UFO seekers flock to mystery lights in Texas

Telegraph | Jan 16, 2008

By Tom Leonard in New York

Amateur UFO investigators are to descend on a farming community in Texas where dozens of people reported seeing mysterious lights in the sky.

A pilot, policeman and local business owners are among those who insist they have seen a large, silent object with bright lights flying low and fast over the town of Stephenville, 60 miles south west of Fort Worth.

Some said they saw fighter jets chasing the craft, which was mostly spotted on one evening – January 8.

The local airforce base said none of its planes were in the area last week.

A spokesman has suggested that the UFO might have been an illusion created by sunset falling on commercial airliners.

Unconvinced, local people insist the object was larger, quieter, faster and closer to the ground than an airplane.

Steve Allen, a pilot and freight company owner, said: “People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times.”

Mr Allen, a freight company owner and pilot, described the object he saw as a mile long and half a mile wide.

“It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts,” he said.

Looking through the telescopic sights of his rifle, Ricky Sorrells, a machinist, said he saw a flat and seamless metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a field.

Lee Roy Gaitan, an Erath County constable, said: “I didn’t see a flying saucer and I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t an airplane, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He added: “I think it must be some kind of military craft – at least I hope it was.”

The US airforce no longer investigates UFOs. Around 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas, according to the Mutual UFO Network, which plans to visit Stephenville next weekend.

Fourteen per cent of Americans polled last year said they have seen a UFO.

Israel Massacres 18 in Gaza

Arab News | Jan 16, 2008

by Hisham Abu Taha

GAZA CITY, 16 January 2008 — The son of Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar was among 18 Palestinians massacred yesterday during an Israeli incursion into the Al-Zaiton neighborhood of Gaza.

Witnesses and medical sources said that 45 others were also wounded due to the indiscriminate artillery shelling. They added that 12 of the injured were in critical condition and that the death toll might increase.

Hamas and witnesses said that Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers, backed by helicopters and drones, came into Al-Zaiton neighborhood after Palestinian resistance fighters discovered an Israeli undercover unit had infiltrated the area and then came under Hamas gunfire. In response, Israeli artillery and warplanes moved in and shelled the area.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that eight of its members had been killed during the Israeli offensive. They added that Hussam, 24, son of Mahmoud Zahar, had been killed in an air strike during the incursion. Medical sources said that three other civilians, including an elderly man, were also killed.

Mahmud Zahar is one of Hamas’ founders and served as Palestinian foreign minister from 2006 to 2007. In September 2003, another of Zahar’s sons, Khaled, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that completely destroyed Zahar’s house in Gaza City.

Deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said: “Israeli assassinations of Palestinian people will not frighten the leadership and will not affect its determination. The crimes of the occupation will remain the curse of the occupation.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas branded the Gaza operation a massacre, and said it flew in the face of peace efforts.

“What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter of the Palestinian people,” Abbas told reporters. “These massacres cannot bring peace.”

Hamas announced three days of mourning and called a general strike today. Several thousand people called for vengeance as they attended the funerals of those killed.

The Israeli Army confirmed the operation, saying troops fired at gunmen who approached the border fence. After an exchange of fire, aircraft also fired at the militants, the military said.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev confirmed the shelling and said the operation was launched because of rocket attacks on Israel. “This is the result, unfortunately, of the ongoing attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip,” he said.

On Monday, top negotiators began talks on the thorniest issues at the heart of the conflict — borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees. The negotiations came after the visit to the region by US President George W. Bush — whose administration has turned its focus on trying to solve the conflict during his last year in office. The American president has predicted that a peace treaty would be signed by January 2009.

But underlining the divide between the two sides, construction of 60 new housing units has begun in a settlement in annexed East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their promised state. It was the latest settlement expansion in East Jerusalem — despite Palestinian demands that such activity be halted — since the peace talks were revived.

