Bin Laden's Hideout Found?

Fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden is most likely hiding out in a walled compound in a Pakistani border town, according to a satellite-aided geographic analysis released today. A research team led by geographer Thomas Gillespie of the University of California-Los Angeles used geographic analytical tools that have been successful in locating urban criminals and endangered species.

Basing their conclusion on nighttime satellite images and other techniques, the scientists suggest bin Laden may well be in one of three compounds in Parachinar, a town 12 miles from the Pakistan border. The research incorporates public reports of bin Laden's habits and whereabouts since his flight from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in 2001.

The results, reported in the MIT International Review, are being greeted with polite but skeptical interest among people involved in the hunt for bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader behind 9/11. Bin Laden's whereabouts are considered "one of the most important political questions of our time," the study notes.

Go get 'em.

Hamas Converts Hospitals Into Prisons

The Palestinian Health Ministry, run by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, accused Hamas' security apparatus Saturday of commandeering a number of hospital wards in the Gaza Strip for the purpose of converting them into interrogation and imprisonment compounds.

According to Palestinian news agency Ma'an, the Palestinian Health Ministry claimed that Hamas members expelled them and full medical teams from hospital wards despite the serious security situation. - Y Net News

Human rights abuses for the loss.

Black Death Killing Terrorists

The disease, which struck Europe in the Middle Ages killing more than 25 million people, has swept through a training camp for insurgents in Algeria.

The arrival of the plague was discovered when security forces found the body of a dead terrorist by a roadside, the Sun reports.

The victim belonged to the large al-Qaeda network AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb).

A security source told the paper: "This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease.

"It spreads It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda." - Telegraph.co.uk

This is quite the dilemma.

Saudi: OK To Kill TV Station Owners

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.

The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the "deviance of thousands of people."

Many of the most popular Arab satellite networks — which include channels showing music videos often denounced as obscene by Muslim conservatives — are owned by Saudi princes and well-connected Saudi businessmen. Al-Lihedan did not specify any particular channels. - Yahoo! News

Blowing things out of proportion a little...maybe.

Israel To Put Dead Sea Scrolls Online

JERUSALEM — In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet.

Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact.

The 2,000-year-old scrolls, found in the late 1940s in caves near the Dead Sea east of Jerusalem, contain the earliest known copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible (missing only the Book of Esther), as well as apocryphal texts and descriptions of rituals of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus. The texts, most of them on parchment but some on papyrus, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. - New York Times

This is exciting considering most people know what the Dead Sea Scrolls are, but don't know what is contained within them.

Dead Baby Comes Back To Life

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A stillborn Israeli baby who was pronounced dead by doctors "came back to life" on Monday after spending hours in a hospital refrigerator.

The baby, weighing only 600 grams at birth, spent at least five hours inside one of the hospital's refrigerated storage units, before her parents, who had taken her to be buried, began noticing some movement.

"We unwrapped her and felt she was moving. We didn't believe it at first. Then she began holding my mother's hand, and then we saw her open her mouth," said 26-year-old Faiza Magdoub, the baby's mother.

Miracles. They happen.

U.S Heavily Influenced Israel Plan

JERUSALEM – A detailed proposal for the creation of a Palestinian state that reportedly was presented by Israel to the Palestinian Authority in recent weeks was heavily influenced by the U.S. and is largely based on an American-drafted plan, WND has learned.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported yesterday Prime Minister Ehud Olmert handed to PA President Mahmoud Abbas a plan for an Israeli withdrawal from most of the strategic West Bank and for parts of the Israeli Negev desert – Israeli territory undisputed by the international community – to become part of a Palestinian state.

WND last week quoted a top Palestinian official stating Olmert told the PA he intends to accelerate negotiations the next few weeks to reach a deal on paper outlining a Palestinian state before he steps down from office next month. - WorldNetDaily

The U.S kind of needs to leave nations be. I guess if it is really that good of a plan then whatever.

