ANCHORAGE, Alaska: Russian warplane exercises around Alaska have become routine in the past few months, U.S. military officials said Monday, as the former Cold War superpower steps up flights from its Arctic bases.
Over the summer, Russian bombers have staged at least seven exercises in a buffer zone outside U.S. air space, each time alerting the U.S. through reports by Russian news agencies, said Maj. Allen Herritage, a spokesman for the Alaska region of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
U.S. and Canadian fighter jets, including F-15s, were dispatched each time to escort the Russian planes in the exercises, which ranged from two to six aircraft, Herritage said.
The latest exercise came Sept. 19 and involved two planes flying somewhere off the coast of Canada, Herritage said. They were met by Canadian planes from NORAD, which is jointly operated by the U.S. and Canadian militaries.
At least five exercises by the Russian Tu-95 Bear heavy bombers have taken place off Alaska's Aleutian Islands and other historic Cold War outposts, such as Cape Lisburne and St. Lawrence Island, according to NORAD records. All occurred beyond the 12-mile boundary that constitutes U.S. airspace.
"They used to have them from time to time, ...   more »

By Wayne Madsen
Sept. 24, 2007
Author's website: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com
WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52 transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.
Yesterday, the Washington Post attempted to explain away the fact that America's nuclear command and control system broke down in an unprecedented manner by reporting that it was the result of "security failures at multiple levels." It is now apparent that the command and control breakdown, reported as a BENT SPEAR incident to the Secretary of Defense and White House, was not the result of a command and control chain-of-command "failures" but the result of a revolt and push back by various echelons within the Air Force and intelligence agencies against a planned U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional
weapons.
The Washington Post story on BENT SPEAR may have ...   more »

JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST  Oct. 1, 2007
Iran threatened Monday to attack some 170 American targets in the Middle East and around the world if it is attacked by Israel or the US, Israel Radio reported.
A high-ranking officer from the country's Revolutionary Guards told the force's official journal, The Guards, that Teheran succeeded, after extended and comprehensive work, to identify hundreds of strategic American targets in the Middle East and around the world.
The Revolutionary Guards' Ground Forces Command is able to easily kill American nationals staying in the Middle East. "Several years ago they [Americans] were far away from us by thousands of kilometers. Now they are so close we can touch them," the Iranian general said.
On Sunday former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Tory delegates in Britain that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.
Original Source

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Critic: 'This really accomplishes nothing. It's like putting earrings on a pig'
By Michael Howe 
Federal officials, bowing to safety concerns over Mexican trucks on U.S. highways, announced last week trucks participating in the ongoing cross-border demonstration project will be required to submit to monitoring by a satellite-based vehicle tracking system – a move one critic dismissed as an "ornament" that "fails to address the real issues of driver safety."
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a statement Thursday saying the tracking plan jointly developed by FMCSA and Mexico's Secretaria de Communicaciones y Transportes applies to both U.S. and Mexican trucks in the program.
"This will give us the ability to monitor every vehicle from Mexico and ensure all companies are following our strict safety requirements, including those governing hours of service and sabotage," said John Hill, FMCSA administrator.
Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, isn't buying FMCSA's claims of enhanced safety.
"This really accomplishes nothing. It's like putting earrings on a pig," he told WND.
"The FMCSA just proceeds with the program, placing more and more ornaments on it, but fails to address the real issues of driver safety."
Spencer pointed to ...   more »

By Jerome R. Corsi
Oklahoma state Sen. Randy Brogdon
"The NAFTA Superhighway stops here, at the border with Oklahoma," Randy Brogdon, a Republican state senator who has championed the fight to keep the Trans-Texas Corridor out of Oklahoma, told a packed 300-person audience at the first public meeting of OK-SAFE in Tulsa on Saturday.
Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free Enterprise, Inc. is a non-profit, Oklahoma corporation set up to oppose a NAFTA Superhighway and North American Union as threats to the sovereignty of the U.S.
Brogdon objected to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, arguing President Bush had entered the agreement after secret discussions with Mexico's then-president Vicente Fox and Canada's then-prime minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005.
"President Bush has proven that he is more than willing to over-step his executive authority when it came to trade policy," Brogdon told the group.
"Ariticle 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says, 'Congress shall have the Power to Regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,' not the president," Brogdon pointed out. "Yet President Bush has entered into an agreement with Mexico and Canada called SPP that seeks to eliminate our trade and ...   more »

by Rabbi Elozor Barclay and Rabbi Yitzchok Jaeger
Guidelines for circling the bima with the four species, and the special willow-beating on Hoshana Rabba.
1. What are hoshanos?
When the Temple stood, huge willow branches were brought and leaned against the altar during Sukkot. The shofar was blown and the kohanim would walk around the altar and recite the prayer 'hosha na' - "Please bring salvation." Then the people would come in and wave the aravot (willows).
On the seventh day of Sukkot (the last day of chol hamoed), these branches were brought even if it was Shabbat, and the altar was encircled seven times. To remember this mitzvah in the synagogue, we walk around the bima once each day and seven times on the seventh day of Sukkot (Hoshana Rabba).
2. What is the procedure for hoshanos?
The ark is opened and one of the congregants removes a Torah scroll and holds it at the bima. The introductory four verses are recited, and anyone who has a set of species holds them while standing still. While reciting the following paragraph the congregation circles the bima counter-clockwise once, holding the species in two hands.
On Hashana Rabba, all the Torah ...   more »

ARI SYRQUIN
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods, particularly mediation and arbitration, have proven to be essential tools in the prevention and settlement of dispute without the formalities, delay, expense and vexation of ordinary litigation. In the next two weeks, two conferences regarding the matter will take place. The first, in Rome (this weekend) by MEDA ADR, a European Union-sponsored program. The second will take place here, in Jerusalem, by the World Mediation Forum. I have the privilege of being involved in both.
MEDA ADR (Rome)
In 2005, the European Commission sponsored a three-year project dedicated to facilitating foreign investment and international trade across the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean through the promotion of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the 10 MEDA countries (Israel, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and West Bank & Gaza). As the concluding event of this project, a final conference will convene in Rome, Italy, this weekend (September 28 and 29). Representatives from the 27 EU member states will participate alongside representatives from the 10 MEDA countries. Israel will be represented by District Judge (Tel Aviv) Michal Rubinstein and Tel Aviv lawyer Shai Porat.
The project was designed particularly to assist small- ...   more »

By Avi Issacharoff,
The Palestinian Authority will publicly call for the involvement of an international body to oversee the implementation of agreements with Israel on economic and political reforms in the PA, according to a senior Palestinian source.
The PA is expected to ask for such involvement during the peace summit scheduled to take place in the United States in November. According to the same source, who is involved in the negotiations with Israel and asked for anonymity, Israel is expected to accept the participation of a "third party" in the region.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Army Radio on Monday that Israel does not oppose Syrian participation in the peace summit.
"The coming weeks, during which [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud] Abbas will conduct a dialogue, will dictate the nature of the conference. It is a mistake to agree on a list of things ahead of time," Livni said in an interview.
The foreign minister added that the diplomatic meetings and the upcoming summit will not bring an immediate solution to the situation in Gaza. "We will not close our eyes to what is happening in Gaza only because there is dialogue on the other ...   more »