Diana told her lawyers: ‘I will die in a car crash’

 

Lord Mishcon: The lawyer recorded Princess Diana’s claim she would die in a car crash

Daily Mail | Jan 15, 2008

Princess Diana foretold her own violent death two years before the Paris car crash, the inquest heard today.

At a meeting in October 1995 with her divorce solicitors she set out her fears which were recorded in what has become known as the “Mischon Note”.

The late Lord Mischon, then a senior figure in law firm Mischon De Reya, made notes of the meeting attended by the Princess and solicitors Maggie Rae and Sandra Davies.

Diana told him: “The Queen would abdicate by the next April, she (Diana) would be involved in a car accident which would at the very least render her so ‘injured or damaged as to be declared unbalanced,’ there was a conspiracy to put aside the Princess and the then Camilla Parker Bowles and royal nanny Tiggy Legge Bourke had had an abortion and she (Diana) would shortly have a document to prove it.”

Lord Mischon recorded in his note that he personally did not believe her life was in danger.

He warned the Princess that if she was in fear she should take extra security measures, particularly in relation to any car she got into.

But the lawyer was surprised that Diana’s private secretary Patrick Jephson “half believed” she was right.

Two weeks after the Paris car crash in which Diana and Dodi Fayed were killed with driver Henri Paul, Lord Mischon took his notes to then Met Commissioner Lord Condon and they both agreed that confidentiality should be maintained.

Police and lawyers only passed the Mischon Note to royal coroner Michael Burgess when details were revealed of Diana’s similar fears by her former butler Paul Burrell in 2003.

Solicitor Sandra Davis, from Mishcon De Reya, who represented the Princess during her divorce from Prince Charles, said Diana told her on more than one occasion that she thought “they” were going to kill her.

When asked by Michael Mansfield QC if Diana ever told her who “they” were, she replied: “No”.

Miss Davis said Diana told her she had somebody “on the inside” who was giving her the information.

When asked if the Princess was “deadly serious” about her fears, Miss Davis said: “She was.”

Miss Davis said that when she heard of Diana’s death, her mind “jumped” to what was said at thatmeeting on 30 October 1995, when Diana had expressed her fears for her life.

She also confirmed Lord Mishcon, her former boss, was sufficiently concerned that he took the so-called “Mishcon note” to police immediately after Diana’s crash in Paris.

FDA: Cloned Cow Is ‘Safe and Traditional’

NPR | Jan 15, 2008

The Food and Drug Administration is saying meat and milk from cloned cows are as safe as they are traditional. But how do they taste and will they turn us into mutated creatures?

FDA Finds Meat, Milk from Clones Safe to Eat

by Dan Charles

A January 2008 report by FDA scientists concludes that meat and milk from cow, pig and goat clones and their offspring are as safe to consume as food from noncloned animals.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that meat and milk from cloned animals are safe to eat.

Critics immediately denounced the FDA’s conclusions, saying the agency ignored the ethical problems with cloning.

Cloning creates a genetic copy of an animal, so making clones of a cow that produces an amazing amount of milk, for example, could be quite lucrative. Several companies are trying to make a business out of cloning; those animals could then be used for breeding.

FDA scientists studied the chemical composition of meat and milk from clones and decided that it’s identical to what’s on the market already. The European Food Safety Authority, in a draft report last week, came to a similar conclusion.

But opponents of cloning pointed to other data in the report, showing that the cloning process creates many animals that cannot survive.

Also, many clones are unnaturally large when they’re born, which can harm their surrogate mothers.

But FDA officials say their job is just to look at food safety, not ethics.

The New Al-Qaeda: Blonde Haired, Blue Eyed Westerners

Fox News hysteria labels Caucasians with no criminal record as new breed of terrorists

Global Research | Jan 15, 2008

by Paul Joseph Watson

Echoing the much derided 2003 FBI warning that a good way to spot potential terrorists is to check if they are carrying an almanac, Fox News went beyond the pale this morning in suggesting that Al-Qaeda’s most likely acolytes are blonde haired, blue eyed Caucasian westerners with no criminal record.

