From: MARSHUS (11.04.05 8:35:25)

Median: Největší obavou Čechů je terorismus

http://www.ihned.cz/1-10112050-15948060-000000_d-fd
Podle průzkumu agentury Median, který si nechala vypracovat MfDnes, je pro Čechy největší hrozbou terorismus. Obavy mají lidé rovněž ze zákeřných epidemií, ekologických katastrof, chemického či biologického útoku a islámského světa. Na seznam největších hrozeb dále řadí migrační vlny, rozpad Evropské unie, Německo, Rusko a Čínu.

Většina Čechů se domnívá, že republiku ochrání před hrozbami zvenčí lépe Evropská unie než Spojené státy. Za nejspolehlivějšího ochránce ji považuje 68 procent dotázaných, zatímco o USA si to myslí 24 procent. 80 procent lidí vidí strategické partnerství v unii, v USA jen 17 procent.

On 9-11, someone made a huge fortune short-selling stocks affected by the attacks, including airlines. The media proclaimed that tracing the short-sells would lead to the 9-11 perpetrators. When it actually did, the media clammed up.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/315296.shtml

http://www.reopen911.org/video/cte_26.mov

http://www.karlschwarz.com/

Massive "End the Occupation" Protest in Baghdad Dwarfs the "Saddam Toppled" rally: Photos

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5723

Now, I want you all to think about something (that includes you CIA thugs who are reading this). For years, the US tortured Iraqis to find Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Despite all that torture and death, no information leading to WMDs was forthcoming. Now, of course, the US Government admits there never were any weapons of mass destruction... which means that innocent people were tortured and killed for information they could not possibly have had.

Torturing innocent people. Wow! Right out of the Third Reich, eh?

So, now we have 9-11. And the CIA has been torturing more people looking for the Al Qaeda masterminds of the plot, and again after years and years of pain and death, no Al Qaeda masterminds have been found. IN fact, all that IS known is that nobody knows who was really on those planes. FBI Chief Robert Mueller has admitted publicly that the hijackers used "skillfully made" fake IDs using identities stolen from Arab men. We do not know who was on those planes, only who we were supposed to blame for it all. We know that the Osama who confessed to 9-11 was a fake.

So, after years of torture trying to find the Al Qaeda masterminds of 9-11, and coming up with the same exact results as the torture in search of Iraq's WMDs, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that once again innocent people are being tortured for information that they cannot have, and that "Al Qaeda" is as much a myth as Iraq's WMDs.

The only truth is that the US is a nation that tortures innocent people.

WRH

ISRAEL HARBORS PRIME 911 TERROR SUSPECT

The Israeli owner of the Mossad "front" company who fled to Israel after his "movers" were caught filming the World Trade Center attacks remains at large although the FBI, which has an office in Tel Aviv, has his name on its terror suspect list.

A leaked "FBI Suspect List" circulated among financial institutions in Italy shows that Dominik Suter, the Israeli owner of Urban Moving Systems who fled in haste to Israel after 9-11, is among those suspected of being behind the terror attacks. Despite the presence of an FBI office in Tel Aviv and the "intimate relationship" between U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies, Suter apparently remains out-of-reach and at large.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:S5pJG3V2GY4J:palestine.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/62913_comment.php%20Dominik%20Suter&hl=en

1975 WTC fire burned six floors for three hours

New York Times | Feb 14 1975

Original Scans from archived issues of The New York Times. on 9/11 the fires burned for much shorter times and were the official cause of collapse. We have also recently seen other tall steel buildings burn for hours and stay standing.

MOSSAD: The Israeli Connection to 9/11

http://www.levymultimedia.com/artman/publish/article_4171.php

Lawmaker dips into microchip fears

By TOM SHEEHAN / Tribune Capitol Bureau

MADISON — State Rep. Marlin Schneider doesn't want government getting under your skin.

The Wisconsin Rapids Democrat is introducing a bill that would prohibit anyone, including the government and employers, from requiring microchip implants in people.

Sound far-fetched, like something from a sci-fi flick? It might be. But Schneider, who's known as a privacy advocate, isn't waiting until the first case to be reported. Technology once reserved for tracking records on pets and livestock is migrating to the human race in medical, security and identity verification applications.

