose and lactose to make sure the soldiers are not exhausted and are receiving proper nutrition. While the research has been ongoing for the last decade, the Army has become involved over the past five years in helping develop the technology. The $471 billion defense spending bill that President Bush signed on Nov. 13 included $1.6 million for UConn's program. “The Army has a tremendous interest in the well-being of their soldiers and they want to make sure they are in tip-top shape,” Papadimitrakopoulos said. “The Army has made a big effort in monitoring their soldiers remotely.” The silicone nanosensor will be small enough to pass through the tip of a standard hypodermic needle, which will be used to implant the device in the wrist. The soldier will wear a watch-like transmitter that will receive readings of the soldier's glucose and lactose levels.

Microwave Gun Can Stop Your Car

A Pasadena, California company has created a device that will destroy a car’s electrical system and stop it dead in its tracks. Just one pulse from this beam disables cars up to 50 feet away. How does it work? One beam pulsed in a burst lasting just 50 nanoseconds disrupts your vehicle's electrical system. The radiation can overload wires, or damage or upset your car's central microprocessor. Their prototype is 5 feet long, 3 feet wide, 1 foot thick, and weighs just under 200 pounds. With proper funding, it may be possible to create a device weighing only 50 pounds that works from 600 feet away. It operates on the same general principle as a microwave oven, but at a 300 megahertz frequency, rather than your standard microwave oven, which operates at about 2.5 gigahertz. It is said to be non-harmful to humans.

Reading the Enemy’s Mind

Reading the mind of your enemy may soon become easier. Computers may be able to do so even better than humans, experiments conducted by the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID) program suggest. RAID is a tool for semi-automated generation of enemy estimates. Its job is to anticipate the upcoming actions of the enemy, and do so not just before, but also during the unfolding battle, in near real-time. In a way, one may say the purpose of RAID is to read the mind of the enemy. In less flamboyant terms, RAID performs what some call enemy estimates in mission analysis and preparation, or running estimates during the execution of a mission. Others see in such a capability elements of Level 3 information fusion and data mining. To stress this emerging capability, the RAID program focuses on a particularly challenging and currently relevant environment: a fluid urban fight against a dismounted insurgent force. Based on multiple simulation-based experiments as well as on a live-force demonstration, DARPA researchers find that the RAID software can, on average, be at least comparable to a competent staff in terms of accuracy, and may offer significant advantages in terms of speed and personnel requirements. DARPA and the Army are currently working together to transition RAID into the Army Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A) program of record. In developing RAID, DARPA responds to a well-recognized unmet need. Reading the enemy mind is hard. According to Colonel Joe Moore (Ret.), who commanded the OPFOR at the Army National Training Center (NTC) in 2001-2005 and now serves as one of RAID’s military advisers, “At NTC, the BLUFOR can rarely predict OPFOR positions or intent, in either conventional or insurgency scenarios.” Reflecting such concerns, the DCGS-A Operational Requirements Document calls for DCGS-A to include the means to estimate the “near-future enemy positions and actions at intervals.” Similarly, the Army TRADOC Force Operating Capabilities pamphlet stated that the Army needs tools “for performance of semi-automated predictive analysis.”

In 2008, Networks will become smart

In 1949, George Orwell published his masterpiece novel 1984. Even if they haven't read it, most people remember the book's key takeaway: Big Brother is watching. Fast forward to 2008 and Big Brother really is watching. The vehicle that makes Big Brother's omniscience possible is the network. The network: that mass of boxes, interface cards, cables and antennae that when combined become a platform for every type of human interaction and collaboration on the planet Earth (and beyond). Let's take a look at how the networking world of 2008 will become all-knowing and all-seeing -- a silicon- and fiber-based Big Brother, if you will. A theme I heard time and again from vendors big and small during 2007 was that the network was getting "smarter." More intelligence is being embedded into the network layer than ever before, with 2008 now poised to be a watershed year for the smart network. Today, networks at a basic level are no longer "dumb" pipes that transport information. The networks of 2008 will build on recent and coming innovations to become application- and user-aware -- they'll know who you are and what you are allowed to do (or what you're prohibited from doing).

