The government is aware that society is fragmenting into tribes - but if they are talking about creating common values for different faith groups, what are they? Munira Mirza, multiculturalism researcher

The government plans to have more faiths schools but critics say they increase segregation between people of different beliefs. Ms Kelly said Church of England Schools were among the most "diverse" in the country.

And she said Muslim parents should not be denied the same opportunities offered to Christians and Jews in sending their children to faith schools. But she did suggest faith schools could be encouraged to play sports matches against each other, or twin themselves with schools of a different faith.

Communities divided

The launch of the commission, which was originally mooted last July, comes amid growing fears of alienation, especially among young Muslims. The Commission on Integration and Cohesion starts work in September and will tour the UK before reporting next June.

It will look at how towns, cities and communities tackle challenges such as segregation and social or economic divisions between different ethnic groups. The commission is designed to carry on some of the research that followed riots in northern towns in 2001. Following that violence, experts warned the government some communities were leading "parallel lives" with little or no contact with each other.

Hoekstra made the announcement on Fox & Friends. The report, entitled "Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat," is intended to provide "clarity" about the nature of a regime that has deceived the world on its nuclear ambitions for a long time, Hoekstra said. Not only is Iran developing nuclear weapons, it is supporting terrorist groups such as Hizballah and Hamas, and it is opposing U.S. efforts in Iraq.

"Leadership starts by defining reality for the people at home," Hoekstra said. He spoke one day after Iran "responded" to the international community's demand that Iran stop enriching uranium. Iran reportedly promised to enter into serious negotiations about its nuclear program, but it made no promises to stop enriching uranium. Hoekstra said "strong verification" methods are an essential part of any final agreement with Iran, since it can't be trusted to live up to its promises.

The Bush administration is "studying" Iran's response to a carrot-and-stick proposal and may have something to say about it on Wednesday.

The U.S. National Weather Service's outlook through October saw persistent drought from eastern Montana to Minnesota and on down through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas -- the main spring-wheat and winter-wheat growing areas of the United States as well as its main cattle and beef production region.

"Relief for water supplies will likely need to wait until next winter's snow season, at the earliest, since snow melt is the major source for water in the West," the National Weather Service's Drought Outlook said last month.

IRRIGATION

The region under the greatest stress is the Great Plains, an area from North Dakota to Texas dubbed the Great American Desert by early explorers but turned into a garden spot in the last century thanks to a single innovation: irrigation.

But farmers from Nebraska through northern Texas are now growing more water-thirsty crops, like corn, that offer them better cash returns due to changing trends such as the boom in ethanol and biodiesel fuels.

That is only accelerating the depletion of ground water faster than it can be replenished by rain. In some cases, farm land is already being idled to conserve water.

"My sense in looking at these issues for 20 years, we're going to need at least a doubling of water productivity in agriculture if we're going to have an opportunity to meet food demand in a way that is somewhat environmentally sustainable," said Sandra Postel with the Global Water Policy Project, a group in Amherst, Massachusetts that analyzes water policies.

NOT JUST A PROBLEM FOR U.S. FOOD PRODUCTION

Experts say water scarcity will be a growing dilemma for world farmers. Most projections put world population at about 8 billion people by 2025, or another 2 billion mouths to feed.

But those people and their industries will also need more water. A 2002 study by the International Food Policy Research Institute estimated that farmers' use of irrigation water worldwide will rise only 4 percent from 1995 to 2025, partially because the water won't be available.

Meanwhile, non-irrigation water use could rise 62 percent.

"In the face of water scarcity, farmers will find themselves unable to raise crop yields as quickly as in the past, and by 2025 their irrigated cereal production will be 300 million metric tons less than it would have been with adequate water -- a difference nearly as large as the U.S. cereal crop in 2000," the study said.

But U.S. water problems have the greatest implications for world food supplies. The United States for decades has been the planet's "food reserve," the top exporter of wheat, corn and soybeans and the largest single provider of food aid to other nations.

What S&P sees at the $100-a-barrel level isn't pretty: Northwest and Delta airlines could be forced to liquidate; others could be pushed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection. Discount giant Southwest would likely see its remarkable profit streak halted. Industrywide, carriers would ground aircraft, cut service and lay off workers. Travelers could count on fewer choices, more travel hassles and higher fares.

Though oil prices have fallen since hitting a record $78.40 on July 14, they remain at historically high levels. The price of jet fuel, which has averaged about $2.20 a gallon in the past month, is almost 21/2 times the 90 cents that airlines paid in 2000. If oil goes to $100 a barrel, airlines could expect to pay $3 for a gallon of jet fuel.

