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Tribes
and More US Troops in bin Laden Hunt / US vs Taliban
Excerpts
from articles detailing the latest state of affairs in Afghanistan
...
US
Recruits Tribes for Cave Search
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The
Pentagon is counting on Afghan opposition groups to play a key
role in finding Osama bin Laden. Although hundreds of Special
Forces troops are operating inside Afghanistan, there are not
enough for cave-to-cave searches.
View
inside a bunker that Osama bin
Laden used in the city of Jalalabad
The
United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said on Monday
that a $US25 million ($48 million) reward for bin Laden's capture
should provide an incentive to leaders of Pashtun tribal groups
to help find the leader of the al-Qaeda network.
But
he dismissed speculation that bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda
and Taliban leaders had been forced into a "small area"
in southern Afghanistan.
His
comments signalled that the 45-day-old war in Afghanistan could
be entering a new stage focused on finding a small number of
senior leaders.
"As
enemy leaders become fewer and fewer, it does not necessarily
mean that the task will become easier," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"People can hide in caves for long periods, and this will
take time."
He
said that although the US Special Forces troops were already
working with opposition groups, there were no immediate plans
for them to search remote mountain caves and tunnel complexes
for bin Laden. "That would probably require somewhat different
types of forces." ...
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Source:
More
US Troops to Hunt bin Laden
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America
was covertly deploying infantry units close to Afghanistan yesterday,
indicating plans to step up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and
his followers.
Hundreds
of marines and airborne troops are being discreetly but rapidly
moved in to increase the options available to the US commander,
Gen Tommy Franks.
The
military is concerned that negotiations in the last Taliban
strongholds of Kandahar and Kunduz are heading towards surrender
agreements that could allow foreign fighters supporting al-Qa'eda
to slip away.
Pentagon
planners fear that if peace talks make rapid progress towards
an interim government, pressure may grow for a ceasefire, so
complicating efforts to track down and kill bin Laden and his
al-Qa'eda fighters.
Northern
Alliance leaders and representatives of the country's Pathan
majority yesterday agreed to attend talks in Berlin on Monday.
The
Pentagon's deployments are twofold. It has sent a second shipborne
marine battalion to the coast of Pakistan, increasing to 1,600
the number of specialised assault troops available to Gen Franks.
The
Bataan, which carries a battalion of marines, had been cruising
off Albania last week, but steamed at full speed to reach the
Arabian Sea, suggesting an urgency to America's actions.
Another
800 airborne soldiers were said to have been sent to the region.
They
could support up to 500 special forces soldiers and CIA agents
already searching in the mountains for bin Laden. US intelligence
officials said they believed he was in the highlands east of
Kandahar. ...
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Source:
Give
Up or Die, US tells Taliban
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United
Front soldier
ready to fight, in the
back of a truck
loaded with
anti-tank shells |
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The
United States last night closed off any hope of escape for
thousands of hardline Taliban fighters encircled in grim
conditions inside the northern Afghanistan town of Kunduz.
...
Rumsfeld said: "My hope is that they will either
be killed or taken prisoner."
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The
US is taking a similar position on Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual
capital in the south, where Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar
is reportedly preparing for a last stand. ...
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Source:
FDA
OKs Birth Control Skin Patch
The new
patch can be applied to the
lower abdomen, buttocks or upper
body but not the breasts, the FDA said
Excerpts
from article describing a birth control device that works like
the birth control pill but is worn as a patch rather than being
swallowed ...
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The
world’s first birth control patch was approved for sale
in the United States on Tuesday, giving women an option considered
as safe and effective as the pill but easier for some to use.
Known
as Ortho-Evra, the patch emits through the skin low doses of
the same hormones used in birth control pills - but only needs
to be applied weekly rather than taken daily like the pill.
Overall, “it is very, very, very similar to the pill”
in preventing pregnancy. ...
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Source:
Fat
Zapper
No,
not the latest in gimmicks from high pressure mass marketers,
not a "quick fix" solution that promotes a miraculous
path to thinness, but instead, an ethical way to reduce fat
bulges has ultrasounded out of the lab.
Dreams
of an easy
way to be thin
Perhaps
the excerpts from the following article will help relieve the
guilt that many will be experiencing sometime this Thursday,
Friday, Saturday ...
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An
easier alternative to liposuction could allow patients to go
for treatments during the lunch hour, claim researchers. The
handheld ultrasound device pummels unsightly fat cells.
... However, their machine has so far only been tested on pigs.
... They claim that there is no need for patients even to go
on a diet for the technique to be effective.
Dr
Ami Glickman told a newspaper: "It is going to be a totally
non-invasive procedure - no operating room will be needed. You
walk in, you get it, and you walk out." ...
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Source:
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New
Approach to Drugs Needed
Excerpts
from article describing ideas to reduce the focus on demonizing
all drugs for all people, and instead, to create an approach
of tolerance and respect while at the same time reducing crime,
imprisonment, and harassment of otherwise law-abiding drug users
and hardened drug users:
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Senior
police officers backed radical reform of the drugs laws yesterday,
including the downgrading of ecstasy to a Class B drug.
They
also indicated cautious support for "shooting galleries"
where addicts could legally inject heroin.
...
Brian Paddick, the police commander in charge of policing in
Brixton, south London - an area of high drug use - expressed
the most liberal approach.