Ex President: 9-11 Was Inside Job by CIA

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies. In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera: “All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe…know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.” Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992. Cossiga’s tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio. This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s. Gladio’s specialty was to carry out what they termed “false flag” operations—terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition. In March 2001, Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony, “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force … the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

Bhuttos Death Makes Doomsday Closer

The death of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has left the US lacking in options for dealing with the tumultuous, nuclear-armed, militant-rich nation and has raised the possibility that the country's weapons will fall into the wrong hands, leading to a possible apocalypse, a foreign policy expert tells RAW STORY. "When people aren't looking, you have a question of command and control of their nuclear warheads," Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at The New America Foundation, said in an interview. Clemons said Bhutto's assassination could cause the "Doomsday Clock" to tick forward.

Gorbachev Worries About Missile Plan

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said recently that he viewed a U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense shield in Central Europe as targeting Russia, not Iran. Milos Zeman, the former Czech prime minister, said, ‘What kind of Iran threat do you see? This is a system that is being created against Russia,'" Gorbachev said. "I don't think Zeman is alone in seeing this. We see this as well as he sees it." The United States wants to place a radar station in the Czech Republic and intercepter missiles in Poland, saying the components would defend European allies against a possible Iranian strike. "Does America intend to fight the rest of the world, does America need to build a new empire? They will not succeed," Gorbachev said at the close of a meeting of the World Political Forum, a group he founded in 2003 that includes many former high-ranking politicians. Gorbachev said he hoped the United States would not attack Iran during the remainder of the term of U.S. President George W. Bush. "There still one year that President Bush has on his hands. Let's hope that he will not take the risk... of military action against Iran," Gorbachev said, adding that such an attack "at the very least" could provoke increased terrorist attacks, an energy crisis and "even result in a big war."

Vatican To Create More Exorcists

The Roman Catholic Church has vowed to "fight the Devil head-on" by training hundreds of priests as exorcists. Father Gabriele Amorth, 82, the Vatican's Exorcist in Chief, announced the initiative amid the Church's concerns about growing worldwide interest in Satanism and the occult. Fr Amorth said: "Thanks be to God that we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on. "Now bishops are to be obliged to have a number of established exorcists for their diocese. Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a proper, trained exorcist."

Israel gets warned: Al-Qaida coming!

Israel in recent months received warnings from foreign intelligence agencies that al-Qaida operatives were seeking to infiltrate the Jewish state to set up cells to carry out large-scale attack. The warnings were followed up by the release this weekend of a new audiotape in which al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden made an unusually sharp threat of attacks against Israel. According to Israeli security officials, Israel several times received general warnings indicating al-Qaida was attempting to fly operatives into the Jewish state's international airport disguised as tourists carrying foreign passports. The latest warning was received a few months ago and indicated the passports may be from Britain, Australia and the United States. The security officials said al-Qaida has come to the conclusion Palestinian terror groups operating in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have had great difficulty infiltrating Israel due to the country's security barrier and antiterror measures and that Palestinians who do successfully infiltrate are not capable of carrying out large-scale attacks inside the country. The Israeli security officials said the latest warning, which was shared with Palestinian intelligence agencies, indicated al-Qaida has made a strategic decision to attempt to send foreign cells into the Jewish state instead of relying on Palestinian militants.