In the past, global oil production capacity accommodated demand with plenty to spare. But today, with production running almost flat out, the world consumes 98% of the nearly 85 million barrels of crude produced each day. If rebels blow a hole in a Nigerian pipeline, Iran stops shipping oil to make a political point, or a hurricane knocks out U.S. refineries, the lost production can't be replaced quickly or easily.

A major blow

Any way you look at it, U.S. airlines would be overwhelmed by fuel prices approaching $3 a gallon, the jet fuel price that $100 oil would bring.

According to the ATA, a 33% jump in crude prices, from $75 a barrel to $100, would increase the industry's fuel bill by $32.5 million a day. If $100 oil were to persist for a month, it would cost the airlines an extra $975 million. Over a year, the damage would total $11.7 billion. That's a staggering sum to an industry that collectively lost $42 billion in the five years ended in 2005, and assumes carriers would continue operating current schedules.

A post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Freeman had died from septicaemia after becoming infected with the bacteria that causes pasteurellosis, which is known as rabbit flu. Health Protection Agency spokesman said the bacteria was known to be common among many domestic animals, including cats and dogs, but he was not aware of any other fatal rabbit-to-human transmission.

He said there were only a handful of cases of humans being infected with P. multocida each year, usually from dogs and cats, and deaths were very rare. Mrs Freeman, who farms with her husband Peter, said she was shocked that there was so little information about the disease among the farming community.

She now wants to make people aware that handling dead rabbits can be potentially fatal. "Once it is in the bloodstream, that's it," she said. "If you get it unwittingly, not from an animal bite, the first thing you know about it is when you get a fever and by then you are the walking dead. "Doctors did everything they could but it was too late, it is such a virulent disease.

"Everyone is so appalled that he should die in this way. It's absolutely shocking, he was such a strong, strapping, healthy country man." Mrs Freeman said she believed the bacteria passed into her only son's blood via a blister on his thumb. Doctors initially thought he had chickenpox because he developed a rash on his body.

Solar activity is near the low point in the cycle now. Few sunspots appear and solar flares are rare. But on July 31, a tiny sunspot appeared and then vanished after a few hours. It was a normal event, except that it was magnetically backward.

"We've been waiting for this," said David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."

The Great Storm: Solar Tempest of 1859 Revealed. Space.com - 27 October 2003

A pair of strong solar storms that hit Earth late last week were squalls compared to the torrent of electrons that rained down in the "perfect space storm" of 1859. And sooner or later, experts warn, the Sun will again conspire again send earthlings a truly destructive bout of space weather.

If it happens anytime soon, we won't know exactly what to expect until it's over, and by then some modern communication systems could be like beachfront houses after a hurricane.
In early September in 1859, telegraph wires suddenly shorted out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires. Colorful aurora, normally visible only in polar regions, were seen as far south as Rome and Hawaii.

The event 144 years ago was three times more powerful than the strongest space storm in modern memory, one that cut power to an entire Canadian province in 1989.
In 1859, the planet's defenses were overwhelmed. Society back then did not notice the storm the way it would today. The telegraph was 15 years old. There were no satellite TV feeds, no automated teller machines relying on orbiting relay stations, and no power grids.

People on the ground are generally safe even in the worst space weather. But technology could be in trouble when the next super storm hits.
"In 1859, the technology was quite low in comparison to today's technology," Tsurutani said. "However the technology that we rely on today is much more vulnerable."

A strong storm does its damage in part by inducing currents on power and communication lines, leading to potential overloads. Obviously, there are a lot more wires on Earth today, "so one might expect much worse problems if it occurred today."

The charged particles can also zap satellites, as has occurred with handful of storms in recent years -- events with far fewer charged particles than in 1859. A space storm also heats the upper level of Earth's atmosphere, causing it to expand. That's no good for satellites that can get caught up in air that didn't used to be there.

A doctor on staff suspects it may have killed other hospital workers who sought TB treatment at private clinics after becoming infected.

"It does mean that these people are virtually untreatable," said Dr. Tony Moll, the AIDS treatment director at the Church of Scotland Hospital in Tugela Ferry, South Africa.

Moll spoke to ABC News by phone.

"That's why we had the high death rate. There was nothing we could do in terms of offering medication."