Fox and Friends’ ever ready Neo-Con slug Brian Kilmeade, who in November called on Americans to support terrorist car bombings in Iran, as well as funding for terrorist groups to “create havoc in Iran”, interviewed ex-CIA spook Mike Baker, whose company Diligence LLC has close ties to the Bush administration and just happens to butter its bread with the aid of a steady supply of global unrest and terror hype.

The story, which is based on a comment by a single MI5 source (must be true then) that was subsequently picked up in a Scotsman article, claims that Al-Qaeda have recruited 1,500 white Britons to carry out attacks in the UK.

For those of us who recoiled in absolute horror at the proficiency of dumb and dumber’s summer exploits in setting a car on fire at Glasgow airport, it’s obvious that “Al-Qaeda’s” recruiting efforts need to improve if they are to live up to the status lavishly bestowed upon them by the establishment media.

So, as Baker and Kilmeade somehow manage to relate while keeping straight faces, the new breed of jihadists have been identified as white Caucasian westerners with blonde hair, blue eyes, and no criminal record.

See it to believe it. http://prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/011408_new_alqaeda.htm

Baker told Kilmeade that al Qaeda looks for operatives who can fit in, just as the CIA does, saying, “If they can recruit a Scandinavian, that’s the holy grail for them.” He added, “They need people who can move around freely and do their bidding,” apparently implying that blue-eyed blondes are the people who blend most seamlessly into Western society, reports Raw Story.

However, Baker dismissed Kilmeade’s suggestion that al Qaeda would be particularly interested in recruiting in US prisons. “To go into a prison and try to recruit individuals — that person’s already tainted. What they really need, they need people who haven’t run afoul of law enforcement in the past. … Their problems are extreme in trying to recruit someone who can go out there and carry out their business.”

So there you have it, even if you believe we are fighting a war against radical Muslims that want to wipe us off the planet, your intelligence agencies are working on the premise that the next likely suicide bombers are going to look like Ken and Barbie. Does that make you feel safe?

In December 2003, the FBI sent out a nationwide alert to police which stated that people traveling with almanacs and maps should be viewed as potential terrorists and searched at checkpoints. In comparison, this new bout of hysteria makes such folly appear positively rational.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what the agenda is here. Just as we were told that there were reds under the bed during the cold war era, without the specter of potential terrorists running around our backyards, the war on terror itself and all the fearmongering attached to it is rendered impotent.

So the new potential terrorists are our friends, our neighbors and even us – mandating that the whole police state apparatus that has been constructed since 9/11 be swung around to target the American and British people.

Oh yeah, and if there are real terrorists planning devastating attacks, they won’t be stopped because the CIA and MI5 foot soldiers have been trained to look for members of the 1970’s Swedish pop group Abba.

Diana said, ‘they are plotting to get rid of me’

Telegraph | Jan 16, 2008

By Gordon Rayner

Diana, Princess of Wales told her solicitors of a plot to tamper with her car so it would crash and “get rid of her” or leave her “unbalanced”, the inquest into her death heard.

A note of the meeting, written by Lord Mishcon, head of the law firm Mishcon de Reya, was given to senior Scotland Yard officers after she was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997. But they did not pass on the document to their French counterparts.

The note’s existence was only revealed six years later, after the Princess’s former butler, Paul Burrell, published a letter in which the Princess made a similar claim.

Michael Mansfield QC, representing Mohamed Fayed, whose son Dodi died alongside the Princess, suggested to Sir David Veness, a former Metropolitan Police commander, that his officers had buried the note because he knew that “the security services or agents of the British state” had murdered the Princess “and you didn’t want this investigated”.

In a heated exchange, Sir David described the suggestion of a cover-up as “reprehensible” and “rejected completely” any suggestion that the Princess was murdered.

