Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Terror suspect turned out to be a Welsh insurance agent

Justice Could Decide Leak Was Not a Crime (washingtonpost.com)

Le Monde.fr : Emoi en Israël après le tir essuyé par un pacifisteNot reported in English: along with the Israeli veteran who was seriously wounded when Israeli troops used live fire against protestors on the other side of the Wall, an American woman was also shot.

Willie Nelson, Taking Bush to Task (washingtonpost.com)

Garfield Heights factory explodes : "Michael Harris, who worked at the plant for two months earlier this year, said small fires were 'pretty regular things' at the facility.... The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which monitors safety conditions at the nation's workplaces, has fined Garfield Alloys thousands of dollars since 1980 for nearly 30 violations of safety rules. "

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page Our So-Called Boom

Environmental Working Group || BodyBurden: "In a study led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in collaboration with the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found in the group. Like most of us, the people tested do not work with chemicals on the job and do not live near an industrial facility."

Yahoo! News - Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops

Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 to Reassure Iraqis, Documents Show (washingtonpost.com): "Page A42 "

Hussein Enters Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons: "The C.I.A. has quietly established its own detention system to handle especially important prisoners. The most important Qaeda leaders are held in small groups in undisclosed locations in friendly countries in the developing world, where they face long interrogations with no promise of ever gaining release. For example, at least two of the top Qaeda figures captured since the Sept. 11 attacks-Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh-were held for a time in a secure location in Thailand. They were later moved to another country, officials said. "

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page The story about Halliburton's strangely expensive gasoline imports into Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. High-priced gasoline was purchased from a supplier whose name is unfamiliar to industry experts, but that appears to be run by a prominent Kuwaiti family (no doubt still grateful for the 1991 liberation). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documents seen by The Wall Street Journal refer to "political pressures" from Kuwait's government and the U.S. embassy in Kuwait to deal only with that firm.

After Cheney's Private Hunt, Others Take Their Shots

ON THE STANDS Just in time: George W. Bush GI Joke action figure.

The Pentagon Invades Your Xbox : "Can the day be far off when the Department of Defense gets a producer credit for a Paramount film and Kuma Reality Games is granted office space in the Pentagon?"

U.S.: Hundreds of Civilian Deaths in Iraq Were Preventable
(Human Rights Watch Press release, December 12, 2003) : "Every death of a civilian in wartime is a terrible tragedy. But focusing on the exact number of deaths misses the point. The point is that the U.S. military should not have been using these methods of warfare."

The Observer | International | Army shells pose cancer risk in Iraq: "Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra reveal radiation levels 2,500 times higher than normal. In the surrounding area researchers recorded radioactivity levels 20 times higher than normal....

Tedd Weymann, deputy director of UMRC, said: 'At one point the readings were so high that an alarm on one of my instruments went off telling me to get back. Yet despite these alarmingly high levels of radiation children play on the tanks or close by.'

The amount of DU used during the Iraq war has not been revealed, although some estimate it was more than a thousand tons."

Israel Cultivates a New Breed of Tourist (washingtonpost.com): "Benny Elon, Israel's tourism minister..., who leads the country's most hawkish political party, Moledet (Homeland), embarked on a campaign to cultivate a new breed of tourist....

Jeff Reed, 38, of Newport News, who described himself as a "full Gospel, born-again Christian" with an interest in "remaining proficient with handguns," said he heard about Operation Shiloh while listening to G. Gordon Liddy's radio show...."Had I not had training before, it would have been almost culture shock," Reed, a former police officer and paratrooper in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, said...."

Oakland Tribune Online - Local & Regional News: "They're saying, 'Go after it, guys. We're back in the fifties. Come up with all the crazy ideas you can -- if there are any crazy ideas left out there.' This is fossil Cold War mentality surfacing again"

Yahoo! News - Bush Seeks Help of Allies Barred From Iraq Deals: "President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects."

Diebold e-mail discusses price gouging Maryland: "An e-mail found in a collection of files stolen from Diebold Elections Systems' internal database recommends charging Maryland 'out the yin-yang,' if the state requires Diebold to add paper printouts to the $73 million voting system it purchased."