So far, only willing participants are known to have had the rice grain-sized devices implanted just below their skin. But Schneider said it's just a matter of time before someone takes the technology too far.

"Eventually, people will find reasons why everyone should have these chips implanted," Schneider said.

"We're living in a surveillance society, where nobody is free to do anything ... At least with Orwell, you had to talk to a TV in the wall," Schneider said.

...

http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story24.htm

Israel Goes Extremist

This time, they've gone too far

How, then, do we explain the Israeli government's recent decision to honor nine of its agents arrested and jailed in the infamous Lavon affair?

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5495

And, fifty years from now, will Israel honor the agents from the 9-11 affair?

Introducing The Constitution Restoration Act

Say Hello To Taliban America And Goodbye To Godless Judges, Courts And Law
by W. David Kubiak April 03, 2005

Tired of waiting for the Second Coming to enforce Christ's rule on Earth? Fortunately, so is your Congress and they know how to "bring it on."

Just when you thought the corporatist/Christian Coalition had milked the 9/11 "surprise" for all it was worth in powers, profits and votes, we regret to report that you may have to think again. Just in case you've briefly fallen behind on your rightwing mailing lists, you might have missed the March 3rd filing of Senate bill S. 520 and House version is H.R. 1070, AKA the "Constitution Restoration Act" (CRA).

In the worshipful words of the Conservative Caucus, this historic legislation will "RESTORE OUR CONSTITUTION!", mainly by barring ANY federal court or judge from ever again reviewing "any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an entity of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer or agent of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official or personal capacity), concerning that entity's, officer's, or agent's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." [Emphasis demanded - see full text here.]

In other words, the bill ensures that God's divine word (and our infallible leaders' interpretation thereof) will hereafter trump all our pathetic democratic notions about freedom, law and rights -- and our courts can't say a thing. This, of course, will take "In God We Trust" to an entirely new level, because soon He (and His personally anointed political elite) will be all the legal recourse we have left.

This is not a joke, a test, or a fit of libertarian paranoia. The CRA already has 28 sponsors in the House and Senate, and a March 20 call to lead sponsor Sen. Richard Shelby's office assures us that "we have the votes for passage." This is a highly credible projection as Bill Moyers observes in his 3/24/05 "Welcome to Doomsday" piece in the New York Review of Books: "The corporate, political, and religious right's hammerlock... extends to the US Congress. Nearly half of its members before the election-231 legislators in all (more since the election)-are backed by the religious right... Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the most influential Christian Right advocacy groups."

This stunning bill and the movement behind it deserve immediate crash study on at least 3 different fronts.

1. Its hostile divorce of American jurisprudence from our hard-won secular history and international norms. To again quote the Conservative Caucus: "This important bill will restrict the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court and all lower federal courts to that permitted by the U.S. Constitution, including on the subject of the acknowledgement of God (as in the Roy Moore 10 Commandments issue); and it also restricts federal courts from recognizing the laws of foreign countries and international law [e.g., against torture, global warming, unjust wars, etc. - ed.] as the supreme law of our land."

Re the last point, envision some doddering judges who still revere our Declaration of Independence's "decent respect to the opinions of mankind," and suppose they invoke in their rulings some international precepts from the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women or, God forbid, the Geneva Conventions. Well, under the CRA that would all be clearly illegal and, thank God, that's the last we'd ever hear from them.

2. The political implications of replacing "we the people" with a Christian deity as the "sovereign source" of all our laws.

Imagine hyper-zealous officers or "entities" of the Federal, State, or local government (like a governor, legislature or school board) that mandate Christian prayers, rituals and/or statuary in public buildings under their control. Were this to happen, some local Jews, Muslims and/or Buddhists might be moved to hire a lawyer and legally object. But if the CRA passes, their objection would be beyond any court's jurisdiction and that's the last we'd ever hear of that. It in fact demands "impeachment, conviction, and removal of judges" who dare to even hear a case that challenges its "Last Days" morphing of Christian church and state. (Just how our new Sovereign Source of Government's advocacy of public executions for adultery, gay-ness, contraception and blasphemy will fit into our current corrections system still remains to be seen.)

