North Korea may stage a second nuclear weapons test to strengthen its hand during upcoming negotiations on scrapping its nuclear programme, South Korea’s new defence minister warned Friday.

Kim Jang-Soo, a former army chief of staff, ordered the 650,000-strong military to step up combat-readiness to deter possible aggression from the North, the defence ministry said.

“We have to be thoroughly prepared to counter the possibility of a second or third nuclear test by North Korea and a possible hostile act by it in the process of negotiations over its nuclear weapons programme,” Kim said in a written order to his troops. (more…)

Mexico City may not look much different a year from now, but if its government´s plan to install 4,000 new video surveillance cameras during 2007 is carried out, the nation´s capital will likely have a different feel to it.
Residents and visitors will certainly feel more watched, with one, two or several wireless cameras set up in each of the city´s 1,352 “territorial units” carved out for crime prevention purposes.

Joel Ortega, chief of police, is hoping they´ll also feel safer.

“We want to combat the fear,” Ortega said Thursday. “We feel good about having achieved a significant decrease in the crime rate, but what we want now is for the population to perceive (the progress).” (more…)

The Government’s case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair’s justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain’s key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, “at no time did HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests.” (more…)

Iraq and Afghanistan Are Straining the Force, Chief of Staff Warns

Warning that the active-duty Army “will break” under the strain of today’s war-zone rotations, the nation’s top Army general yesterday called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation’s main ground force. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today’s Pentagon policies is “not right.” (more…)

A major criminal investigation into alleged corruption by the arms company BAE Systems and its executives was stopped in its tracks yesterday when the prime minister claimed it would endanger Britain’s security if the inquiry was allowed to continue.

The remarkable intervention was announced by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, who took the decision to end the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into alleged bribes paid by the company to Saudi officials, after consulting cabinet colleagues. (more…)

President Bush and Vice President Cheney today heaped lavish praise on outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, part of an afternoon of military pageantry and tribute for the man who was ousted from his job after becoming the face of the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.

“This man knows how to lead and he did, and the country is better off for it,” Bush said at the outdoor Pentagon ceremony for the departing 74-year-old Rumsfeld, the nation’s second-longest serving defense secretary and the only man ever to hold the job twice. “There has been more profound change at the Department of Defense over the past six years than at any time since the department’s creation in the late 1940s.”

The worse the job you do, the more honors you receive from this White House. (more…)

U.S. prosecutors charged a former Chinese national with stealing military-related trade secrets and using them in sales proposals to China and the Malaysian and Thailand air forces, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said on Thursday.

Xiaodong Sheldon Meng, 42, a Canadian citizen, stole combat and commercial simulation software and other materials from his former employer, San Jose, California-based Quantum3D, according to a statement issued by U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan’s office.

“The economic espionage charges allege that Meng, formerly a resident of Beijing, China, and a resident of Cupertino, California, stole the trade secrets from Quantum3D with the intent that they would be used to benefit the foreign governments of China, Thailand, and Malaysia,” the statement said. (more…)

A violent explosion in the Sun’s atmosphere is bombarding the Earth at over 1 M km/h, which will cause a brilliant light show while threatening to damage power grids and communications systems.

Images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory showed a bright flash near the Sun’s equator overnight. Several of SOHO’s sensors became temporarily overwhelmed by the amount of radiation emitted by the flares.

On December 13, a solar flare from sunspot 930 has sent a giant coronal mass ejection directly toward Earth. The X-Class flare was classified as one of the larger outbursts from the sun.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued an advisory reporting a geomagnetic storm in progress that has produced strong radiation blackouts. Strong to severe geomagnetic storming is expected through Friday. (more…)

Russia will replace single nuclear warheads on some of its strategic missiles with multiple warheads, The Associated Press reported Friday citing Russian news agencies.

“In the near future we will begin to substitute the single warheads on Topol-M intercontinental missiles with multiple warheads,” the Interfax-Military News Agency quoted Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, as saying Friday.

Fitting multiple warheads to one-warhead Topol-Ms is a cheaper way for Russia to upgrade its nuclear arsenals and maintain nuclear parity with the United States. (more…)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday rejected a bipartisan panel’s recommendation that the United States seek the help of Syria and Iran in Iraq, saying the “compensation” required by any deal might be too high. She argued that neither country should need incentives to foster stability in Iraq.

“If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway,” Rice said in a wide-ranging interview with Washington Post reporters and editors. She said she did not want to trade away Lebanese sovereignty to Syria or allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon as a price for peace in Iraq. (more…)

“I’ve got so much on my mind, and this job is so exciting that it’s really hard to settle down and plan the next 10 years of our life

People’s interviewer also mentioned that readers had asked if he takes sleep aids. Bush said generally not, but he does occasionally when he travels.

“I must tell you, I’m sleeping a lot better than people would assume,” he said.

Only a psychopath would have a clear conscience after what Bush has done…

Full Article

Source: AP / Huffington Post

Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen of Syrian descent who was detained by the US as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, and tortured in a Syrian prison, remains on a post-9/11 US government watch list, RAW STORY has learned.

In a Canadian Broadcast Corporation radio appearance, US Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, when asked if Arar was still on a government watch list responded, “My information is that he is on the watch list and has been since he was deported, yes.” (more…)

NASA’s planned moon base announced last week could pave the way for deeper space exploration to Mars, but one of the biggest beneficiaries may be the terrestrial energy industry.

Nestled among the agency’s 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel used in fusion reactors — futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment.

Helium-3 is considered a safe, environmentally friendly fuel candidate for these generators, and while it is scarce on Earth it is plentiful on the moon.

As a result, scientists have begun to consider the practicality of mining lunar Helium-3 as a replacement for fossil fuels. (more…)

A federal judge upheld the Bush administration’s new terrorism law Wednesday, agreeing that Guantanamo Bay detainees do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Robertson is the first to address the new Military Commissions Act and is a legal victory for the Bush administration at a time when it has been fending off criticism of the law from Democrats and libertarians.

Robertson rejected a legal challenge by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden whose case prompted the Supreme Court to strike down the Bush administration’s policy on detainees last year. (more…)

A federal judge Wednesday dismissed [ruling, PDF] a habeas corpus petition brought by Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan [Trial Watch profile], finding it was clearly barred under the controversial habeas-stripping language [JURIST report] of the new Military Commissions Act (MCA) [text, PDF] even though it was pending at the time the Act was passed. Agreeing with a position [JURIST report] on pending habeas petitions taken earlier this fall by the US Department of Justice, US District Judge James Robertson wrote in the first ruling to construe the MCA:

Hamdan’s lengthy detention beyond American borders but within the jurisdictional authority of the United States is historically unique. Nevertheless, as the government argues in its reply brief, his connection to the United States lacks the geographical and volitional predicates necessary to claim a constitutional right to habeas corpus. Petitioner has never entered the United States and accordingly does not enjoy the “implied protection” that accompanies presence on American soil. (more…)