The Pentagon has notified Congress of a proposed sale to Israel of 100 guided bunker-busting bombs, a move that analysts say could prompt concerns about a unilateral Israel strike against Iran.

Israel requested the sale of the Lockheed Martin Corp GBU-28s, worth as much as $30 million, the Pentagon's Defence Security Cooperation Agency said in a notice required by law for government-to-government military sales.

The GBU-28 was developed for penetrating hardened command centres located deep underground and would be used by the Israeli Air Force on their US-built F-15 aircraft, the agency said.

Israel -- believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear armed state -- has denied speculation that it might make a military strike on Iran to prevent it from producing an atomic bomb.

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A woman called Jill St. Claire monitors and translates posts from suspected terrorist Web sites. The latest rumour from some of these is that Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Make up your own mind.

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People on the Portland waterfront are wondering about a mysterious vessel in the harbor. The Sage, an offshore supply ship about 180 feet long, is carrying two large domes on its aft deck. The domes typically cover parabolic antennae that are used to track satellites. The rumor on the waterfront is that they will track the space shuttle Discovery, scheduled to be launched next month.

But the ship's captain won't talk. He has ordered that nobody be allowed near the ship, which is tied up in a secure area at the end of Pier 1 at the Portland Ocean Terminal. The Sage has been tied up there for three weeks, at a cost of nearly $300 a day.

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A huge asteroid which is on a course to miss the Earth by a whisker in 2029 could go round its orbit again and score a direct hit a few years later.

Astronomers have calculated that the 1,000ft-wide asteroid called 2004 MN4 will pass by the Earth at a distance of between 15,000 and 25,000 miles -- about a tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon and close enough to be seen with the naked eye.

Although they are sure that it will miss us, they are worried about the disturbance that such a close pass will give to the asteroid's orbit. It might put 2004 MN4 on course for a collision in 2034 or a year or two later: the unpredictability of its behaviour means that the danger might not become apparent until it is too late.

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The National Guard is preparing for domestic terrorism, not just attacks from foreigners. Special teams from the Northwest are training this week at a facility in the Tri-cities.

The scenario: a standoff between authorities and a religious cult. Officials suspect the group has stockpiles of dangerous chemicals or radioactive material.

Emergency trainer Matt Fox is teaching National Guard Teams from Washington, Idaho and Alaska what to do.

Matt Fox: "Anytime you're dealing with ne'er-do-wells you make entry into established compounds there have been booby traps found, from something as simple as fish hooks to something as extravagant as explosives."

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Comment: Whoops, isn't it a shame that we're going to have to accept men in black ski masks sticking needles in our arms at gunpoint now that this "mistake" was made?

A "mistake" they've been preparing for for years by stockpiling vaccines and hyping all over the media that there will be a flu pandemic and that it's inevitable.

This is a slow process of conditioning the public to accept mandatory vaccinations and restrictions on mobility under a rule of martial law.

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The Bush administration is developing a plan to give the government access to possibly hundreds of millions of international banking records in an effort to trace and deter terrorist financing, even as many bankers say they already feel besieged by government antiterrorism rules that they consider overly burdensome.

The initiative, as conceived by a working group within the Treasury Department, would vastly expand the government's database of financial transactions by gaining access to logs of international wire transfers into and out of American banks. Such overseas transactions were used by the Sept. 11 hijackers to wire more than $130,000, officials said, and are still believed to be vulnerable to terrorist financiers.

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Months before the end of World War II, an American intelligence agency launched a top-secret project aimed at devising ways to trigger massive earthquakes and tsunamis that would wreak havoc among enemy civilian populations, recently uncovered documents reveal.

According to a detailed report, project planners from the Office of Strategic Services, the nation's first intelligence agency and precursor to the CIA, concluded that the United States could use its "new atomic bomb" to trigger massive earthquakes and tsunamis, thus creating "massive destruction, death and unchecked hysteria."

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MI5’s new computer system is over budget and will not deliver the promised level of capability, MPs warned today.

The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee –- which oversees the work of the intelligence agencies -– expressed concern that MI5 lacked the expertise to manage such a large and complex project.

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So, nine weeks after the Iraqi people defied the odds and chose a government, and today as the new government has chosen a president, we are pleased to remind our readers that in 1997 Dr. Chalabi came to JINSA and called for a "broad-based popular movement committed to representative government and to the protection of the human rights of all Iraqis (as offering) moral and practical power," adding, "despite the ethnic and religious complexity of Iraqi society, parties representing all facets are united in this democratic goal."

We hoped so at and wrote the time, "It is in America's best interest to support indigenous opposition movements and their... supporters seeking changes in the governing regimes in Baghdad and Tehran."

Iraq down; Iran left to go.

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