The discovery was made when Moll and several other researchers collected sputum, or lung secretions, from 1,540 patients who had visited the hospital between January 2005 and March 2006. Thirty-five percent of them, or 536 patients, had tuberculosis.

Of those, 221 had multi-antibiotic resistant TB, and of that group, 53 had the extremely drug-resistant form of TB.

The findings were presented Thursday at the 16th annual International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

Most of the group with extremely drug resistant TB also had HIV.

The two infections often strike a person at the same time, because tuberculosis is often an opportunistic infection or lies dormant until a person's immune system is weakened.

Tuberculosis is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and is spread through the air.

It is one of the many types of bacteria that have developed resistance to antibiotic treatment.

Giving HIV drugs, known as antiretroviral therapy, helped patients deal with the co-infection.

Moll noticed, however, that there always seemed to be patients who, in spite of receiving the treatment and other medical care, still died from TB. This led to the sputum research.

The emergence of a potent TB strain is a major setback for HIV treatment and an additional cause for concern about the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections around the world.

Mr Reid said the European Union needed to develop its counter-terror policies in response to the evolving threat. He said the talks had discussed practical measures in four areas:

Tackling liquid explosives
Co-ordination of transport security
Exchange of intelligence
The nature of European Islam

The world was faced by a form of "intolerant and violent totalitarianism", he added, which was subverting a religion, Islam, whose very name stood for peace. Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said he would be presenting concrete proposals on detection of liquid explosives to a forthcoming meeting of all EU interior ministers in Finland. He also called for a crackdown on internet sites used to incite terrorism.

Veto move

The 7 July bombings in London last year pushed counter-terrorism up the EU agenda, and helped former Home Secretary Charles Clarke clinch a deal to force companies to retain telephone and e-mail data for use in investigations. We came to the conclusion that a united Europe will win the battle with the terrorists
Finnish Interior Minister Kari Rajamaeki

The European Commission is currently trying to persuade governments to give up their veto powers in the area of criminal justice, arguing that it will help the anti-terrorism effort.
The London meeting was attended by Finnish Interior Minister Kari Rajamaki, whose country holds the EU presidency, and ministers from France, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia, which hold the presidency in 2007 and 2008.

"That is important because the threat is an enduring threat and will require therefore an enduring response," Mr Reid said.

Europe was up against people who were abusing its open society and its freedoms and adapting the latest technology to their "evil intent", he said.

Mr Rajamaeki said the UK had the "solidarity and support" of the whole European Union. He added: "We came to the conclusion that a united Europe will win the battle with the terrorists."

A meeting of European aviation security and counter-terrorism experts which was due to have been held later in the week has been postponed. The UK security threat level was raised to "critical" last week amid fears of the plot. On Monday it was downgraded to "severe", meaning an attack is now considered highly likely but not imminent.

Here are Britain's main proposals for new Europe-wide measures:
Counter the newly identified threat from liquid explosives. Britain has set an example by barring passengers from taking liquids including drinks and cosmetics into plane cabins. Others have not yet followed suit.
Step up security at European airports, as well as rail networks and other public transport systems. The strict rules at British airports have caused massive disruption, but Dr Reid says terrorists must not be able to get round them by going instead to airports in Germany or France.

Swap intelligence better among EU security agencies. On the UK's initiative, EU intelligence chiefs will meet later this month to follow up the British investigation into the alleged plot uncovered last week.
Muslim alienation. The European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Franco Frattini, promised quick action. Within days, he promised to present detailed plans, including:

New measures to detect and protect travellers against liquid and other explosives, at airports and other key points.
More exchanges of passenger lists and other information among EU states.
New EU-wide schemes to counter the recruitment of Muslim youths into extremist groups. Imams may be trained in a peaceful "European" brand of Islam; schoolteachers from across Europe will be asked to work together to reverse the alienation now apparent among many Muslim youths.

All 25 EU Interior ministers may decide to implement parts of this package of steps when they meet in Finland on 20 September. It looks like a formidable array of anti-terrorist defences.

Other far-reaching EU policies are also under consideration to cut illegal immigration, speed up deportations of terrorist suspects and make wide use of biometric systems for identity checks. But the tally of past EU efforts to build strong anti-terrorist defences suggests that this time, too, results may be slower to arrive than politicians' resounding words suggest:

The European Arrest Warrant system, a key part of Europe's counter-terrorism strategy,has speeded up extraditions within Europe; but it took much longer to bring into force than at first planned.
The European Evidence Warrant, aimed at further breaking down national barriers to crime and terrorism investigations, is not due to take effect until next year.