Picking the President: Middle East

Aren't you getting sick of all this? You aren't? Oh, OK.

John McCain

• Would attack, possibly invade, to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons
  
• Supports economic sanctions on Iran
  
• Would not meet with Iranian leaders
  
• Defends Kyl-Lieberman amendment
  
• Supports more aid to Israel

Barack Obama

• Would order air strikes to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons
  
• Supports sanctions on Iran, also positive incentives
  
• Would meet directly with Iranian leaders
  
• Opposed Kyl-Lieberman, called it belligerent
  
• Supports aid to Israel and to Palestinians
  

Point to Obama. McCain once again seems too eager to use the Commander-in-Chief part of the job, eager to use war as a first resort. At least give diplomacy a try.

Iraq update

Aug 11 (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah on Monday became the first Arab leader to visit Iraq since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, meeting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad.

Violence in Iraq is at a four-year low and countries in the region, especially Sunni Arab states like Jordan, are starting to re-engage with the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

I have one word for the American military, and it rhymes with "myth claw".

Leave Afghan Go To Paki

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that airstrikes carried out in Afghan villages by U.S. and NATO troops are only killing civilians and that the international community should instead go after terror centers in Pakistan.

International forces serving under NATO and the separate U.S.-led coalition insist that the vast majority of those killed in air raids are militants. However, they also acknowledge that civilians are sometimes killed in bombing runs, though they accuse militants of firing on international troops from civilian homes they have commandeered.

Speaking under a tree on the grounds of the presidential palace, Karzai said the international community should take its fight across the border into Pakistan, where militants find safe havens in Pakistan's tribal region. - Yahoo! News

How about no fighting at all? If that can't happen, withdraw from Afghanistan anyway.

Hitler Descendent Is A Jew

Two years ago I read a strange little story in an obscure American magazine for Orthodox Jews, claiming that a descendant of Adolf Hitler had converted to Judaism and was living in Israel. I had heard rumours in Jewish circles for years about "the penitents" - children of Nazis who become Jews to try to expiate the sins of their fathers. Could it be true? I dug further and discovered that a man with a family connection to Hitler does indeed live in Israel as an Orthodox Jew. Virtually unnoticed in the English-speaking world, he was exposed seven years ago in an Israeli tabloid. Then he sank from sight. I went to Israel to meet him - and on the way I was plunged into the strange subculture of the Nazi-descended Jews.

I am walking through the alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem, to meet Aharon Shear-Yashuv. He is the son of a Nazi. And yet he was a senior rabbi in the Israeli armed forces. He lives in an apartment in the Jewish quarter, near the Western Wall. I walk through a pale gold alley; Orthodox Jewish men in long black coats and round fur hats dart past. He opens the door and looks like every other rabbi I have ever met - a black suit, a beard, a questioning shrug. He takes me into his study, settles into a chair, and says, in a thick German accent: "My father was in the Waffen-SS."

He was, he explains, born in the Ruhr Valley in 1940. During the war, his father served on the eastern front with Hitler's elite troops. What did his father do in the Waffen-SS? "I don't know," he says calmly. "When I grew up I tried to ask, but there weren't really answers." - Guardian

Anything's possible!

Darfur update

CAIRO, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- A senior Egyptian official on Tuesday reiterated his country's stance to support a political settlement to the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, the official MENA news agency reported.

Right on, Egypt. We're just waiting for it to happen.

Iraq update

BAGHDAD (AP) — Roadside bombs killed two U.S. soldiers and at least nine Iraqis Monday in Baghdad and surrounding areas, officials said.

Well, at least we'll be withdrawing soon...right?

Hamas Action Fuels Feud

Tel Aviv - The worst week of internal Palestinian conflict since Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip last year ended with fresh escalation as the Islamic militants on Friday arrested senior political leaders of the secular Fatah party in the coastal enclave.

A Hamas spokesperson said the arrests were a retaliation for round-ups of its political figures in the West Bank by officers of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority.