Bedbugs attack New York City

A bedbug epidemic has exploded in every corner of New York City - striking even upper East Side luxury apartments owned by Gov. Spitzer's father. The blood-sucking nocturnal creatures have infested a Park Ave. penthouse, an artist's colony in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a $25 million Central Park West duplex and a theater on Broadway, according to victims, exterminators and elected officials. Once linked to flophouses and fleabags, bedbug outbreaks victimize the rich and poor alike and are spreading panic in some of the city's hottest neighborhoods. "In the last six months, I've treated maternity wards, five-star hotels, movie theaters, taxi garages, investment banks, private schools, white-shoe law firms, Brooklyn apartments in Greenpoint, DUMBO and Cobble Hill, even the chambers of a federal judge," said Jeff Eisenberg, owner of Pest Away Exterminating on the upper West Side.

A Nuclear-Armed Jihadist State?

Al-Qaeda has claimed credit for the murder of Benazir Bhutto: “We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen.” According to an Italian jihadist website, the hit was ordered by none other than Ayman Al-Zawahri, Al-Qaeda’s Number Two man. However, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel was cautious about such reports: “I’m aware that al-Qaida may have claimed responsibility. I’m aware of news reports of that. But,” he told reporters, “I don’t have any specifics for you on that. Whoever perpetrated this attack is an enemy of democracy and has used a tactic that al-Qaida is very familiar with, and that is suicide bombing and the taking of innocent life to try to disrupt the democratic process.” And disrupted it is. The remaining democratic opponent of the Musharraf regime, Nawaz Sharif, announced that his party would boycott national elections set for January: “We have decided to boycott elections in honor of Ms. Bhutto,” he said. “Under the present circumstances and under Musharraf, neither is campaigning possible nor is a free election.” The only winner in these circumstances is likely to be the Pakistani jihadists.

Bank predicts Ron Paul win, US slump

Denmark-based Saxo Bank predicts Ron Paul presidency in 2008, saying US economy will plunge into a depression prior to the election. The Bank predicted that Ron Paul, US congressman and Republican presidential candidate, will win the US 2008 presidential election. Saxo Bank says the US economy will shrink by 25% and the Chinese economy will decrease by 40%. The economic downturn will come about as a result of the housing crash. Ron Paul has been critical of the Federal Reserve and has blamed the Federal Reserve for causing the real estate bubble and crash. Paul has said that the loose monetary policy of the Fed had artificially inflated real estate prices which lead to the collapse. Paul supports 'Sound Money' and opposes the Federal Reserve's 'Inflation Tax' and says that he wants to prevent a dollar collapse. Saxo Bank also predicts $175 a barrel for oil and the price of grain will double. Some have predicted that oil will climb to $250 a barrel if the US attacks Iran. The bank also predicts that 30% of large building companies will go bankrupt.

Spe. Forces: Standby Over Nuclear Threat

US special forces snatch squads are on standby to seize or disable Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the event of a collapse of government authority or the outbreak of civil war following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The troops, augmented by volunteer scientists from America's Nuclear Emergency Search Team organisation, are under orders to take control of an estimated 60 warheads dispersed around six to 10 high-security Pakistani military bases. Military sources say contingency plans have been reviewed over the past three days to prevent any of Pakistan's atomic weapons falling into the hands of Islamic extremists if the administration of President Pervez Musharraf appears threatened by civil unrest.

Electronic tags for dementia patients

Electronic tagging should be offered to dementia sufferers, allowing their relatives to locate them quickly should they wander off, according to the Alzheimer’s Society. The charity said that satellite tracking systems similar to those used for offenders, could help families to care for patients at home for longer. People with dementia often feel a compelling urge to walk. Up to 60 per cent wander and 40 per cent have got lost, bringing distress to themselves and their families. As tracking technology becomes more sophisticated and affordable it could be used to help dementia sufferers to lead more independent lives, the charity said. “We know new technology is available and could offer benefits to people with dementia and their carers,” said Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society. Tagging would have to be introduced sensitively, he said. “There is a careful balance to strike between empowering people and restricting their movement and this technology can certainly never be used as an alternative for high-quality dementia care.” Where possible, permission should be sought from the sufferer perhaps in advance, before he or she has reached the later stages of dementia.

