A previously reliable source tipped authorities to a terror plot involving 15 to 20 people, one official said.

The source of the information had trained at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan and passed parts of a polygraph test, the official said.

The threat mentioned Friday and Sunday as possible dates, the official added.

The tipster in Iraq failed some sections of the polygraph test, but passed the section pertaining to the information about the New York threat, the official said.

That information, sources said, led to a military operation Wednesday night in Musayyib, about 45 miles south of Baghdad, where, military officials said, three al Qaeda suspects were arrested.
cnn.com

O WHATever…all I can see here is that the more Bush and Co. get sweated, the more likely they are to blow something up. Maybe this was a warning for some.

TEHRAN, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Investors are bailing out of Iran’s stock market, preferring gold and foreign bourses while international pressure ratchets up against Tehran’s disputed atomic programme, traders said on Sunday.

The total bourse capitalisation had dropped to $38.2 billion dollars on Sunday, down from $45 billion in late June when conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a landslide presidential election victory.

The TEPIX all-share index stood at 10,151 points on Sunday, down 27 percent in the 14 months from August 2004, when it stood at 13,880.
news.yahoo.com

Madrid: African immigrants attempting to reach Spain are being deported by Morocco to the Sahara Desert without food or drink, Spanish Press reports said yesterday.

Non-governmental organisations in Spain are critical of Madrid’s decision to start expelling illegal migrants from west and central Africa back over the Moroccan border, saying they risk dying in the desert or being mistreated by Moroccan police.

Spain expelled a first group of 70 Malians to the Moroccan city of Tangier on Thursday in an attempt to discourage Africans from storming the border fences surrounding the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast.

Six immigrants died on Thursday in an attempt by hundreds of migrants to storm the Melilla border, bringing to 14 the death toll along the borders of the two enclaves within a little over a month.Morocco said its security forces had fired in self-defence, killing some of the migrants while others were trampled to death.

More than 13,000 would-be immigrants have participated in massive, coordinated attempts to storm the Melilla border so far this year.
The Spanish government said the expelled Malians would return to their home country, but press reports said Morocco was rounding up large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans near Melilla and other places and then taking them by bus to the desert near the Algerian border.

Formerly, Morocco deported migrants to the region of Oujda, from where they returned to the border area of Ceuta or Melilla and made a fresh attempt to enter Spain, according to the daily El Pais. Morocco has now started taking illegals to the desert 500 kilometres south of Oujda, where there is no food or drink available, according to the daily.
“In front of us, there is nothing but sand, rocks, hills and a lot of sun,” Congolese Philippe Tamouneke told El Pais by telephone.

Tamouneke said he was handcuffed, put on a bus for nine hours and left in the desert. His group included a pregnant woman and three children, he added.
bahraintribune.com

It is no secret that the government of the United States is carrying out a program of operations in favor of the Venezuelan political opposition to remove President Hugo Chávez Frías and the coalition of parties that supports him from power. The budget for this program, initiated by the administration of Bill Clinton and intensified under George W. Bush, has risen from some $2 million in 2001 to $9 million in 2005, and it disguises itself as activities to “promote democracy,” “resolve conflicts,” and “strengthen civic life.” It consists of providing money, training, counsel and direction to an extensive network of political parties, NGO’s, mass media, unions, and businessmen, all determined to end the bolivarian revolutionary process. The program has clear short, medium, and long-term goals, and adapts easily to changes in the fluid Venezuelan political process.

The program of political intervention in Venezuela is one more of various in the world principally directed by the Department of State (DS), the Agency for International Development (AID), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) along with its four associated foundations. These are the International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party; the National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the Democratic Party; the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) of the US Chamber of Commerce; and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the main US national union confederation. In addition, the program has the support of an international network of affiliated organizations.

The various organizations carry out their operations through AID officials at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas and through three “private” offices in Caracas under the Embassy’s control: the IRI (established in 2000), the NDI (2001), and a contractor of AID, a U.S. consulting firm called Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) (2002). These three offices develop operations with dozens of Venezuelan beneficiaries to which they contribute money originating from the State Department, AID, NED, and, although no proof is yet available, most probably the CIA. The operations of the first three are detailed extensively in hundreds of official documents acquired by U.S. journalist Jeremy Bigwood through demands under the Freedom of Information Act, a law that requires the declassification and release of government documents, although many are censured when released.

