Hi. Here's a wake-up from weekend doldrums, with short items on critical subjects. -Ed
The Israeli Committee For a Middle East Free from Atomic, Biological & Chemical Weapons P.O Box 16202 Tel Aviv 61161 Israel Tel/Fax +972-(0)3-5222869 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] May 18, 2006 To: The Honorable Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations Re: The Iranian threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Your Excellency , Iran's nuclear projects acquire an alarming significance with Iran's recent threat to withdraw its acceptance of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Middle-East is a volatile region. In the last fifty years the Middle-East had more wars than any other region in the world. If governments in this region acquire nuclear weapons the probability of a nuclear holocaust in the M-E rises sharply. A nuclear holocaust in the Middle-East will affect the entire world. Efforts to stop Iran's nuclear projects lack credibility as long as they allow other governments in this region to have such weapons. As is well known in 1987 an Israeli court sentenced the Israeli citizen Mordechai Vanunu to 18 years imprisonment for informing the "Sunday Times" about Israel's nuclear weapons industry. The Israeli court declared Vanunu guilty of Treason, not of Libel. This amounts to an official admission that Israel has nuclear weapons. So far Iran denies that it intends to build nuclear weapons and has signed the NPT. All Israeli governments have refused to sign the NPT. Mr. Shimon Peres, Israel's deputy Prime Minister, has recently replied to Iranian threats against Israel by declaring that "Iran too can be destroyed". We suggest that you act so that both Israel - and Iran - obey the NPT and put all their nuclear plants under International control. Steps taken against Iran's nuclear projects that are not applied also to Israel's nuclear projects lack credibility and are bound to appear as biased and as hypocrisy. We call upon you to declare that the UN supports a Nuclear-Free Middle-East and will act to make all governments in this region sign the NPT. Only pressure on ALL governments in this region can prevent a nuclear holocaust. Yours sincerely, awaiting your reply, Gideon Spiro, Committee coordinator On behalf of the following members of the Committee: Akiva Orr, Yael Lotan, Dr. Yehuda Atai, Ehud Ein-Gil, Alon Marcus, Giora Neumann. *** http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060521/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/prosecuting_reporters Associated Press May 21, 2006 Attorney Gen.: Reporters Can Be Prosecuted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday he believes journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, citing an obligation to national security. The nation's top law enforcer also said the government will not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation, but officials would not do so routinely and randomly. "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Gonzales said, referring to prosecutions. "We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected." In recent months, journalists have been called into court to testify as part of investigations into leaks, including the unauthorized disclosure of a CIA operative's name as well as the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program. Gonzales said he would not comment specifically on whether The New York Times should be prosecuted for disclosing the NSA program last year based on classified information. He also denied that authorities would randomly check journalists' records on domestic-to-domestic phone calls in an effort to find their confidential sources. "We don't engage in domestic-to-domestic surveillance without a court order," Gonzales said, under a "probable cause" legal standard. But he added that the First Amendment right of a free press should not be absolute when it comes to national security. If the government's probe into the NSA leak turns up criminal activity, prosecutors have an "obligation to enforce the law." "It can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity," Gonzales told ABC's "This Week." --- http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051506R.shtml Secret Gov't Source Tells ABC News: "Get New Cellphones" By Frank James The Chicago Tribune Monday 15 May 2006 ABC News has a very disturbing report today, at least for reporters and anyone else who believe that whistleblowers serve an important role in safeguarding American democracy. On its blog, The Blotter, ABC News reports that a senior government source has told its reporters that the reporters' phone calls with sources are being tracked by the U.S. government "to root out confidential sources." I hasten to say I don't have independent confirmation of the ABC News report. But I thought it was something readers of The Swamp would find interesting. The item follows. Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report: A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources. "It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation. ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls. Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation. One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen. Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan. Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers. The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded. A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators. Being a confidential source who disagrees with a presidential administration then decides to oppose it by becoming a whistleblower can take courage when discovery means loss of a job and possible legal consequences. It's just that kind of courage that this revelation is likely to chill. That could be the administration's intent here, to make would-be confidential sources think twice before talking with reporters. It's no small irony that the only reason we now know about this is because a ABC News' confidential source told them about it. The Blotter posting raises the question of whether ABC News' phone calls were swept up as part of the vast National Security Agency database consisting of the phone-call records of millions of Americans which USA Today reported on last week. It's impossible for anyone outside of a few inside the government to say. But the fact that ABC News journalists are even seriously wondering about whether the warning is connected to the NSA's domestic surveillance activities indicates just how anxious many people in Washington have become. *** http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/05/19/arctic-ice.html Scientists note stunning loss of Arctic ice, snow Last Updated Fri, 19 May 2006 13:36:09 EDT CBC News Climatologists studying satellite weather maps say they're amazed and alarmed by how quickly spring is coming to the Arctic this year. INDEPTH: Climate change Record warm temperatures have significantly reduced ice cover in Canada's Arctic waters and snow cover on land. "I've never seen it so wide open this time of year," said Environment Canada's David Phillips, referring to the body of water between Baffin Island and mainland Quebec. "It's just blue, blue as the bluest sky." Phillips said snow cover is also fast disappearing across Nunavut. In Cape Dorset, there is typically 50 centimetres of snow on the ground in May. Now there's just two centimetres. And in Iqaluit, bare ground is exposed everywhere, when there would normally still be 20 centimetres of snow cover. Phillips, a senior climatologist with the federal weather agency, says temperatures were four to five degrees warmer than usual this past winter. The higher temperatures come on the heels of dramatic losses in sea ice last summer, Phillips says, and so the natural cycle hasn't had a chance to recover. "There has been no rebounding back," he said. "The ice just hasn't had a chance to bounce back, to grow during the winter, during the cold season of the year. "Essentially what's happening is there's been so much warm weather, week after week, month after month, season after season, the environment is just not behaving the way it should," said Phillips. Ice cover has now dropped to a record low for the winter period, attracting the attention of Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. Serreze said April is generally the month with the maximum ice cover over the Arctic Ocean, and the loss this year is shocking. "If we compare this April with all previous Aprils, there's hundreds of thousands of square kilometres less ice," he said. Climatologists, biologists and people living in the area fear the shifting ice patterns are a sign of even deeper changes that will disrupt age-old cycles of plant and animal life, and even global weather patterns. Serreze says researchers will be watching ice cover data carefully this summer, and many are already predicting the shrinkage in September will largely surpass last year's record high. Serreze says sea ice loss has been the greatest along the coasts of Siberia and Alaska. This winter a ship could have travelled northeast from London along Russia's Arctic Ocean coastline and down through the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska to Tokyo, he says. Meanwhile, Phillips says people in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories can expect the balmy weather to continue through the summer. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get to your groups with one click. 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