Mohamed Fayed believes his son and the Princess were killed by MI6 on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh to prevent them marrying.

Diana’s fears o being ‘put aside’

The Princess raised her fears about an assassination plot during a meeting with Lord Mishcon and two of his staff, Maggie Rae and Sandra Davis, at Kensington Palace in October 1995.

Lord Mishcon, who was then ill and has since died, visited the Princess to introduce her to the two partners who were to take over her legal work from him.

Lord Mishcon was so concerned about what the Princess said that he made a full note of the conversation, which was read to the jury at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. He wrote: “Her Royal Highness said she had been informed by reliable sources that:

A: The Queen would be abdicating in April and the Prince of Wales would then be assuming the throne.

B: Efforts would then be made, if not to get rid of her, be it by some accident in her car, such as pre-prepared brake failure or whatever, between now and then, at least to see that she was so injured or damaged as to be declared ‘unbalanced’.

“She was convinced that there was a conspiracy and that she and Camilla Parker Bowles were to be put aside.

“She had also been told that (Tiggy) Legge Bourke (the former royal nanny whom Princess Diana believed Prince Charles wanted to marry) had been operated on for an abortion and that she, HRH, would soon be in receipt of ‘a certificate’. “I told HRH that if she really believed her life was being threatened, security measures, including those on her car, must be increased.”

Lord Mishcon set up a meeting with the Princess’s private secretary, Patrick Jephson, who said he “half believed” what the Princess said.

Miss Rae told the court: “It was very clear in my own mind that she thought she was going to be killed.”

But she admitted the lawyers did not take the Princess’s fears entirely seriously and did not inform the police at the time.

How police ‘sat on’ the note

Lord Mishcon arranged to meet Lord Condon, the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and Sir David Veness, assistant commissioner for specialist operations, on Sept 18, 1997, less than three weeks after the fatal car crash.

Lord Mishcon handed over his note of the 1995 meeting but it was not passed on to French police. Matters went no further until October 2003, when the Princess’s note to Mr Burrell also referring to fears of a staged car crash, appeared in a newspaper.

Sir David came under intense questioning by Mr Mansfield over why the note was kept secret.

Mr Mansfield said: “It didn’t need Sherlock Holmes, you don’t need to be experienced in the job, that once Lord Mishcon walks through the door on the 18th of September, you knew that this was relevant, didn’t you?”

Sir David said the note was “potentially relevant” but there was no evidence at the time that the crash was anything more than a tragic accident.

He said the three men had agreed that the note “would be treated in the utmost confidence because any leakage could do immeasurable harm and cause needless pain… Lord Mishcon’s concern was above all for the royal princes”.

He added: “We decided to monitor the French investigation and if any suspicious factors emerged then we would review the position.”

Mr Mansfield said: “Were you just sitting on this note because you knew full well that the security services or agents of the British state, maverick or otherwise, had been involved and you didn’t want this investigated?” Sir David said he “rejected completely” that suggestion and described as “reprehensible” any implication that he was involved in a cover-up.

In her note to Mr Burrell, written in October 1995 or 1996, the Princess said: “My husband is planning an accident in my car, brake failure and serious head injury.

” The day after its publication, Lord Mishcon contacted the police to remind them of his own note, which was immediately passed to the coroner in charge of the inquests.

Mr Mansfield said to Sir David: “I’m going to put it to you bluntly: this note would never have seen the light of day unless Paul Burrell had published his (note) and you suddenly all realised you’ve got a problem?”

Sir David said: “No. With regard to the future hearings there would have been a review and it would have been pertinent to consider it in any discussions with the coroner.”

The coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, asked whether it had been relevant to Sir David that: “Since the note had been written in October 1995 the Queen hadn’t abdicated, Camilla hadn’t been put aside, and until the tragic collision in August 1997, neither had Diana?

Sir David said: “Yes, that was of relevance.”

Did police try to stop the Fayed holiday?