Venezuelan associates of the U.S. intervention programs participated in the unsuccessful coup against President Chavez in April 2002, in the petroleum lockout/strike of December 2002 to February 2003, and in the recall referendum of August 2004. Having failed in their three first attempts, the U.S. agencies mentioned above are currently planning and organizing for the Venezuelan national elections of 2005 and 2006. This analysis seeks to show how this program functions and the danger it represents.
globalresearch.ca

Invasion allegation based on war game
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s claim that the United States plans to invade his country stems from a military exercise put together by Spain’s armed forces. The U.S. government denied the charge.

…A document outlining the war game, obtained by The Herald from a leftist Internet website and confirmed by Spanish officials, says that the exercise is “a product of imaginary events even though they may seem like they’ve been adapted from reality.”

Similarities with Venezuela clearly do exist. The exercise’s map for three of the countries involved, named after colors, match exactly the maps of Venezuela, Colombia and Panama.

The country ”Brown” is rich in natural resources but politically unstable — just like oil-rich and unstable Venezuela — and several of the selected targets in the war game correspond to real Venezuelan places.

The country ”Blue” seems like the United States — with a mighty military and a need for Brown’s resources — but the exercise map shows the outline of Austria and sets it as an island in the Atlantic.

Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel has insisted that the war game was designed ”with U.S. advice,” but offered no evidence. Yet many Venezuelans remain convinced that there is a threat.

”You don’t do a war game without any possibility of applying it,” said Alberto Mueller, a retired army general who consults for the Venezuelan government on military matters.

George Weah has been on the campaign trail for weeks, and the retired footballer who would be president of war-ravaged Liberia looks exhausted.
The convoy of four-wheel-drive cars tells the story of the journey. After setting out from the capital Monrovia last Friday with 32 vehicles, his campaign team bumped back towards the city yesterday in just five mud-spattered cars.

At a rest stop in the town of Ganta, Mr Weah clambered down from his car and walked wearily to a wooden bench in the shade. “I’m very optimistic,” he said. “I want to bring the basic necessities. Light, water and education. And I can see there’s a need for roads.”

With a small population – 3.3 million – and an abundance of resources, Liberia ought to be an African gem. But decades of bad government and a protracted civil war have left it one of the poorest countries in the world.
After sunset, the heart of Liberia’s capital is shrouded in darkness. In the dazzle of car headlights, prostitutes dance on street corners to lure customers and UN armoured cars gleam ghostly white.

The man who promises to bring light to this darkness, Mr Weah, 39, is a former world footballer of the year who grew up in a hut on reclaimed swampland in Monrovia. He is favourite to win Tuesday’s presidential vote.

“Liberians are ready to move the country forward,” Mr Weah told the Guardian, flanked by security men in camouflage gear. “We need stability, to reassure the world that we are ready to move forward.

“My career does not make much difference. I’m a human being that has contributed to my society.”

The super-rich sports star had witnessed extreme poverty on his journey through Liberia’s rainforest-clad interior. He had seen first hand the dirt roads where treacherous orange mud sucks at car tyres. On Thursday night, he slept in his car because the convoy had been unable to reach the nearest town.

“We live in Monrovia and think everything is OK, but our people in the hinterland are catching a hard time. I experienced that myself in the 1970s. Our people are still living in huts, in a country that has the resources. At least, we can get low-cost housing for our people.”

Football was the springboard out of poverty for Mr Weah, who was brought up by his grandmother. He started with local teams like Young Survivor and Invincible XI, then moved to Cameroon where the national squad’s coach recommended him to Arsène Wenger, then coach of Monaco.

Mr Weah became a star, playing for a string of Europe’s most prestigious clubs, including AC Milan and Chelsea.

But he was more than just a sportsman. He personally funded the Liberia team through an African Nations Cup campaign and became a goodwill ambassador for Unicef, returning to Liberia to encourage child soldiers to lay down their arms.