He
told an inquiry by the Commons home affairs select committee
that arresting people for possession of ecstasy was a "waste
of valuable police resources" that should be directed at
more harmful drugs.
Mr
Paddick, who has overseen a six-month experiment in Brixton,
where possession of small amounts of cannabis has been dealt
with by a caution rather than arrest, said he favoured legalising
the drug.
(click for details on the
harsh impacts of the drug
war on American citizens)
He
also drew a distinction between recreational users of drugs
such as ecstasy and cocaine and the addicts who commit crimes
to feed their habit.
"My
view is that there is a whole range of people who buy drugs
- not just cannabis but even cocaine and ecstasy. They buy them
with the money they have earned legitimately and use a small
amount - a lot of them just at weekends."
"It
has no adverse effect on the rest of the people they are with
or within the wider community and they go back to work on Monday
morning and are unaffected for the rest of the week. As an operational
police officer, they are low down my priority list." ...
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Source:
Which
God Are They Talking About?
As
President Bush meets with Muslims and celebrates (as Imus would
say) "Ramadama-ding-dong or whatever", there are those
of faith who dare to discuss openly what goes on behind the
closed doors of most churches, synagogues, mosques, temples,
and other places of worship.
In
most of those places, single mindset interpretations of faith
are the deal, "believe in the one correct interpretation
or else" is the pitch, and it's only when they emerge from
those bastions of single mindset indoctrination that they promote
the "we're all one with God" multi-monotheistic-faiths'
notion.
'Tis
disingenuous but fortunate for human welfare that most believers
are able to pretend that religious differences don't matter
when in public, because if they didn't, heck, we'd have crusades
and holy jihads and mass murders over differences in faith.
But
aren't the private notions of "single mindset indoctrination
into a single faith" at the root of the problem, whether
or not they're publicly expressed?
In
the interest of that which is the best that humankind can be,
in terms of honesty, freedom, and liberty, it would behoove
believers to face up to the following facts:
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It is old-time fundamental "believe or else" religion,
of the truest and oldest and most fervent type, that planted
the seeds of many of the horrors of the last 3,000 years,
by believers of all types and even by disbelievers within
cultures heavily exposed to the anti-humanism promoted by
fundamental "believe or else" religious mindsets.
- Humankind
would best be served by turning to an elevation of this one
and only life we all share, choosing to be freed from religion
in a pro-human and pro-liberty way, rather than remaining
enslaved to it or inspired by the darker sides of it.
- If
one is willing to say "We're blessed by God" or
"God bless America" or "Muslims, Jews, and
Christians worship the same God" in public, promoting
the one God notion, one who is honest must be willing to say
"let's not promote irreconcilable 'believe or else' doctrines"
behind the closed doors of churches,
synagogues, mosques, temples, and other places of worship.
Note that this approach would put to rest notions that "one
set of beliefs and/or acts are required or else you'll burn
in hell forever", as those notions are antithetical to
the "any God will do" notions.
- Do
most have an equal opportunity policy now, treating all faiths
(including polytheistic ones), distance from faith, and non-faith
as worthy alongside their promotion of the monotheistic God?
No.
Excerpts
follow from articles on those who are openly exposing the nature
of their faiths, revealing the goings-on behind closed doors.
I
submit that the following individuals have exposed the tip of
the iceberg when it comes to what's really behind the doors
of faith, and I would encourage them to examine the sins of
their own faiths, of all faiths, of the very nature of that
which is faith, as well as the sins of the faiths they fear:
Source:
Muslim
Group Wants Graham Meeting
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A
Muslim advocacy group wants to meet with evangelist Franklin
Graham to discuss his recent statement that Islam is "a
very evil and wicked religion," a group spokesman said
Tuesday
...
. "If that is his belief, what does that say about him
being accepted in mainstream Christian thought?" ... "You've
got everybody from the president to the pope saying Islam is
not evil and wicked."
...
Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and heir to his father's
ministry, prayed at President Bush's inauguration. On Sept.
17, Bush called Islam "a faith that brings comfort to a
billion people around the world."
But
on Friday's "NBC Nightly News," Graham said: "We're
not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us. The God of Islam
is not the same God. He's not the son of God of the Christian
or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God, and I believe
it is a very evil and wicked religion."
In
a statement released Sunday, Graham said his calling is not
to analyze Islam, but added that he was concerned about Muslim
treatment of women and "the killing of non-Muslims or infidels."
Graham is his father's successor as the chief executive of the
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. ...
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Source:
Vicar's
Yoga Position is 'Not in my church hall'
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A
vicar has banned yoga from his church hall because he fears
the exercise classes could lead participants on a path to "Eastern
mysticism".
The
Rev Richard Farr, of St Mary's in Henham, on the Essex-Hertfordshire
border, said he had acted after Tom Newstead, the yoga instructor,
had confirmed that the ultimate aim of yoga was to enable participants
to "ascend to a higher spiritual plain".
Mr
Farr said yesterday: "The yoga issue is a broad one and
I accept that for some people it is simply an exercise. But
it is also often a gateway into other spiritualities, including
Eastern mysticism.
He
added: "We are here to tell people about Jesus and his
exclusive claims. It seems completely inappropriate that we
should give someone a platform who is advocating different spiritualities."
Yoga,
based on a Hindu system of exercise and philosophic meditation,
has supporters in the medical profession who say it can relieve
stress as well as help with spinal and muscular ailments. ...
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Source:
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