Israel: No proof for Hamas Dubai killing ..[ 651 ]

Israel says no proof it carried out Hamas Dubai killing

Mr Lieberman said Israel never confirmed intelligence matters BBC 22:28 GMT, Wednesday, 17 February 2010 Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said there is no proof the Mossad spy agency carried out the killing of a Hamas commander in Dubai. But he did not fully deny that Israel carried out the killing, citing its "policy of ambiguity" on such matters. Dubai believes 11 "agents with European passports" killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Seven foreign-born Israelis named as suspects say their identities were stolen and they were not involved. UK passports used were said to be fake. France, Germany and the Irish Republic also said they believed the passports from their countries used by the alleged killers were false. Britain has summoned the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Office on Thursday, to discuss the use of fraudulent British passports by the alleged assassins. 'Israel never confirms' Hamas has accused Israeli agents of murdering their operative - a view shared by many commentators because Mossad has in the past used forged foreign passports in its operations. ANALYSIS Jonathan Marcus, BBC diplomatic correspondent The operation was clinical. The hit-team successfully escaped Dubai. But they left telltale traces. The false foreign passports used by the alleged team of secret agents have been identified and six of them are British. That is diplomatic problem number one. Problem number two is identity theft. The passports used the names of real people, British citizens, with dual nationality, who happen to live in Israel, who had absolutely no knowledge of what was going on. Nobody yet of course has any proof-positive as to who carried out the operation. There may be no "smoking gun". Nonetheless what you might call the "smouldering passports" suggest that Israel has some questions to answer. If Israel was indeed behind this assassination then some, even in Israel, may well suggest that they have scored a costly own goal. But in Israel's first official comments on the affair, Mr Lieberman said there was no reason to blame Israel and Mossad. "I don't know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports," he told Army Radio. "There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief." He did not outright deny Israeli involvement. "Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies," he said. "There is no reason for Israel to change this policy." A former officer with the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, said the killing "looks like an Israeli operation". But Gad Shimron added: "I believe it will never be officially confirmed by any Israeli government." Mr Mabhouh was murdered in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January. Reports have suggested he was in Dubai to buy weapons for the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas. Two Palestinian suspects were being questioned about the murder. Police said they had "fled to Jordan" after the killing, without releasing their names. Wigs and false beards Officials in Dubai, who have issued arrest warrants, said the team appeared to be a professional hit squad, probably sponsored by a foreign power. They released CCTV footage which they said showed some of the suspects in disguises, including wigs and false beards, in the hotel near Dubai's international airport. The suspects allegedly trailed Mr Mabhouh when he arrived in Dubai from Syria, paid for everything in cash and used various mobile phones. Some of the British-born Israelis whose names were on the passports used by the suspects have said they are shocked by the discovery. "I don't know how they got my details, who took them," said Stephen Daniel Hodes, 37. "I haven't left the country, I think, for two years and I've never been to Dubai ever. "I don't know who's behind this. I am just scared, these are major forces," he said. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a "full investigation" into what happened. Hamas killing Police in Dubai have issued arrest warrants for 11 suspects they want to question about the killing of a senior Hamas official in Dubai. The suspects include six men travelling on false British passports. Three other suspects, including one woman, were travelling on false Irish passports. Two further suspects had French and German papers. Dubai police say they appeared to be a professional hit-squad. Dubai police say the suspects only spent a day in the country. Here two of them are seen arriving at a local shopping centre. Three others were filmed arriving at the same centre. The suspects did not make contact by phone. Police allege that one of the suspects, pictured on the left pulling a trolley, went to a hotel to put on a disguise. He is seen entering a men's toilet and later left wearing a wig. Their alleged victim, Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is seen at the hotel reception, circled in red above. At the bottom of the image the head of one of the suspects can just be seen. As Mr Mabhouh leaves, the suspect follows. Mr Mabhouh is followed into the lift by a number of the suspects, including two pictured here in tennis gear. It is thought he had been followed from Syria to Dubai where he wanted to buy weapons for Hamas. When Mr Mabhouh leaves the lift, the police say he was followed by one of the suspects, who appeared to be trying to establish which room he was staying in. He was later killed in his room. BACK 7 of 7 NEXT

The Great Eastern Garbage Patch...[ 650 ]

TOXIC: Garbage Island

by Thomas Morton, Online Editor, Vice Magazine

February 17, 2010 4:16 p.m. EST

'Chemical soup' churns in ocean

Editor's Note: The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE, an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn, New York. VBS.TV is Vice's broadband television network. The reports, which are produced solely by VICE, reflect a very transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers.

Brooklyn, New York (VBS.TV) -- Back in the mid-zeroes, I remember reading a lot of stories about a buildup of trash in the Pacific Ocean so massive that it had formed a floating island of waste the size of Texas. Its colorful nickname was the Great Eastern Garbage Patch, and what was even more mind-boggling than the purported scale was that pretty much the only places you could dig up any substantial info about it were in minor oceanographic and environmental publications. You also couldn't find a photo of it to save your life. It was like Garbage Brigadoon.

Anyhoo, the idea that one of the biggest environmental disasters of our age had been going on outside nearly everyone's awareness piqued our curiosity, so we decided to head out there (the middle of the ocean) and see it for ourselves.