Two former presidents of Liberia have been murdered and a third lives in exile. Mr Weah is conscious of the danger he faces. “When it comes to African politics, everyone that runs for the highest office faces danger,” he said. “Life is a risk, and I’m taking a risk for my people. Anybody would be afraid. I have a beautiful life, and I’m putting it on the line for my people.”

The retired footballer lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his American wife and three children. He also has a four-bedroom house in Monrovia, where he keeps a silver Porsche Boxster.

His wealth provokes admiration rather than jealousy. Dayton Sei Boe, 32, an official with his Congress for Democratic Change party, said fondly: “The young man is a star, and stars love big cars.”

Some believe his wealth and celebrity make him immune from the corruption which was rampant under Liberia’s past leaders. In Ganta’s marketplace, Madison Morpue, 21, a trader, said: “I will vote for George Weah because he has money of his own, and our money will be safe.”

Liberia’s election is a contest of the Yanna-boys and the book-men. The Yanna-boys are street traders, who overwhelmingly back Mr Weah. The book-men, the educated class, prefer Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 66, a former World Bank economist. If elected, she will be Africa’s first female head of state.
guardian.co.uk

Prosecutors in Sicily opened a criminal investigation yesterday following the publication of a horrific account by a journalist who disguised himself as an illegal immigrant and spent a week in detention.
Fabrizio Gatti, of the centre-left news magazine L’Espresso, said he had seen immigrant detainees being humiliated and physically and verbally abused by paramilitary carabinieri officers.

His account, published yesterday, has disturbing echoes of the scandal involving the mistreatment of prisoners by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It will anger those urging a clampdown on immigration as much as human-rights lobbyists.

After enduring seven days of dire conditions in a detention centre, he was simply let go. Despite the conservative government’s tough policy on immigration, the reporter’s alter ego, Bilal Ibrahim el Habib, was set free, “to go and work in any city in Europe as an illegal alien”.
His journey began when he jumped into the Mediterranean off the Italian island of Lampedusa and floated back ashore on a raft. Lampedusa, midway between Malta and Tunisia, is a favourite destination for would-be immigrants from north Africa.

Mr Gatti was picked up by a passing motorist and handed over to the carabinieri. One officer, he said, amused himself by showing a pornographic video on his mobile telephone to the mainly Muslim detainees in the reception centre on the island.
guardian.co.uk

Democratisation is an ugly word, bearing about as much relationship to real democracy as does a forced marriage to romantic love. The idea was the brainchild of political scientists and lawyers, who used it to describe the successive waves of countries that emerged from authoritarianism to liberal democracy during the postwar period and the constitutional alternatives available to help them on their way.
In the last couple of years, however, it has been press-ganged into service by the American government. The argument of the neo-conservatives who surround the Republican administration – and one that occasionally puts in an appearance in the speeches of George Bush – is that planting the seeds of democracy in the Middle East might make the place more resistant to virulent strains of Islamist extremism.

That theory is now under attack. Writing in the latest issue of the prestigious American journal Foreign Affairs, F Gregory Gause III, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont, argues that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that democracy snuffs out terrorism.

Far from it, he argues. Gause produces statistics to show that between 1976 and 2004 there were 400 terrorist incidents in democratic India and only 18 in non-democratic China. There is, Gause concludes in his survey, “no solid empirical evidence for a strong link between democracy, or any other regime type, and terrorism, in either a positive or a negative direction”. The problem is that democracy is inherently destabilising – if it were a technology, it might be called disruptive – which is why ruling elites have traditionally tried to keep it under control. The most democratic decade in Britain of the previous half-century was probably the 1970s, but few of us want to return there anytime soon.

The situation is doubly fraught in Iraq, where there are fledgling democratic institutions but little evidence of any real enthusiasm for popular sovereignty. The transitions to democracy that we are used to – from Spain in the mid-70s to South Africa in the early 90s – were, at least in part, responses to the will of the people. Unlike previous “waves of democratisation”, however, this new one has been conceived from without and in strictly instrumental terms – not as a good in itself, but because it might open up a more benign kind of politics in the Middle East and help marginalise Islamist extremism.

