SEPTEMBER 2006

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill defining the rules for interrogating and trying foreign terrorism suspects. The bill, backed by President George W Bush, would allow military tribunals to try the several hundred suspects held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Supporters say the bill gives America the tools it needs to bring terror suspects to justice.

Critics say it curbs the rights usually granted in civil and military courts. The legislation is a response to a Supreme Court ruling in June that the original military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to prosecute detainees were in violation of American and international law. The new measures provide defendants with more legal rights than they had under the old system, but it eliminates their right to challenge their detention and treatment in federal court. The bill forbids treatment of detainees that would constitute war crimes - such as torture, rape and biological experiments, but gives President Bush authority to decide which other techniques interrogators can use.

The Senate is expected to vote on a near-identical bill on Thursday, which if also passed, would give President Bush and Republicans a substantial victory before mid-term elections in November.

Astute Find by AngryArab blog re Pope
http://www.angryarab.blogspot.com/
"In the 12th century, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, initiated a dialogue with the Islamic world. "I approach you not with arms, but with words," he wrote to the Muslims whom he imagined reading his book, "not with force, but with reason, not with hatred, but with love." Yet his treatise was entitled Summary of the Whole Heresy of the Diabolical Sect of the Saracens and segued repeatedly into spluttering intransigence. Words failed Peter when he contemplated the "bestial cruelty" of Islam, which, he claimed, had established itself by the sword. Was Muhammad a true prophet? "I shall be worse than a donkey if I agree," he expostulated, "worse than cattle if I assent!" Peter was writing at the time of the Crusades. Even when Christians were trying to be fair, their entrenched loathing of Islam made it impossible for them to approach it objectively. For Peter, Islam was so self-evidently evil that it did not seem to occur to him that the Muslims he approached with such "love" might be offended by his remarks. This medieval cast of mind is still alive and well."


Sept.18th:Atlast an Oil Company admits there is a Peak Oil Fraud extending from "history" of its origins in 1920s
Peak oil theories wrong, says ExxonMobil boss

By Tim Dornin

September 11, 2006 01:39pm

Article from: AAP

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au
/story/0,20867,20390685-1702,00.html

THE world has an abundant supply of oil, and high petrol prices are just the reality of a globally traded commodity, ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan said today. Mr Nolan used his speech to the Asia Pacific oil and gas conference in Adelaide today to debunk the theory of peak oil, which suggests oil supplies have peaked and will dwindle over the next 20 years.

Such predictions, he said, had been around since the 1920s, particularly at times of high oil prices.

"The fact is that the world has an abundance of oil and there is little question, scientifically, that abundant energy resources exist," Mr Nolan said. "According to the US Geological Survey, the earth currently has more than three trillion barrels of conventional, recoverable oil resources.
"So far we have produced one trillion." Mr Nolan said the oil industry had always underestimated the extent of global resources and the ability of technology to both extend the life of existing oil and gas fields and find new ones. "We should not forget that we can recover almost twice as much oil today as when we first discovered it over 100 years ago," he said. "And when you consider that a further 10 per cent increase in recoverability will deliver 800 billion barrels of oil to our recoverable total, we have every reason to be sure that the end of oil is nowhere in sight." Mr Nolan said that by 2030, conventional fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) would still account for 80 per cent of the world's energy requirements.

But Mr Nolan said it was very difficult to predict what would happen in the future with both crude oil and petrol prices. "They are both regionally traded commodities, they are priced by the
market, priced by the region," he said. "The fuel price is ultimately driven by the source of the product, which is the crude price, and of course that is traded regionally and internationally."

Mr Nolan's comments were endorsed by the president of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Eve Sprunt, who said the proponents of peak oil theory often confused oil reserves with available resources. "When you are talking about reserves, you are only talking about a very small fraction of the total resource base," she said. "The reserves are the portion for which the infrastructure is largely in place, the technology is in place and that can be produced at the current oil price. "But if you are planning for the long-term energy future of your country you need to understand the resource base." "The whole name of the game is moving resources into the reserves category."
Ms Sprunt said high oil prices also presented opportunities such as the viable development of other fuels. "It's a time when new alternatives emerge," she said.

Sept14th:BBC WorldNews:US Iran report branded dishonest

The UN nuclear watchdog has protested to the US government over a report on Iran's nuclear programme, calling it "erroneous" and "misleading". In a leaked letter, the IAEA said a congressional report contained serious distortions of the agency's own findings on Iran's nuclear activity. The IAEA also took "strong exception" to claims made over the removal of a senior safeguards inspector. There was no immediate comment from Washington over the letter.

But Rep Rush Holt, a Democratic member of the House intelligence committee, which released the report, said it had never been meant for release to the public. "This report was not ready for prime time and it was not prepared in a way that we can rely on. It relied heavily on unclassified testimony," he told the BBC's PM programme. Signed by a senior director at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vilmos Cserveny, the letter raises objections over the committee's report released on 23 August. It says the report was wrong to say that Iran had enriched uranium to weapons-grade level when the IAEA had only found small quantities of enrichment at far lower levels.

French PM Dominique de Villepin has expressed disappointment at Iran's decision to disregard a UN deadline for stopping sensitive nuclear work. "We cannot accept that Iran does not respect commitments it has made in the past," Mr Villepin said after talks with Italian PM Romano Prodi in Rome. Mr Prodi said France and Italy should co-operate over the "Iranian problem". The US wants UN sanctions against Iran over its failure to meet a 31 August deadline to stop enriching uranium

A message to President Bush, Karl Rove, and the rest of the Republicans who are getting a lot of mileage out of their new favorite word, "Islamic-fascism": the Saudis are not amused. In fact, they have demanded an apology from President Bush, who has used the term several times in the past two weeks:

"We demand a public apology for this falsification as it came from an influential political figure and received wide publicity," Al-Madinah Arabic daily quoted Bin-Humaid, who is also imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, as saying. Bush's statement provoked worldwide Muslim protests.

The Saudi Cabinet last week warned against linking Islam with terrorism and fascism without considering the history of Islamic civilization. "Fascism is a product of Western culture," a Cabinet statement said.

Bush's use of the term "Islamic fascists" was also criticized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim advocacy group. "We believe that this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counterproductive to associate Islamic Muslims with fascism," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.

CHILE:
More than 200 people have been arrested and dozens injured in Chile after high school students clashed with police during protests over education reforms. Some 2,000 students marched in the capital Santiago and other parts of the country over the government's perceived lack of progress on the reforms. Police used tear gas and water cannon, and protesters threw stones at the security forces.

A series of strikes and street rallies involving about 700,000 students were called off in June after the government agreed to a number of their demands. President Michelle Bachelet ordered the creation of a reform commission and pledged extra funding to repair run-down school facilities and help poorer students. But some of the students have become frustrated at the pace of progress. "They are doing some work, but much too slowly, and that's not what they promised," one 15-year-old demonstrator said.