Mr Mansfield suggested that the police had become aware of the Princess’s plans to go on holiday in July 1997 with Mohamed Fayed, who was under investigation over an alleged safety deposit break-in at Harrods and that the police wanted to keep the Princess away from him.

An officer under Sir David’s command informed the Queen of the Princess’s plans, but the Queen already knew. Mr Mansfield put it to Sir David that “there was a desire to keep the Princess away from Mr Fayed and when she refused, things got really hot”. Sir David denied this.

The Princess’s ‘lonely’ life

Miss Rae said she felt the Princess led a “lonely” life and felt “outgunned” by Prince Charles during their divorce proceedings of 1995 to 1996.

“I thought that she lived in a very odd environment,” she said. “I thought she was quite lonely.

“One weekend she told me about she had been alone in this rather lonely set of apartments (in Kensington Palace), she had heated her own food in the microwave, I got the impression that she was a bit lonely.”

During the divorce, she said “she felt she was up against a big machine.

“Prince Charles had a big staff and she had a very small staff and she did feel outgunned”.

Australian publishers and booksellers fear Scientology lawsuits over unauthorized Cruise biography

Firms scared off Cruise book

The Australian | Jan 16, 2008

by Ean Higgins and Nicola Berkovic

THE mere thought of legal action has divided the men from the boys in the book trade when it comes to Tom Cruise and the Scientologists.

Retailers are fearful of stocking Andrew Morton’s unauthorised biography of Tom Cruise.

Pan Macmillan Australia has been scared away from publishing a salacious biography of the movie star by British author Andrew Morton.

Retailer Dymocks has also decided not to stock the book because of fears of possible defamation action.

By contrast, US publishers St Martin’s Press, which is a sister company of Pan Macmillan, was gearing up for a massive launch of Tom Cruise – An Unauthorised Biography to a ravenous American audience.

According to freedom-of-information advocate Irene Moss, the different moves reflect the more plaintiff-friendly defamation laws in Australia, where even the suggestion of possible lawsuits is enough to scare off publishers and booksellers.

Morton, known for making wild unsourced claims, makes some spectacular ones about Cruise, Scientology’s biggest celebrity adherent.

Leaks before the book’s scheduled US release overnight reveal that Morton paints an unfavourable picture of Scientologists, who follow the teachings ofAmerican science fiction writer L.Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986.

Morton claims Cruise’s former wife Nicole Kidman, in the final “audit” session she had with the church, in which members speak to a minister who watches a version of a lie detector, discussed her sexual relations with Cruise and the session was taped.

Morton alleges that Scientologists threatened to blackmail Kidman if she spoke out against the church after her failed marriage to Cruise.

He also claims Scientologists believe Cruise’s daughter, Suri, is a reincarnation of Hubbard.

Without naming his sources, Morton writes: “Some sect members sincerely believed that Katie Holmes was carrying the baby who would be the vessel for L.Ron Hubbard’s spirit when he returned from his trip around thegalaxy.”

The Church of Scientology has rejected Morton’s allegations as a “bigoted, defamatory assault replete with lies”.

It said in a statement Morton made no attempt to put his supposed revelations to the church and added: “His British publishing house refused publication of Morton’s diatribe due to his inability to substantiate his claims.”

Pan Macmillan publicist Jeannine Fowler said the Australian publishers had not received threats by Scientologists or agents for Cruise, but lawyers had advised against publication.

“The laws governing this sort of issue in Australia are different from those in the US,” she said.

Dymocks Group chief executive Don Grover said the company had obtained legal advice and decided to play it safe – without the lawyers or the retailers having read the book. “We’ve made a decision that we’re not prepared to take the commercial risk,” Mr Grover said.

Other booksellers have no such qualms: Gleebooks principal David Gaunt has placed an order for “a small number” of the US edition, and Angus & Robertson book manager Jodi Smith said the book chain intended to make the book available to customers as soon as it could.

. . .

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