Amid the tit-for-tat detentions, spokesmen for the rival parties stepped up their rhetorical attacks on one another, with Hamas spokespeople making open threats to repeat their Gaza takeover in the West Bank. The acrimony is complicating recent attempts by Arab mediators to convene Hamas-Fatah talks aimed at reconciling the 13-month rift.

"It will continue to escalate. Maybe they are negotiating by arresting each other before the real talks,'' says Hissam Jaberi, a Gaza-based reporter for the Al-Ayyam newspaper. "As long as we don't have a national program accepted by all the parties, we will continue to fight.'' - Christian Science Monitor

As some rapper once said, "Ye ain't right"

Hamas Son Converts

JERUSALEM – The son of one of the most popular leaders in the Hamas terrorist organization has moved to the U.S. and converted to Christianity, it has emerged.

In an exclusive interview with Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Masab Yousuf, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, slammed Hamas, praised Israel and said he hoped his terrorist father will open his eyes to Jesus and to Christianity.

"I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God," Masab said.

Masab said he previously aided his father with Hamas activities, but he now has affection for Israel and laments Hamas. - World Net Daily

Welcome home, Masab.

Iraq update

Good news!

George Bush opened the way for US troop cuts in Iraq today when he said security gains in the country were durable and cut the length of deployments.

Darfur update

CAIRO, July 29 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of the Cairo-based Arab League (AL) on Tuesday welcomed the efforts of the Sudanese government exerted to solve the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, the Egyptian MENA news agency reported.

Huh?

Sudan is committed to enacting new laws soon "to guarantee thatcrimes of genocide, ethnic purging and war crimes be enumerated in the Sudanese civilian penal code so that their perpetrators could be punished by law," Hosni said.

Darfur update

CAIRO, July 22 (Reuters) - Sudan has agreed to try anyone it suspects of crimes in Darfur in Sudanese courts and will allow the United Nations, African Union and Arab League to follow the proceedings, an Arab League official said on Tuesday.

Check.  Step two...

Obama garners support in Iraq

BAGHDAD --Face to face with Iraq's leaders, Barack Obama gained fresh support Monday for the idea of pulling all U.S. combat forces out of the war zone by 2010. But the Iraqis stopped short of actual timetables or endorsement of Obama's pledge to withdraw American troops within 16 months if he wins the presidency.

Full withdrawal by 2010? I can support that.

Israel mourns soldiers

Did you know that the people of Israel and Hezbollah have spent the last month killing each other? Neither did I, because to today's media, Angelina's new babies are more important. Perhaps I should start reading The New York Times more often, since they've put together an excellent piece on two Israeli soldiers who died.

JERUSALEM — With solemn speeches and military salutes, thousands of mourners on Thursday buried the two Israeli soldiers whose remains were returned in a long-awaited exchange with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah on Wednesday.

The funeral of Sgt. First Class Ehud Goldwasser took place in Nahariya, the soldier’s hometown on the northern coast, within view of the Lebanese border crossing where the exchange took place.

Later in the afternoon, the remains of the second soldier, Staff Sgt. Eldad Regev, were interred at the military cemetery in Haifa.

Mourners gathered in the morning heat for the Goldwasser funeral, with the soldier’s family and others taking shelter from the sun under a broad cloth canopy.

Speaking at the ceremony, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: “This is not the way we wanted to welcome you. We all dreamed — the families and the state of Israel — to hug Udi and Eldad around the necks and surround them with warmth, and to see the smile on their faces.”

And here's some info about a war that journalists ignored.

The two Israeli soldiers were seized by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006, an attack that set off a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah that left some 160 Israelis and more than 1,000 Lebanese dead.

In return for the soldiers’ bodies, Israel handed over five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Kuntar, who had been held for nearly three decades after being convicted in connection with a deadly and notorious attack that also took place in Nahariya.

As part of the exchange on Wednesday, Israel also handed over the bodies of 199 combatants and infiltrators from Lebanon.