News in General

WASHINGTON – The FBI is probing whether a man tried to ignite his shoes on a DC to Denver flight Wednesday, according to law enforcement officials, who say the man is a Qatari diplomat.

An official said an air marshal on the flight apparently restrained them. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.

The officials said fighter jets were scrambled but proved unnecessary, as the plane landed safely in Denver with no injuries to passengers.

Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Kristin Lee said the man is being interviewed by law enforcement officials in Denver.

The ancient Egyptians considered the qat plant a "divine food" which was capable of releasing humanity's divinity. The Egyptians used the plant for more than its stimulating effects; they used it as a metamorphic process and transcended into "apotheosis", intending to make the user god-like.

WASHINGTON – As secretary of state, Henry Kissinger canceled a U.S. warning against carrying out international political assassinations that was to have gone to Chile and two neighboring nations just days before a former ambassador was killed by Chilean agents on Washington's Embassy Row in 1976, a newly released State Department cable shows.

Whether Kissinger played a role in blocking the delivery of the warning against assassination to the governments of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay has long been a topic of controversy.

Discovered in recent weeks by the National Security Archive, a non-profit research organization, the Sept. 16, 1976 cable is among tens of thousands of declassified State Department documents recently made available to the public.

In 1976, the South American nations of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay were engaged in a program of repression code-named Operation Condor that targeted those governments' political opponents throughout Latin America, Europe and even the United States.

Based on information from the CIA, the U.S. State Department became concerned that Condor included plans for political assassination around the world. The State Department drafted a plan to deliver a stern message to the three governments not to engage in such murders.

In the Sept. 16, 1976 cable, the topic of one paragraph is listed as "Operation Condor," preceded by the words "(KISSINGER, HENRY A.) SUBJECT: ACTIONS TAKEN." The cable states that "secretary declined to approve message to Montevideo" Uruguay "and has instructed that no further action be taken on this matter."

RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.
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Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, visiting London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations.

They have commissioned the barrister Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens, a solicitor, to present a justification for legal action.

The lawyers believe they can ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope, launch their own civil action against him or refer his case to the International Criminal Court.

Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: “This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.”

Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, said: “This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment.

Last year pro-Palestinian activists persuaded a British judge to issue an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli politician, for offences allegedly committed during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza. The warrant was withdrawn after Livni cancelled her planned trip to the UK.

“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” said Stephens. “Geoffrey and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature

Join us for a fascinating two-hour program with author Graham Hancock. With books such as "Fingerprints of the Gods", "The Sign and the Seal", "Keeper of Genesis", "Talisman", "Underworld" and "Supernatural" he's become a legend in the field of alternative research. We begin to talk about his latest book Entangled, a novel, and ask why he's chosen to go into the field of fiction, considering his past and excellent non-fiction works. We talk about the advantages of writing fiction. We discuss how Graham's earlier books and research have influenced the writing of Entangled. Topics discussed: Ayahuasca, shamanism, Entangled, why a novel? Academic critics, Underworld, The advantage of writing fiction, the reality behind the story in Entangled, Therianthrope, Anthropos, "Sulpa" & "Illimani", DMT, Supernatural, apocalyptic themes, Rick Strassman, "The Spirit Molecule", quantum physics, the mystery of consciousness, ECG, Plato, soul, near death experience, consciousness, ancestors, cave art, psychedelic plants & substances, the computer, Steve Jobs and LSD, Watson and Crick, knowledge vs. ignorance, violence, fear of death, western civilization, Tibetan book of the dead, Hermes and more. We proceed talking with Graham in hour two for members. We begin to talk about the end, the cyclical nature of civilization and how fragile western society is with its specialization and how intelligence seems to be going down, not up. We talk about inventions of a mind induced by so called vision drugs and various theories on when man first came into contact with psilocybin mushrooms, Amanita Muscaria and Soma. We talk about plants and substances that might have helped to spark the mind of ancient man. We carry the discussion over to the preservation of the shamanic tradition, gnosis, knowledge and we discuss the Gnostics, Cathars, Knights Templar leading into Freemasonry, Rosicrucian's and we get Graham's take on the fruits of these societies and secret societies. What is the destiny of America, "The New Atlantis", who were the founding fathers and what was their intention? We discuss so called "sacred cities" and "sacred faith" and how ancient Egyptian civilization seem to have been supplanted around the world. We talk about alignments of monuments and buildings to the stars in the heaven. We ask if this philosophy can be found in modern times, with cities such as Astana in Kashakztan that have pyramids and spectacular monuments that seem to stem from the same tradition and religious beliefs. We talk about the philosophy of some of the architects and we also get Graham's take on the alien intervention theory of people such as Däniken, Zithin, Lloyd Pye and others. Don't miss this exciting second hour.

In its comments filed May 8, 2000 for purposes of the NTIA's second report to Congress pursuant to the Anti-Bribery Act, INTELSAT noted that its subsidiary, Intelsat LLC, had filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC" or "Commission") for authority to operate INTELSAT's 17 existing C-band and Ku-band satellites, to further construct, launch and operate 10 additional satellites, and to relocate, among 22 orbital locations, certain currently operating satellites ("Application"). In August 2000, the Commission granted the Application, effective upon asset transfer and conditioned upon a finding that INTELSAT's privatization is pro-competitive as required by the ORBIT Act.

With respect to that Application, Intelsat LLC has made several filings to the FCC concerning its privatization plans and progress. Among the most recent was a December 18, 2000 filing responding to the Commission's request for "supplemental information describing fully all aspects of the decision of the Assembly to privatize INTELSAT." In that filing, Intelsat LLC noted that in November 2000, the 25th Assembly of Parties had made a final commitment to privatize INTELSAT by July 18, 2001 and described the decisions taken by that Assembly of Parties and by the Board of Governors in December 2000 with respect to INTELSAT's privatization. In addition, Intelsat LLC explained how INTELSAT's privatization satisfies the requirements of the ORBIT Act. INTELSAT will not repeat those comments herein, but instead incorporates them herein by reference.

• Formed in 1964 to provide global communications, Intelsat resulted from the Communications Satellite Act signed by U.S. President Kennedy in 1962. Today, Intelsat provides Internet, broadcast, telephony and corporate network solutions to customers in more than 200 countries and territories through its network of 20 geostationary satellites.

• In 2000, Intelsat had revenues of $1.1 billion, a net income of $504 million, and an 86 percent EBITDA margin. Intelsat's 99.995 percent system reliability serves a blue-chip customer base that includes the world's leading international telecom carriers, Internet service providers and broadcasters.

Ever wish you could have something you wrote in the Library of Congress?

Well, if you've ever sent a Twitter message, you can: The Library of Congress announced Wednesday on its Twitter account that it will acquire the full history of Twitter messages dating back to March 2006. Additional details are available on the library's blog and on Twitter's blog.

Observers are asking what the Library and its users might do with the information, which is already publicly accessible but has never been properly collected into a single, usable database (particularly one with an academic bent).

The creation of a Twitter archive is really good news — not just for those in the future who need to look up what party P. Diddy was attending on Feb. 23 but also for academics doing serious research about how news is broken, how quickly information spreads during major world events, and how public sentiment on various topics changes over time.

Some big questions remain. ReadWriteWeb asks whether the Library of Congress will offer an advanced search engine for finer-grained insight into Twitter's archives than current Twitter search utilities offer. But whether or not you and I have in-depth access to the Twitterbase, it's academic research that will probably benefit most from this archive. As the Library of Congress' blogger says, "I'm no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data. And I'm certain we'll learn things that none of us now can even possibly conceive."