Israel Pulls Out in Time for Air Strikes

The Courier-Mail: Israel strikes Gaza again [27sep05]

Israel strikes Gaza again
By Sakher Abu El Oun in Gaza City
27sep05

ISRAEL has launched more air strikes in Gaza despite Hamas saying it would halt rocket attacks, casting a shadow over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bid to stave off a leadership challenge.

The Israeli air force conducted six overnight raids and bombed a field used as a missile launch site by militants in an upsurge of violence that has put in doubt an expected summit between Mr Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.

Desperate to deflect accusations from his leadership rival Benjamin Netanyahu that his decision to pull troops out of Gaza a fortnight ago had bolstered the Islamist movement Hamas, Mr Sharon's camp said the air strikes and a series of mass arrests had forced the Islamists into a climbdown.

But the spike in violence appeared to deflate Mr Sharon's argument that leaving Gaza would ease friction with the Palestinians and strengthened former premier Netanyahu's hopes of ousting him from the helm of their Likud party, which was voting to decide on the date of a leadership ballot.

Gaza-based militants had fired dozens of rockets into Israel over the weekend, with the Palestinian Authority doing little to stop the barrage.

After an embarrassed Mr Sharon gave his army carte blanche to stop the attacks, Hamas said yesterday its fighters would hold their fire.

"Under our commitment to the national agreement made in Cairo to a cooling down period until the end of 2005, the movement announces it has stopped its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Zionist occupation," Mahmud Zahar, the Hamas leader in its Gaza stronghold, said.

His announcement, however, did not prevent a further six overnight raids on targets that the Israeli army said were used to make or store weapons.

Israeli jets repeatedly broke the sound barrier over Gaza City and the air force bombed an open field in northern Gaza that it said had been used to fire rockets.

Although two members of Hamas and two Islamic Jihad militants were killed in weekend air strikes, there were no reports of casualties in the latest raids.

Iraqi Police Die - British Unlawful Combatant Terrorists Arrested

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050915/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Thu Sep 15, 7:51 PM ET

...bombers inflicted another day of mayhem in the capital Thursday, killing at least 31 people in two attacks about a minute apart that targeted Iraqi police and Interior Ministry commandos. The carnage left nearly 200 people dead just two days.

A dozen bombings during a nine-hour spate of terror Wednesday killed at least 167 people and wounded nearly 600 — Baghdad's worst day of bloodshed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

The massive bombings took place with both Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in the United States.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/09/24/iraq.basra.ap/

Saturday, September 24, 2005; Posted: 11:18 p.m. EDT (03:18 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- An Iraqi judge said on Saturday he had renewed arrest warrants for two British soldiers who were rescued from jail early this week by troops using armor to crash through the prison walls.

The British government said the warrants are not legally binding, as the soldiers are subject to UK law.

The two British soldiers were arrested by Iraqi authorities on Monday after allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen who tried to detain them. One of the policemen reportedly was killed.

The two British soldiers, operating undercover, were subsequently taken into custody.

A British armored patrol then surrounded the jail where the two were held, prompting a riot in the Basra, Iraq's second largest city and the southern hub of the country's oil industry.

Angry residents attacked the British armor with Molotov cocktails and pelted soldiers with stones as they jumped from the burning vehicles.

Later Monday, British armored vehicles crashed through the prison walls in an operation to rescue the two soldiers. They were subsequently found in a nearby house in the custody of militiamen, Britain said.

Basra authorities said the operation violated Iraqi sovereignty, and the governor ordered all government employees to stop cooperating with the British, who have 8,500 troops in the Shiite Muslim-dominated region.

Judge Raghib al-Mudhafar, chief of the Basra Anti-Terrorism Court, said Saturday that he reissued homicide arrest warrants for the two soldiers on Thursday.

But the British government said they are not legally binding on the British soldiers.

"There is no legal basis for the issue of this arrest warrant. Rather, we have a legal obligation to investigate the allegations ourselves. That is being done as we speak," a spokesman at the British defense ministry said in London on Saturday.

NASA Cloaks

HoustonChronicle.com - NASA limits shuttle viewing areas due to public risk

By MARK CARREAU
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

RESOURCES
PUBLIC SAFETY POLICY

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board urged NASA to take a look at its public safety policy as a result of the Feb. 1, 2003, breakup of the shuttle Columbia that killed seven astronauts.

• Potentially worse: Columbia disintegrated over East Texas and Louisiana, but nobody was hurt on the ground by the 84,000 pounds of debris and toxic rocket propellants.

• Grim odds: Investigators estimate the chance of at least one serious public injury at between 9 percent and 24 percent.

NASA has adopted new safety measures intended to lower the risk to the public during launch and landing of the space shuttle when missions resume in mid-May, agency officials said Tuesday.

One of the changes, still being worked out, will restrict public access to the closest viewing sites at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Also under the revision, a shuttle with critical damage or an impaired flight control system would be diverted to an emergency runway at White Sands, N.M. The Florida facility will continue to serve as the shuttle's primary landing site.

"Philosophically, what we are trying to do is ensure we do not add significantly to the overall risk the public already accepts in their daily lives," said Bryan O'Connor, the agency's chief of safety and mission assurance.

In 113 previous flights of the shuttle that date back to 1981, White Sands has served as a landing site only once, in 1982.

Mission Control intends to rely on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., as its primary backup to Kennedy and would look to a landing at the West Coast site if a shuttle crew faced weather hazards in Florida and was running low on air, food and water.

But the space agency believes the remote New Mexico site would pose the lowest public risk in an emergency.

Already used as a test range by the military for other hazardous activities, White Sands is much less populous than the Los Angeles basin adjacent to Edwards and the Central Florida region near Kennedy.

O'Connor and the other officials who joined him were less certain of how the new policy would affect spectators who like to gather in Florida to witness shuttle launches.

"I wouldn't characterize it as drastic," Allard Beutel, a space agency spokesman said after the briefing.

O'Connor said NASA estimates it can accommodate 20,000 to 25,000 spectators on the sprawling Florida launch complex.

However, those allowed within three miles of the launch pad, the closest public viewing site, likely will be restricted.

Experts will complete safety plans in a few weeks.

Shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven is to lift off on the first post-Columbia mission on May 15.

Bill Parsons, NASA's shuttle program manager, said the agency may be a month away from determining whether the May 15 launch target is achievable.

If Discovery cannot lift off by June 3, shuttle managers will reschedule the mission for a July 12 launch.