In God We Trust moving to face of coins

The words "In God We Trust" have been placed in prominent display on U.S. coinage since 1864, until a new $1 coin series honoring U.S. presidents was introduced at the beginning of 2007, when the motto was concealed on the edge. But no more. Congress has approved a consolidated spending bill, and President Bush has signed it into law, that includes a provision for the motto to be placed on either the front or back of new coins in the series. A report from Coin News confirms that the new provision was signed into law on Dec. 26, and the U.S. Mint has been instructed to begin placing the motto in a prominent location on the coins "as soon as is practicable." Whether the change will affect the series of coins already on track for 2008 or not remains to be seen. The Mint has announced the James Monroe dollar coin will be issued on Feb. 14, the John Quincy Adams coin on May 15, Andrew Jackson on Aug. 14 and Martin Van Buren on Nov. 13. "The Mint is launching the 2008 dollar coins using their news contacts and presence to push the story while silently telling everyone, apparently, that the motto relocation will not go into [effect] until at least 2009," according to the Coin News report. Already in circulation from the 2007 release schedule are coins honoring George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison. Mint officials say they produced more than 768 million of those coins.

We're Getting Ready To Bomb Iran

Despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program, libertarian-leaning GOP presidential contender Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says there is still "a great possibility" of US military action against the country. Appearing on MSBNC's Morning Joe, Paul described what he characterized as a deteriorating situation on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and said the US was preparing to kickstart yet another conflict -- this time in Iran. "It is getting worse over there," he said. "Afghanistan is getting worse. Turkey is bombing Iraq. And Pakistan is blowing up and we're getting ready to bomb Iran. A bunch of those neocons want to bomb Iran." Asked how the US could justify military action against Iran in the wake of the National Intelligence Estimate -- which determined that the country hadn't actively pursued a nuclear weapon since 2003 -- Paul said he didn't think the report would do much to deter a strike. "I think it's a great possibility. Read Seymour Hersh. He is the expert over there," said Paul of the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, who has previously reported that the US is preparing a preemptive strike against Iran. "And the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been declared a terrorist organization for the purpose of them being the targets rather than had the nuclear power plants," Paul said. "So, wait and see... there are still quite a few neoconservatives that want to go after Iran under these unbelievable conditions."

The New World Order That Threatens US

So much for Fukuyama’s ‘final form of human government”. Putin openly denies America’s right to claim moral superiority or to know the secret of how governments should act in the 21st century. People who lecture Russians about democracy and the rule of law are told by Putin that ‘they do not want to learn the lessons themselves”. It is a bully’s argument, but he can at least demonstrate that the West’s record is not perfect in this regard. Guantanamo, the Patriot Act and the general attack on constitutional rights in America and Britain do not help our case. A recent poll published in the International Herald Tribune showed that a majority of Americans believed that their country is a threat to world peace and a similar proportion say that America is weaker today than at the start of the Bush administration.

Abortions: Delaying Coming Of Messiah

The chief rabbinic council in Israel released a new opinion about abortion over the weekend confirming that abortions constitute a “grave sin” and saying they are delaying the coming of the Messiah. Their determination provides hopes to pro-life Jews in the United States and elsewhere who battle abortion. "The vast majority of abortions are unnecessary and strictly forbidden according to halacha because they are carried out even when the pregnancies do not endanger the mother's health," the rabbis wrote. They said those kinds of abortions for socioeconomic reasons or the mother not wanting the baby at the time are delaying the coming of the messiah, who Jews believe was not represented by Jesus Christ (John Hagee agrees).

Airport profilers: watching expressions

If a pair of Transportation Security Administration officers strolling by a Sea-Tac Airport ticket counter wish you happy holidays and ask where you're traveling, it might be more than just Christmas spirit. Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors. TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program -- called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) -- that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent. But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA. "In the SPOT program, we have a conversation with (passengers) and we ask them about their trip," said Maccario from his office in Boston. "When someone lies or tries to be deceptive, ... there are behavior cues that show it. ... A brief flash of fear." Such people are referred for secondary screening, which can include a pat-down search and an X-ray exam. The microfacial expressions, he said, are the same across many cultures.

