Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday. The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. ‘Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back,’ Barbero said. The general said it was the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics in response to the tighter controls around the city. A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite. After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified. ‘And the two adults were seen to get out of […]
Jobs gone and schools closed. Marriages delayed and children mourned. Markets bombed and clean water in short supply. Speaking freely now a dangerous act. And hope lost. Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqis describe daily lives that have been torn apart by spiraling violence and a faltering economy. The bursts of optimism reported in a 2004 public-opinion survey taken a year after the invasion and another in 2005 before landmark legislative elections have nearly vanished. Face-to-face interviews with 2,212 Iraqis - a survey sponsored jointly by USA TODAY, ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp. and ARD, a German TV network - find a nation that in large measure has fragmented into fear. Six in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going badly. Only one-third expect things to improve in the next year. That represents a dramatic deterioration in just 16 months, a reflection of how the security situation and quality of life in Iraq have unraveled. In an ABC News poll in November 2005, seven in 10 Iraqis said their lives were good and nearly as many predicted things would get better. Now, said Zaid Hisham, ‘You worry about everything.’ The 29-year-old […]
NEW ORLEANS — Disgusted with his insurance company after Hurricane Katrina, the Rev. Simmie Harvey let his homeowner policy lapse and left his house in the hands of a higher power. Somebody up there must like the 88-year-old Baptist minister: His newly uninsured house escaped serious damage last month when a tornado ripped through the city’s Uptown neighborhood and toppled a tree that narrowly missed his home. ‘I wasn’t lucky. I’m blessed,’ he said. ‘I’m going to be all right. The Lord takes care of me.’ Facing soaring premiums or feeling shortchanged by their insurers, a growing number of homeowners and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi are ‘going bare,’ or dropping their coverage altogether, insurance agents and consumer advocates say. Many more are drastically reducing their coverage. ‘I have every belief that it’s going to be more and more common,’ said Amy Bach, executive director of the United Policyholders advocacy group. ‘If it’s a choice between eating or paying their insurance bills, of course they’re going to eat.’ With the new hurricane season beginning June 1, it is a risky strategy. These people could lose everything in a storm or some kind of tragic accident […]
In May 2006, at the time of the theatrical release of An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary of former Vice President Al Gore’s presentation about global warming, The New York Times published an article by Andrew C. Revkin, in which Revkin reported that mainstream scientists, while taking issue with details in the film, embraced its premise, subscribing to Gore’s ‘main point.’ But 10 months later, shortly after An Inconvenient Truth won the Academy Award for best documentary, the Times ran an article by William J. Broad that again purported to represent the views of mainstream scientists on the accuracy of the film, while citing numerous scientists who are overt global warming skeptics or who have challenged fundamental facts leading to the conclusion that global warming is real and largely caused by humankind. On May 22, 2006, Revkin wrote: In interviews and e-mail exchanges, many climate specialists who have seen the film quibbled about details but tended to agree with Eric Steig, a University of Washington geochemist who posted his reactions at the Web log realclimate.org after a recent Seattle screening: ”The small errors don’t detract from Gore’s main point, which is that we in the […]
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The United States generates more malicious computer activity than any other country, and sophisticated hackers worldwide are banding together in highly efficient crime rings, according to a new report. Researchers at Cupertino-based Symantec Corp. also found that fierce competition in the criminal underworld is driving down prices for stolen financial information. Criminals may purchase verified credit card numbers for as little as $1, and they can buy a complete identity – a date of birth and U.S. bank account, credit card and government-issued identification numbers – for $14, according to Symantec’s twice-yearly Internet Security Threat Report released Monday. Researchers at the security software company found that about a third of all computer attacks worldwide in the second half of 2006 originated from machines in the United States. That makes the United States the most fertile breeding ground for threats such as spam, phishing and malicious code – easily surpassing runners-up China, which generates 10 percent of attacks, and Germany, which generates 7 percent. The United States also leads in ‘bot network activity.’ Bots are compromised computers controlled remotely and operating in concert to pump out spam or perform other nefarious acts. […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