The Bush administration is now in a bind. If it backtracks on its democratising mission in Iraq and throws in its lot with a local Iraqi strongman – and there are plenty to choose from – it will be accused of toppling Saddam in favour of a kind of Saddam-lite. But if it presses ahead with its attempts at democratisation, it seems likely to end up with a bastard democracy whose very shapelessness becomes an invitation to sectarian rivalries and a red rag to the terrorists who want to provoke it into revealing its authoritarian colours. Whichever direction its takes, America’s wave of democratisation has already slowed into a trickle, and may yet go into reverse.
guardian.co.uk

The cast of administration characters with known connections to the outing of an undercover CIA agent:
Karl Rove
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales
Mary Matalin
Ari Fleischer
Susan Ralston
Israel Hernandez John Hannah
Scott McClellan
Dan Bartlett
Claire Buchan
Catherine Martin
Colin Powell
Karen Hughes
Adam Levine
Bob Joseph
Vice President Dick Cheney
President George W. Bush
thinkprogress.org

In the weeks ahead, a dangerous eruption is again threatening to shake the Bush family’s image of legitimacy, as the pressure from intersecting scandals builds.

So far, the mainstream news media has focused mostly on the white-collar abuses of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for allegedly laundering corporate donations to help Republicans gain control of the Texas legislature, or on deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove for disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer to undercut her husband’s criticism of George W. Bush’s case for war in Iraq.

Both offenses represent potential felonies, but they pale beside new allegations linking business associates of star GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff – an ally of both DeLay and Rove – to the gangland-style murder of casino owner Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2001.

These criminal cases also are reminders of George H.W. Bush’s long record of unsavory associations, including with a Nicaraguan contra network permeated by cocaine traffickers, Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s multi-million-dollar money-laundering operations, and anti-communist Cuban extremists tied to acts of international terrorism. [For details on these cases, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq .]

Now, George W. Bush is faced with his own challenge of containing a rupture of scandals – involving prominent conservatives Abramoff, DeLay and potentially Rove – that have bubbled to the surface and are beginning to flow toward the White House.

Mobbed Up

On Sept. 27, 2005 – in possibly the most troubling of these cases – Fort Lauderdale police charged three men, including reputed Gambino crime family bookkeeper Anthony Moscatiello, with Boulis’s murder. Boulis was gunned down in his car on Feb. 6, 2001, amid a feud with an Abramoff business group that had purchased Boulis’s SunCruz casino cruise line in 2000.

As part of the murder probe, police are investigating payments that SunCruz made to Moscatiello, his daughter and Anthony Ferrari, another defendant in the Boulis murder case. Moscatiello and Ferrari allegedly collaborated with a third man, James Fiorillo, in the slaying. [For more on the case, see Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 28, 2005 .]

The SunCruz deal also led to the August 2005 indictment of Abramoff and his partner, Adam Kidan, on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud over a $60 million loan for buying the casino company in 2000. Prosecutors allege that Abramoff and Kidan made a phony $23 million wire transfer as a fake down payment.

In pursuing the casino deal, the Abramoff-Kidan group got help, too, from DeLay and Rep. Robert W. Ney, R-Ohio, the Washington Post reported. Abramoff impressed one lender by putting him together with DeLay in Abramoff’s skybox at FedEx Field during a football game between the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys.
globalresearch.ca

The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen.

…The administration’s extraordinary isolation was underlined when the Senate Republican majority leader, Bill Frist, supported the amendment.

The man behind the legislation, Republican Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, said the move was backed by American soldiers. His amendment would prohibit the “cruel, inhumane or degrading” treatment of prisoners in the custody of America’s defence department.

The vote was one of the largest and best supported congressional revolts during President George W Bush’s five years in office and shocked the White House.

“We have put out a Statement of Administration Policy saying that his advisers would recommend that he vetoes it if it contains such language,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan warned yesterday.

The administration said Congress was attempting to tie its hands in the war against terrorism.
telegraph.co.uk

I’d like to do a lot more than tie their hands…