3 The incessant mainstream media blackout on the bill's existence and import.

The potential impact of the Constitution Restoration Act on American life, law and politics is so radical and vast that you would expect a boiling national debate. Yet just as with the crimes and questions of 9/11, everyone in the media seems terrifically busy looking the other way. If you want yet another dramatic metric of US journalistic dysfunction, try Googling "Constitution Restoration Act" in their News category and see what you get. Today, three weeks after the bill was filed, I find a grand total of three throwaway mentions in Alabama's Shelby County Reporter, the Decatur Daily, and the Massachusetts Daily Collegian. ("Terry Schiavo" in contrast will net you over a thousand news hits, and "Michael Jackson" just passed 36,000 with a bullet.)

If the Alabama paper interest seems a little odd or sponsor Shelby's name a bit familiar, you should recall that this old boy AL senator was high among those same wonderful folks who kicked off the 9/11 cover-up. As his Senate bio proudly relates:

"From 1995 to 2003, Senator Shelby served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In this capacity, he and the other committee members provided oversight of the intelligence community, and following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Senator Shelby served diligently to investigate the intelligence failures that led to those attacks." [Emphasis demanded again.]

Got that? First he "oversees" intelligence for six years before 9/11, then "diligently investigates" its bizarre "failures" for two years more, and finally finds--in a no-fault judgment--it was all due to "deep institutional defects" and "systemic miscommunication" that he'd apparently never noticed or heard about before. Having so brilliantly defended the country before 9/11 and the official story since, some seem to find it comforting that he's now busy defending our court-harassed Constitution with a legally bulletproofed God. Some, alas, do not -- feel comforted, that is, either by Shelby's blurry oversight or fundamentalist agenda, not to mention the Orwellian performance of our autistic corporate press.

In the meantime, however, before the CRA takes force and reduces legal education to a Bible study course, what say we undertake a little Constitutional defense of our own? To get up to speed on the current Christian right agenda, Moyers' "Welcome to Doomsday", Katherine Yurica's "The Despoiling of America" and John "The 9/11 Truth Candidate" Buchanan's "Fixing America" are excellent places to start.

None of these analyses offer a silver bullet or paint a pretty picture, but as students of 9/11 now know, spreading the courage to face the truth is really the only hope we've got.

W. David Kubiak is a Project Censored award-winning journalist and executive director of 911truth.org. He can be reached at david(at)911truth.org. (He is indebted to John Buchanan for the latest heads-up on this story and the Shelby office call.)


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=104&ItemID=7569

Ernst Zündel aneb člověk mimo zákon

Richard Král

8.4.2005

O případě Ernsta Zündela jsme na Zvědavci psali již několikrát. V současné době se nachází v cele pro změnu v Německu a stále čeká na sdělení oficiálního obvinění. Bylo sice oznámeno, že čelí obvinění z popírání tzv. holocaustu, ale se spisem se nemůže seznámit ani on, ani jeho advokát.


Scénář nápadně připomíná Zündelovo věznění v USA a v Kanadě. Tajné obvinění a neomezené věznění. V Německu je držen ve vyšetřovací vazbě a se svým advokátem nemůže ani telefonovat. Je mu umožněno jen vypovídat, což odmítl. Nemůže se ani přiznat, neboť neví, jaká jsou obvinění. Kdyby dnes přišel za státním žalobcem a řekl: "Chci se doznat, připravte to a podepíšu", zřejmě by tím své věznitele pořádně zaskočil.

Ernest Zündel je z pohledu práva zvláštní osoba. Neplatí pro něj žádné zákony, ani německé, ani úmluvy na ochranu lidských práv. Čl. 3 Evropské úmluvy o ochraně lidských práv a základních svobod stanoví, že "nikdo nesmí být mučen nebo podrobován nelidskému či ponižujícímu zacházení anebo trestu." Zündel byl po svém příletu na noc zavřen do dřevěné letištní boudy bez sociálního zařízení. Dostalo-li by se takového zacházení kterémukoli imigrantovi s průměrným právníkem, Štrasburský soud pro lidská práva neváhá ani chvilku a odsuzuje Německo k poskytnutí přiměřeného zadostiučinění.