The EU's special Counter-terrorism Coordinator, Gijs De Vries, cautioned after the London meeting against exaggerating the prospects for finding cure-all defences against would-be terrorists. The EU, he said, must not compromise its values of individual liberty, which set it apart from the values of the terrorist; it must also take care not to imply that Islam contains inherent dangers.
'Common and real threat' Anyway, Gijs De Vries says, the EU has limited powers of action. National governments are still responsible for the main decisions about protecting their own citizens.

Even so, this meeting showed European states - including the "Big Three" of Britain, France and Germany, in unusual accord in the face of a "common and very real" threat.
And the EU's much-derided systen of six-monthly rotating presidencies is being put to a useful purpose: the ministers represented all the EU countries that will chair EU business from now until the end of 2008 - including the current holder Finland, as well as Portugal and Slovenia.

Europe is planning for a long campaign of self-defence against those who threaten its populations with death and destruction.

The government is appealing to Muslim figures to work harder to prevent extremist views from taking root in their communities, particularly among young people.

Shari'a is controversial because it provides for punishments including limb amputation for theft and death for apostasy. The legal code is applied in varying degrees in countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Shari'a in family affairs deals with issues such as dowry, inheritance and sharing of assets. In some traditions it also allows men to beat wives who refuse to obey them and won't submit to non-physical admonition, and to end a marriage by declaring "I divorce you" three times.

Pasha said Muslim leaders were ready to cooperate with the government, but wanted a partnership."They should understand our problems then we will understand their problems."

Other Muslim leaders, however, disagreed. Khalid Mahmood, one of four Muslim lawmakers in the House of Commons, said shari'a could not apply in Britain because it was not an Islamic state.

Take Jessica Knowles of San Antonio whose entire family ? even her dogs ? have been battling on-again, off-again staph infections for several years.

"I've had it probably four to five times now. It's embarrassing, very embarrassing especially when it starts getting on my face," Knowles said. "It starts out feeling like you got bit by something, and you see a red spot like a pimple. It oozes. It doesn't stop."

Or Brandon Kafka of Seattle, who has battled several severe skin infections, including one that broke out across his face after he'd shaved. "[It] hurt worse than anything I have ever felt," he said.

Their infections were caused by a bacterium called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Once confined mostly to hospitals and prisons, MRSA has branched out into the general population. It often infects people without warning, and is commonly mistaken as a spider bite.
A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows just how widespread the bug has become. Researchers took hundreds of skin samples from patients who'd visited 11 emergency rooms in the United States with skin or tissue infections. Laboratory analysis showed that 59 percent of the time the culprit was MRSA, meaning the bug has reached broadly into the general community and that's bad news in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

"This underscores the need to avoid overuse of antibiotics in general so as to avoid the development of antibiotic resistance," said Dr. Greg Anderson, at the Mayo Clinic.

The new findings come of no surprise to people who have dealt with a staph infection. It is often a frustrating and ongoing ordeal: Since staph is a notoriously adept and common bacteria, the infection doesn't go away easily. It lives naturally in most people's noses, and for unknown reasons, it can suddenly turn against its host and start infecting the skin.

Once it takes hold, it is easily transmitted among family members, co-workers or schoolmates. And because doctors often unwittingly prescribe an ineffective antibiotic which occurred 57 percent of the time in the study it often lingers.

A 'Major Problem' for Kids

"MRSA has blossomed over the last few years," said Dr. John J. Messmer, an associate professor of family and community medicine at Penn State College of Medicine. "As the study discussed, staph organisms transfer the genetic ability to resist antibiotics to one another." While the infection can hit anyone, it is a "major problem" among kids, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

"About six years ago, Vanderbilt investigators cultured the noses of many healthy Nashville children ? only 1 percent carried MRSA," Schaffner said. "When the study was repeated in 2004, 9 percent were carriers. You can see that the problem has exploded."
Solid numbers on MRSA are hard to come by. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't require that doctors report community-acquired MRSA infections the way they're required to with most communicable diseases.
This infuriates Joy Smith of Stevenson, Ala., whose grandson has MRSA in both of his ears, which came from having tubes placed in his ears. "This is something that the public needs to be more aware of, and the medical community needs to take a more proactive approach," she said.