The Garbage Patch is located at a natural collecting point at the center of a set of revolving currents called the North Pacific Gyre. The middle of the Gyre is more of a meteorological phenomenon than an actual place: a consistent high-pressure zone north of the Hawaiian Islands that, combined with the extremely weak currents, helps keep the ocean surface as placid as lake water.

Flotsam has been sucked into this area from the encircling currents for as long as the Pacific's existed, but up until the last century this process ended with the refuse safely biodegrading and being reabsorbed into the food chain as nutrients. With the advent of plastics, however, the Garbage Patch has transformed from a fertile feeding ground to the oceanic equivalent of a desert. And a particularly crap-strewn desert at that.

See the rest of TOXIC: Garbage Island

We chartered a trip through the middle of the mess with Capt. Charles Moore of the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita. Capt. Moore is credited with discovering the Patch in its present, trash-choked state, and at the time was one of the few people studying the extent and effect of the pollution.

Our voyage into the center of the Gyre took eight days of round-the-clock sailing on a 50-foot catamaran with a crew of six (including VBS's three-man filming team). Personal tensions mounted. Humor got strange. By the time we got to the beginning of the Patch, anticipation and cabin fever had conspired to make our expectations of "Garbage Island" unreasonably high, but what we found still managed to surpass them.

To the naked eye it looked no different from any other part of the ocean, except that every few minutes something really strange would float by. For instance, one time it was a hard hat with Korean writing on it. Another time it was a motorcycle tire. Another time it was a child's life preserver with a cartoonish shark bite taken out of the side. Once it was an enormous telephone-pole-shaped thing that could have easily wrecked our ship if we'd been on a slightly different course.

Here we were in one of the most remote stretches of water in the world -- thousands of miles from land, hadn't seen another ship in days -- and everywhere around us was civilization's detritus.

It would have been some consolation to think that the Garbage Patch was simply the result of careless sailors, but researchers estimate up to 80 percent of the trash originates on land. That not only meant that the shampoo bottle or birthday balloon we scooped up had most likely spent years traveling around the currents of the Gyre before ending up in our path, but that there were countless others in the middle of the same journey. It was a colossal bring-down.

Then we started taking some samples of the water, and that's when we realized things were even worse than we thought.

Watch what the water samples showed

Music Festival...[ 649 ]

Sasquatch! Music Festival launch party photos, video and lineup

• Click for Full story: " Seattle Post-Intelligencer "

February 16, 2010

Sasquatch! Music Festival launch party photos and video

We've got photos and some video up from last night's Sasquatch! Music Festival launch party, where the lineup was announced.

See more launch party photos here.

Here's a video of Atlas Sound playing "Criminals."

A few more videos up soon. You can also review our livestreamed videos from last night here.

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Posted by Humberto Martinez at 1:01 p.m. | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Belltown, Music

Sasquatch! Music Festival launch party photos, video and lineup

Russia-USA, "The sale of arms".. [ 648 ]

Russia commits to deliver S-300 system to Iran

15-2-2010,

The Kremlin's powerful Security Council says Moscow sees no reason to delay the sale of its S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Tehran, Press TV reported.

"There is the signed contract that we must fulfill, but supplies have not started yet. This deal is not restricted by any international sanctions, because these are merely defensive weapons," Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov told the Interfax news agency on Sunday.

"Any of our actions must facilitate global and regional stability, respect for international law and international commitments, including under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that is another matter," he added.

The possible sale of Russian air defense hardware to the Islamic Republic is a major irritant for Israel and its close ally the United States. Both have pressed Moscow not to go ahead with a deal that may help protect Iran's nuclear facilities from threats.

"Russia received and continues to receive many requests and even demands to supply or not to supply weapons. Those countries that are addressing such calls to us should better look at their own deals with Georgia," Nazarov noted.

Nazarov also said a military strike on Iran would be a big mistake and the problems linked to Iran's nuclear program should be resolved through diplomacy.

"Any military action against Iran will explode the situation, will have extremely negative consequences for the entire world, including for Russia, which is a neighbor of Iran," he warned.

Despite Iran's full cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog and the transparency of its nuclear program, the United States and its allies accuse the Islamic Republic of covertly seeking to produce nuclear weapons.

However, Iran denies the claims and insists its nuclear activities are only conducted for civilian applications of the technology and generating electricity in order to meet its soaring energy demands.

The Rink roof just fell in [ 647 ]

Pittsburgh Ice Rink Roof Collapses

Feb. 14: Emergency crews attend to the scene of the partially collapsed roof of the Rostraver Ice Garden.

ROSTRAVER, Pa.Sunday, February 14, 2010 —

The roof of a skating rink partially collapsed while the ice was being resurfaced during a youth hockey tournament Sunday, and emergency crews used cadaver dogs to search through the rubble for anyone who might have been trapped.

Everyone who got out of the Rostraver Ice Garden was OK, but emergency officials didn't know how many people had been in the building and were searching the site, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The director of operations for Rostraver West Newton Emergency Services said a 100-by-200-foot section of the roof fell Sunday afternoon.

"There are some people unaccounted for," Director Mike Stangroom said.

Kim Little, a line cook in the rink's restaurant, said people inside heard a crack while a worker was resurfacing the ice on a Zamboni, a small vehicle used to clean and smooth the rink's surface. Minutes later, she said, the roof collapsed.

"The whole roof just fell in, and you could see the sky," Little said.

She said a birthday party was taking place in the building, which also has banquet and meeting rooms.