Čl. 5. ods. 2 Úmluvy praví, že "každý, kdo je zatčen, musí být seznámen neprodleně a v jazyce jemuž rozumí, s důvody svého zatčení a s každým obviněním proti němu." Obvinění Zündela je tajné i pro jeho advokáta. Vyšetřuje se.

Podle čl. 6 odst. 1 Úmluvy má "každý má právo na to, aby jeho záležitost byla spravedlivě, veřejně a v přiměřené lhůtě projednána nezávislým a nestranným soudem". V případě Zündela čas vesele plyne. Zcela bezprecedentní je porušení čl. 6 odst. 3 Úmluvy o tom, že "každý, kdo je obviněn z trestného činu, má minimální právo být neprodleně a v jazyce, jemuž rozumí, podrobně seznámen s povahou a důvodem obvinění proti němu."

Případ Zündel se na půdě německé justice teprve vyvíjí a již nyní jsou porušována základní lidská práva uvězněného. Obrátí-li se Zündelův advokát ve finální fázi procesu (pokud k ní tedy vůbec někdy dojde) do Štrasburku, zažijí možná soudci horké chvilky. Podobné věci totiž zatím jednoznačně odsuzovali v neprospěch států. Avšak, kde je napsáno, že pro Zündela platí nějaká lidská práva? Je to přece "popírač holocaustu".

Čeho se vlastně justiční orgány tak bojí, resp. co jim brání rychle obvinit a odsoudit Zündela za popírání tzv. holocaustu? O tom lze jen spekulovat. Nicméně vzhledem k tomu, že tento případ poutá již značnou pozornost médií a letiště v Německu bylo při jeho příletu plné kamer a novinářů, stal by se případný soudní proces soudem nejen Zündela, ale i soudem tzv. holocaustu.

Mohly by vyplavat na povrch některé nepříjemné skutečnosti a být přetřásána historická fakta, která stanoví zákon. Politicky korektní občan by však z postupu německých úřadů neměl mít dobrý pocit. Tím, že s tím "odporným popíračem" neumějí zatočit a odsoudit ho, ukazují slabost a dělají z něj ještě mučedníka.

http://www.zvedavec.org/pohledy_1155.htm

Jews held over Jerusalem 'bombs'

There are fears ultra-sensitive sites could be attacked

Israeli police have arrested two Jews suspected of planting fake bombs in Jerusalem to try to disrupt plans to pull settlers out of the Gaza Strip.

The pair were caught after leaving a backpack rigged with wires, police said.

The arrests come amid heightened fears that right-wing activists will step up attempts to sabotage the withdrawal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4420875.stm

Po Janu Pavlovi II. přijdou ještě dva papeži, a pak Apokalypsa?

