Top Chinese and Japanese officials are to meet in Tokyo on Friday in an atmosphere cooled by a dispute over Japan's wartime past. Vice-Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo's trip is the first by a senior Chinese official since October's controversial visit to a war shrine by Japan's PM. Junichiro Koizumi says his visits only honour those who died in war. On the eve of the talks a Chinese state councillor reportedly said ties could not improve while Mr Koizumi was PM. Japanese government spokesman Shinzo Abe called "inappropriate" remarks attributed to Chinese state councillor Tang Jiaxuan in a conversation with a visiting Japanese lawmaker that there could be no improvement in relations while Mr Koizumi remained in office. Mr Abe said the remarks "appear inconsistent with the Chinese leadership's statements that it regards Japan-China relations as significant". But he said the talks should not be written off because of one problem. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk censor News |
Editor - 18:05:00 02-09-06 |
Bush highlights foiled 2002 terror plot Al-Qaida sought to use Asian hijackers to fly jet into L.A. tower, he says. |
He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the 9/11, attacks. One of Mohammed’s key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaida related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said. Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said. Hmmm lets see, this Boogieman Mastermind was going to use a bomb to blow open the cockpit door of a pressurized plane? Thanks to our Glorious Brave Leaders this dastardly deed was foiled by our Fearless Fatherland Gestapo? Who is writing this crap? ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254053/from/RSS/
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Editor - 11:09:00 02-09-06 |
TSA's Secure Flight program suspended Senate committee orders audit of plan's information technology system |
Security concerns have caused the government to suspend plans for an ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger’s name against government watch lists, Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley said Thursday.Hawley told the Senate Commerce Committee that he has directed that the program’s information technology system “go through a comprehensive audit.”Hawley did not say whether any security flaws or breaches had been discovered. The program called Secure Flight has been troubled from the start.It is strongly opposed by civil libertarians who fear the program would grow into a massive domestic surveillance system in which the government tracks people whenever they travel.Nearly four years and $200 million after the program was put into operation, Hawley said last month that the agency hadn’t yet determined precisely how the it would work.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254968/from/RSS/
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Editor - 10:44:00 02-09-06 |
Trial of Holocaust denier resumes in Germany. So if you have thoughts or beliefs that are not Political Correct, you can go to jail? Isn’t this Thought Control? |
The trial of a prominent German Holocaust denier extradited from Canada resumed on Thursday and his lawyer charged the case was politically motivated.Ernst Zuendel, publisher of works such as "Did six million really die?" is facing charges of inciting racial hatred in addition to denying that the Nazis killed six million Jews. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany that is punishable with up to five years in prison. The trial was suspended last year after the judge dismissed his publicly appointed defense lawyer when she produced written submissions that appeared to deny the Holocaust. Zuendel's newly appointed attorney, Hans-Ullrich Beust, said he would defend his client without resorting to grandstanding, though he complained that the trial was politically motivated. "The defense is supposed to defend the accused without prejudice or political misconceptions. But these proceedings are clearly political," Beust told reporters. ... http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1598656
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Editor - 10:39:00 02-09-06 |
Nigeria plans huge bird flu cull |
Nigeria will kill all birds at any farm where suspicious deaths have occurred in a bid to contain Africa's first outbreak of bird flu, a minister says. Bird flu has been confirmed at one farm in the northern state of Kaduna. Some 45,000 chickens died on a farm owned by Sports Minister Saidu Balarabe Sambawa. Tests are being carried out on dead poultry at two more farms. Chickens started dying four weeks ago, leading to fears that the H5N1 bird flu strain may have already spread widely. Quarantines and other restrictions are only now being imposed on farms near where the chickens have died. Thousands more chickens have died in the two neighbouring states of Kano and Jos. The cause of these deaths has not yet been determined but international experts are heading for all three areas. Dr David Nabarro of the World Health Organization (WHO) told the BBC the virus "might be quite widespread". ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4696878.stm
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Editor - 10:25:00 02-09-06 |
Worshippers die in Pakistan blast |
At least 23 people have been killed in a suspected suicide bomb attack and in subsequent violence at a religious procession in north-west Pakistan. The explosion tore through a crowd of Shia Muslims marking the Ashura festival in the town of Hangu, sparking rioting among pilgrims. Pakistan has a history of tension between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Five people also died in Sunni-Shia fighting in Herat, western Afghanistan, on Thursday, doctors said. The explosion in Hangu, in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, struck a bazaar as hundreds of people walked in a procession from the main Shia mosque in the town. The army has sent in troops and a curfew has been imposed. No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack. "We thought the bomb was detonated by remote control, but now it appears to be a suicide attack," local police chief Ayub Khan told the Associated Press news agency. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4695776.stm
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Editor - 10:19:00 02-09-06 |
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