By - Pierre Rehov, documentary filmmaker On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the London attacks.
One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas.
Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film.
Q - What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film?
A - I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up
Q - Why is this film especially important?
A - People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem, showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has become their only certitude.
Q - What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know?
A - I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behaviour.
In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behaviour is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on Earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution.
Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings?
A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfil what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy.
Q - You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power?
A - Not death as an end, but death as a door opener to the after life. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They therefore experience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword.
Q - Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology.
A - Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see good and evil the same way that we do. If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the afterlife in Paradise.
Q - Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction?
A - Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do.
Q - Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way?
A - All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the
fulfilment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists.
Q - Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers.
A - Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honour, which is mainly connected to their women's behaviour.
Q - What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings?
A - Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations through different networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel).
Q - Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision?
A - There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide.
Q - Why are so many suicide bombers young men?
A - As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheed are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam. Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman?
Q - What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation?
A - The U.N. is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communist countries. Their hands are tied. The U.N. has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the U.N. leaves a door open by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the U.N. is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the U.N. has maintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to "return" into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to settle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions. Four hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S. taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film "Hostages of Hatred").
Q - You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean.
A - Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind. In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it.
Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general?
A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Nazism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people.
Q - Are these men travelling outside their native areas in large numbers? Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East?
A - Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S. Sadly, this is only the beginning.

Amidst the heightened security measures imposed at UK airports last week restrictions were placed on what passengers could carry on to flights. Items such as liquids and electronic devices were not allowed in hand luggage because the authorities claimed they could be used to blow up planes.

One item that was allowed was passengers' passports, including the new ePassports that contain an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip. Interestingly however security analysts Flexilis have demonstrated that such passports can be used to detonate explosives. In their findings the group said: "it may be possible to determine the nationality of a passport holder by 'fingerprinting' the characteristics inherent in each country's RFID chips.

Taken to a logical extreme, this security vulnerability could make it possible for terrorists to craft explosives that detonate only when someone from the U.S. is nearby". The group have released a video that demonstrates their findings.

Weather, not pollution, appears to be the culprit, scientists said, and no relief is in sight. However, some said there is no immediate sign of long-term damage to the crab fishery in the dead zone, a 70-mile stretch of water along the Continental Shelf between Florence and Lincoln City.

Oregon State University scientists looking for weather changes that could reverse the situation aren't finding them. They say levels of dissolved oxygen critical to marine life are the lowest since the first dead zone was identified in 2002. It has returned every year.

Strong upwelling winds pushed a low-oxygen pool of deep water toward shore, suffocating marine life, said Jane Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology at OSU.

She said wind changes could help push that water farther out, but current forecasts predict the opposite.

After a recent trip to the dead zone and an inspection via camera on a remote-controlled submarine, she said, "We saw a crab graveyard and no fish the entire day.

"Thousands and thousands of dead crab and molts were littering the ocean floor. Many sea stars were dead, and the fish have either left the area or have died and been washed away."

The effect on the commercial fishery isn't yet known, said Hal Weeks, a marine ecologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He said the last two years were record-breaking for the Dungeness crab despite dead zones.

"In that fishery, there has been no apparent effect," he said. "That doesn't mean there won't be."

Weeks said crab populations fluctuate wildly for reasons not well understood. Whether any harvest decline is a result of normal fluctuation or the effects of the dead zone is hard to say, he said.

He said some reports indicate the loss of fin fish may be due to their movement to areas with more oxygen rather than to mortality.

Al Pazar, chairman of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission and a crab fisherman, said this season is shaping up to be the second-best ever, around 28 million pounds, but that most crabs are caught in the six or eight weeks following the season's winter opening, well ahead of the appearance of the dead zones.

Few boats are fishing now, he said, and the season closes at midnight Monday. But he said the affected area is a major crab producer, "right in the thick of it."

The 2002 dead zone was the worst until this year's, he said. After 2002, he returned to the area when the season reopened and had good results.

"They do move back in," he said.

Oregon State scientists working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife used a remote-control device Aug. 8 to check biological impact and continue oxygen sampling.

Dissolved oxygen readings off of Cape Perpetua north of Florence are between 3 percent and 10 percent of levels needed for survival and near zero in some areas.

A reef near Yachats normally swarms with rockfish, but they are gone. Dead Dungeness crab, sea stars and other marine life carpet the ocean floor.

Similar but lesser zones have been found elsewhere along the Oregon and Washington coasts. Scientists say they don't yet know how widespread it is.

Some dead zones been caused by agricultural runoff. Those similar to Oregon's have been found off Africa in the Atlantic and Peru in the Pacific.