V roku 1094 sa v Írskom Ulsteri narodil človek menom Malachius, človek ktorému bolo súdené stať sa známym svätcom. Ešte ako chlapec veril veľmi v Boha a namiesto toho, aby sa hral s rovesníkmi strávil celý svoj voľný čas v modlitbách. Neskôr sa o čudnom chlapcovi dozvedel tamojší biskup a Malachius sa stal diakonom. Po niekoľkých rokoch ho vyhlásili za kňaza lebo si získal veľkú slávu ako kňaz, ktorý vo svojom okolí obracal ľudí k viere ,ktorý ešte vždy verili skôr bôžikom a modlám. Neskoršie sa tento blahoslavený človek stál známy v celom Írsku, ľudia ho pokladali za svätého pri jeho živote a prichádzali k nemu, aby im požehnal. Neostal nečinný ani Vatikán, sám pápež Inocent II pozval Malachiusa na audienciu a svojho hosťa si nečakane vysoko uctil, v prítomnosti kardinálov položil na Malachiusa svoju mitru a povedal: "Nech každý padne pred ním na kolená, lebo tohto človeka nám poslal sám Pán Boh!" Staré kroniky hovoria, že tento hosť strávil celé noci a dni vo Vatikánskej knižnici, kde písal akýsi záhadný rukopis. Po smrti tohto svätca rukopis putoval od jedného kostola k druhému. Až po 450 rokoch XVI. storočia bol dokument nájdený a vďaka jednému benedikténskemu kňazovi sa svet dozvedel o práci Malachiusa, ktorá sa volala "Predpovede o rímskych pápežoch". Rukopis Malachiusa predstavuje svojím spôsobom vlastne katalóg v ktorých je 112 pastierov Božích, ktorí budú sedieť v rôznom čase na Svätom stolci. Katalóg sa začína súčasníkom autora Celestínom II, ktorý bol pápežom len päť mesiacov. Potom nasleduje 111 ďalších pápežov, z ktorých každý má krátku aforistickú charakteristiku v latinskom jazyku. Malachius ich nepomenúva menami, on len upozorňuje na kvality pápežov, alebo hovorí o tom, čo prinesenie svetu ich vládnutie. Mnohé z predpovedí Malachiusa oficiálni predstavitelia Vatikánu a aj vedci uznali za pravdivé. Tak napríklad o 101 pápežovi Levovi XIII v texte proroctva sa tvrdí, ako o " svetle nebeskom " a skutočne na jeho rodnom erbe bola kométa. O 78 pápežovi Levovi XI, ktorý vládol vtedy, keď sa našiel rukopis Malachiusa sa hovorí, že sa stane " človekom vody". Lev XI. nevládol ani celý mesiac, čím potvrdil svoju charakteristiku, v Biblii voda znamená symbol krátkeho času. Pápežovi Urbanovi VIII (prvá polovica XVII. storočia) Malachius daroval devízu "lília a ruža". Odborníci túto formuláciu dávajú do súvislosti s hlavnými udalosťami vtedajšieho cirkevno-politického života. Zmierenie protestantskej Anglie (ruža) s katolíckym Francúzskom (lília) cestou svadby kráľa Karla I Stuarta a Márie Henrietty Bourbonskej. Zaujímavá je aj charakteristika pápeža Pia VII, ktorý vládol začiatkom 19. storočia, keď v Európe buntošil Napoleon. "Ukradnutý orol" - tak hovorí o tomto pápežovi pred stáročiami Malachius. Pod symbolom orla sa skrýva francúzsky imperátor, ktorý posadil pápeža do väzenia.
Až po zvrhnutí "kresťanského ancikrista" sa dostal na slobodu a mohol pokračovať vládnuť na Svätom stolci. Viac známy možno pre niektorých bude pápež Benedikt XV. Tento 104 pápež v poradí vládol v rokoch 1914 až 1922. Jeho pontifikát charakterizuje Malachius, ako "Zmiznutie kresťanov". A v časoch prvej svetovej vojny a revolúcie v Rusku skutočne zahynuli milióny veriacich. Hlavné však v tomto traktáte Malachiusa nie je opisovanie či charakteristika pápežov pôsobiacich vo Vatikáne v minulosti, ale finále zoznamu. Ak máme veriť írskemu svätcovi, tak osud pripravil pre inštitút pápeža tragické finále. Ich počet je totiž konečný, 112, ak rátame do toho aj prvé meno v zozname Inocenta II. Potom sa misia následníkov sv. Petra skončí, sväté mesto Rím padne a začne sa Apokalypsa. Do konca ľudstva teda zostávajú dva kroky. Druhého apríla odišiel na večnosť pápež Ján Pavol II, vo svete známy ako Poliak Karol Vojtyla. Bol 110 pápežom v katalógu Malachiusa, ktorý ho v katalógu charakterizuje ako "od práce Slnka". Vysvetľujú sa tieto slová rôzne. Niektorí tvrdia, že Vojtyla sa narodil v čase plného slnečného zatmenia, druhí hovoria o silnej slnečnej aktivite v čase keď sa dostal na pápežský prestol. V piatok keď ho budú pochovávať má dôjsť k čiastočnému a niekde plnému zatmeniu, ako prognózujú odborníci. Tak či onak teraz už patrí svetu hornému, na tom dolnom sa stal časťou histórie a mnohých zaujíma to, kto sa stane nasledujúcim. O 111 pápežovi Malachius lakonicky konštatuje ako o "sláve olivy" (v inom preklade "oslava mieru"). Niektorí si túto charakteristiku vysvetľujú tak, že pápežom sa môže stáť žid. Na druhej strane je oliva symbolom mieru a to znamená, že pri novom pápežovi by mal zavládnuť na svete dlho očakávaný mier medzi národmi. Radosť z neho však nebude trvať dlho. Malachius vo svojej práci nehovorí, koľko času bude vládnuť predposledný pápež, ale s jeho námestníkom, ktorého Malachius menuje po mene čaká svet katastrofa. Keď na pápežský stolec zasadne Peter Rímsky alebo Peter II. (prvým ako je známe bol apoštol Peter, žiak Ježiša Krista, ktorý ustanovil inštitút pápeža), nastane koniec sveta. V tomto prípade posledného pápeža porušuje Malachius svoj zvyk v charakteristike pápežova nielenže ho menuje menom, ale venuje mu vo svojej práci celý odstavec, kde sa hovorí: "Na konci času miesto Svätej Rímskej Cirkvi bude patriť Petrovi Rímskemu, ktorý bude kŕmiť zdravých, prídu veľké tragédie. V tomto čase mesto siedmich kopcov (Rím) bude zničené a Čudný Sudca bude súdiť národy. Koniec." Mnohí z tohto dedukujú na koniec sveta, tým viac, že symbolika Malachiusa pripomína symboliku "Otvorenia" Jána Blahoslaveného. Niektorí ďalší odborníci hovoria, že svojim proroctvom Ír chce povedať, že inštitúcia pápeža bude skôr či neskôr už vyčerpaný. Keď posledný predstaviteľ pápežstva uvrhne Rím do biedy a smútku, ľudia pochopia, že treba urobiť radikálne zmeny v katolíckej cirkvi a tá sa bude radikálne reformovať. Ako to vlastne bude ukáže až čas. Pre spravodlivosť treba dodať, že ďalší z radu prognostikov minulosti, Nostradamus predpovedá tieto časy v analogickom kľúči. Tak o 112 pápežovi hovorí " že veľká krv zaleje zem, ľudia budú žiť so zatvorenými ústami a stane sa nečakané". Odborníci si myslia, že Nostradamus poznal rukopis Malachiusa a mnohé jeho Centúrie boli napísané pod vplyvom írskeho proroctva. Niektoré Malachiusove proroctva Nostradamus rozvíja svojim veľmi zložitým jazykom, ktoré sú však veľmi blízke obsahu prvoproroka.