Freemasonry and Hollywood

When Hollywood comes knocking, that's probably a clue the time has come to open the door. And the secretive, centuries-old order of Freemasonry seems to be picking up its cue. "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," which opened in theaters this weekend, is the second film in the adventure-fantasy series to shine a light on the mysterious and little-known world of the Masonic order. And although the Masons play a much smaller part in the sequel than they did in the 2004 original, the first scene featuring the movie's three male leads -- Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight and Ed Harris -- was filmed in Alexandria's George Washington Masonic Memorial, one of the Masons' most visible shrines. Filmmakers and novelists have been mining the Masons recently, weaving their legends and symbols into such tales of conspiracies and secrets as the "National Treasure" films and Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." And filmmakers' interest comes as the fraternal, often-controversial Freemasons pull back the curtain on themselves in an effort to update their antiquated image and replenish their dwindling ranks. Director Jon Turteltaub says, "The 'National Treasure' movies are all about things we think are forgotten but are actually pieces of history that are still percolating around us and have a role in our current lives -- a lot like the Masons."

Panel Would Target Homegrown Terror

A commission proposed by key senators would study the emergence of homegrown terrorists and how U.S. citizens become radicalized through ideologies to commit acts of violence. The National Commission on the Prevention of Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism is the brainchild of Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican member. "The homeland security committee's extensive and ongoing investigation into homegrown terrorism has confirmed to our committee that this is a real and growing threat to our nation's security," Miss Collins said.

Israel Could Survive Nuclear War

If a nuclear war between Israel and Iran were to break out 16-20 million Iranians would lose their lives - as opposed to 200,000-800,000 Israelis, according to a report recently published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is headed by Anthony H. Cordesman, formerly an analyst for the US Department of Defense. The document, which is largely theoretical due to the lack of verified knowledge in some areas - specifically in terms of Israel's nuclear capability - paints various scenarios and attempts to predict the strategies of regional powers, as well as the US.

Police State America

Jan 1 is a good time to look back and reflect on what's ahead. If past is prologue, however, the outlook isn't good, and nothing on the horizon suggests otherwise. Voters last November wanted change but got betrayal from the bipartisan criminal class in Washington. Their attitude shows in an October Reuters/Zogby (RZ) opinion poll with George Bush at 24% that tops Richard Nixon's worst showing of 25% at his lowest 1974 Watergate point. And if that looks bad, consider Congress with "The Hill" reporting from the same RZ Index that our legislators scored a "staggering 11%, the lowest (congressional) rating in history," but there's room yet to hit bottom and a year left to do it. Why not with lawmakers' consistent voter sellout and failure record that keeps getting worse. It's been that way ever since 9/11 with both sides of the aisle complicit with the administration. This article looks back at the record, and year end is a good time to review it. It's hard imagining another as bad with a President defiling the law and once telling Republican colleagues the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper." He didn't just say it. He governs by it, gets away with it, and former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, says "a coup has occurred (with another to come from) the next 9/11....that completes the first (that's) seen a steady assault on every fundamental (aspect) of our Constitution (to create) an executive government (to) rule by decree" no different from a police state.

FBI: Worlds largest biometrics database

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion project to build the world's largest computer database of biometrics to give the government more ways to identify people at home and abroad, the Washington Post reported recently. The FBI has already started compiling digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns in its systems, the paper said. In January, the agency -- which focuses on violations of federal law, espionage by foreigners and terrorist activities -- expects to award a 10-year contract to expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives, it said. At an employer's request, the FBI will also retain the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks, the paper said. If successful, the system, called Next Generation Identification, will collect the biometric information in one place for identification and forensic purposes, the Post said.