http://zpravy24.pantax.cz/


Prophecy on Pope Fulfilled by Eclipses?

A 10th Century Irish bishop - St. Malachy - predicted every pope that would preside over the Catholic Church.

Almost ten centuries ago, Malachy predicted this pope would be noted by an eclipse of the sun.

In an eerie coincidence, John Paul II was the only known pope to be born on the day of a solar eclipse.

But the prophetic link doesn't end there. Pope John Paul II will be buried this Friday during another solar eclipse.

As NewsMax.com reported April 3, Saint's Prophecy: Only Two Popes Remain, the 112th prophecy says, "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will reign Petrus Romanus (Peter the Roman), who will feed his flock amid many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city [Rome] will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people," an indication that the world will end.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/4/6/162641.shtml

Japanese town gets a real robocop

Mail & Guardian | April 7 2005

FLASHBACK: Future Police State Use Of ASIMO The Robot?

The safety of a Japanese neighbourhood was on Wednesday put in the hands -- briefly -- of a robot, which became police chief for the day in a campaign to promote safe driving.

T63 Artemis, named after the Greek moon goddess Artemis, helped its subordinate human officers distribute fliers on traffic safety at the train station after its appointment as head of Hakata station and surrounding neighbourhood in the southern city of Fukuoka.

The 157-centimeter (five-foot, two-inch) tall Artemis, which has two arms and weighs 100 kilograms, can go on patrol with the help of a battery, police said.

Locally developed Artemis will enter the record books as the first robot police chief in Japan, where robots are being put to growing use for security.

The World Exposition, a six-month showcase of technology in central Aichi prefecture, has eight security robots on patrol day and night.

A Hakata police spokesperson said the robot chief "sought to attract people's attention," particularly because "robots have been a centrepiece in the World Exposition in Aichi".

Fortunately, the robot was not police chief on March 20, when the Fukuoka area was rattled by an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale which killed one person and injured hundreds more.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?articleid=200963&area=/breaking_news/other_news/


FLASHBACK: Future Police State Use Of ASIMO The Robot?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/171204useofasio.htm

Scannable humans? The future of South Beach



Imagine living in a world similar to that of Minority Report or I, Robot, where credit cards and driver licenses are products of yesteryear and individual privacy no longer exists. Allow South Florida's Applied Digital Systems to present its latest invention: scannable humans.

http://www.thehurricaneonline.com/news/2005/04/05/Edge/Scannable.Humans.The.Future.Of.South.Beach-912351.shtml

Road Toll Systems Tested In Yorkshire, England

Yorkshire Post | April 5 2005

MOTORISTS could have to pay a fee for every mile they travel if a scheme being tested in Yorkshire proves a success.

The Department of Transport has organised the research to establish the effectiveness of three different road charging systems and whether they could work on a practical level.

A group of 450 volunteers are involved in the trial, which will go on until the summer of next year.

When it is complete, Department of Transport experts will use the information they gather to assess how effective each system might be if introduced on the roads.

One is a simple London-style congestion charge, where a camera network is used to monitor vehicles entering a certain area.

The other two systems are more sophisticated and would involved drivers paying for every mile they travel.

One uses global positioning system technology, with satellites used to monitor the movements of vehicles on the road. Each vehicle would have to be fitted with a small electronic box which could be "seen" by the satellite above.

The third system uses microwave technology to produce a similar effect, so every vehicle on the road could be identified and charged appropriately.

The Government stresses that road charging is not a policy at present and the trial is being conducted just to establish what is available.

http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=989638

Companies Profit as Big Brother Watches
April 03, 2005 11:24:00 AM ET

By Matthew Verrinder

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Whether they're driving through a tunnel or taking a cigarette break, Americans are finding even their most mundane movements captured on video.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, corporations and government entities have been on the alert for possible security threats, including among previously ignored civilians. And makers of surveillance equipment are cashing in on the growing budgets of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its local counterparts.

``We've become a video camera society, and the market has absolutely been turned upside down,'' said global security analyst Scott Greiper of C.E. Unterberg Towbin. ``You don't notice them right away, but you look up and they're there.''

The surveillance camera market has swelled to between $5 billion and $6 billion from about $2 billion before Sept. 11 -- and will grow at 25 percent a year, Greiper said.

...

``If there were another attack in the U.S., you'd see a huge surge in demand for this kind of service,'' said Loren Thompson, director of the Lexington Institute, a Washington area think tank. ``Once (companies) become trusted providers with Homeland Security, this becomes a growing franchise that lasts for a long time.''

Meanwhile, net earnings for thermal night-vision camera maker Flir Systems Inc. (FLIR) increased more than 60 percent in 2004. The company also announced a 2-for-1 stock split in February.

...

``Current anti-terrorist fears, combined with the surge in road rage, the perception of an increase in crime, and several high-profile school shootings, are causing many to call for increased video surveillance ... in all public spaces,'' the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based public interest research group, said on its Web site.

...

``It's all driven by the Bush Administration, the war on terror and their need for surveillance,'' Greiper said. ``Verint is a prime public way to play the wiretapping game.''

Other analysts said Verint is poised to take advantage of the post-Sept. 11 security market -- where U.S. federal agencies are seeking stealthier ways to combat terrorists.

``Ten years ago, we never thought we'd have to tap into a picture e-mail on a cell phone,'' said Timothy Quillin, senior vice president of investment banker Stephens Inc., ``and it's becoming increasingly harder to catch the bad guys.''

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/breaking/breakingnewsarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20050403&ID=4342964