Luciferian News

Feb. 24

Good evening once again Luciferians. This is Jim and The Dragon coming to you live once more through Voice of Lucifer radio system with yet another end-of-the-week analysis of major news events throughout the world.

Is America’s Iraq Democratic experiment falling apart?

The destruction of one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines Wednesday triggered reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques and killing sprees in the streets. The violent attacks between the two Islamic factions threatened total civil war in that war-torn nation. Many Shiites lashed out at the United States, saying it was partly to blame. The 1,200-year-old shrine with its golden dome lay in ruins after the blast.

One report said as many as 90 Sunni mosques were damaged in the violence.

The US military rejected the idea of a brewing civil war in Iraq, saying the number of confirmed major attacks on mosques across the country were only seven.

Yet it was clearly one of the bloodiest weeks in Iraq in months as guerrilla bombings also were stepped up against the people. The attacks were increased against U.S. forces with seven servicemen killed in bombings on Thursday alone.

Three bombs killed at least 19 people in Iraq on Monday The bloodiest attack took place in central Baghdad, where a suicide bomber strapped with explosives climbed aboard a bus and blew himself up. The blast killed at least 12 people

On Tuesday still more car bombs caused extensive loss of life in Baghdad and Dora. A bomb blast at an outdoor market in southwestern Baghdad killed 22 people and left another 28 wounded. The Dora bombing killed about seven more and left cars and nearby stores burning.

Violence continued Thursday with an attack on a Sunni mosque in Baqouba, where eight Iraqi soldiers were killed in a bombing and nearly a dozen people were wounded. Gunmen killed at least 80 people in sectarian violence.

Religious leaders summoned Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis to joint prayer services today amid an extraordinary daytime curfew aimed at halting a wave of sectarian violence that has killed nearly 130 people since the bombing of the shrine.

Police and soldiers blocked major roads and surrounded Baghdad's two main Sunni mosques as streets throughout this city of nearly 7 million emptied of people and traffic. The nation stood on the brink of civil war and the American strategy in Iraq faced its gravest test since the 2003 invasion.

The Rice Campaign

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced resistance from Arab allies during a trip this week to enlist their support for a campaign to isolate two U.S. adversaries, Hamas and Iran.

Rice, who visited Egypt on Tuesday and traveled to Saudi Arabia and to a regional meeting in the United Arab Emirates, lobbied states to deny aid to a Hamas-led Palestinian government and push Iran to curb its nuclear plans.

Arab powers such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia oppose Hamas' rejection of peace talks with Israel and fear a nuclear-armed Iran.

But they are reluctant to explicitly support America in the Middle East, where U.S. backing for its top ally in the region, Israel, angers many Arabs and clouds governments' cooperation with Washington.

It was significant that in news photos showing Rice talking with Islamic heads of state, most of these men were wearing red colored head dress. This is a subtle way of saying they probably are not going to be cooperative. When the head dress is white, it signals high honor and respect paid to the guest.

Blocking The Cash

Israel's Cabinet approved an immediate freeze on the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money to the Palestinians in its first response to the takeover of the Palestinian parliament by the militant group Hamas.

The decision came a day after a new Hamas-dominated Palestinian legislature was sworn into office and tapped to form the next government. Israel had promised that relations with the Palestinians would suffer the moment that happened.

The Palestinian Authority is becoming "a terrorist authority," and all funds to it must be halted, the acting Israeli Prime Minister said.

Cartoon Violence

Muslim protests against the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad grew even more deadly this week, this time spreading into Africa and Italy.

Nigerian Muslims attacked Christians and burned churches Saturday. They killed at least 15 people in one of the deadliest confrontations yet. Mobs swarmed through the city with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tire around a man, poured gasoline on him and then set him ablaze. Christian and Muslim mobs rampaged through two Nigerian cities Tuesday, killing at least 24 more people.

At least 80 people, mainly Muslims, were killed by Christians in the southern Nigerian city of Onitsha. The dead were burnt in public bonfires.

"We counted 60 bodies on Tuesday and 20 on Wednesday and there could be more," said the head of a local Civil Liberties Organization.

He said the victims had been slaughtered "with machetes, knives, metal objects, clubs and in some instance, even guns."

The city's central mosque was a burnt out ruin, its inner walls daubed with religious and political slogans, such as "No Mohammed, Jesus is Lord," and "Is from today no more Nigeria."

 In Libya, the parliament suspended the interior minister after about 11 people were killed when security forces attacked rioters. The rioters torched the Italian consulate in Benghazi.

In Italy, a right-wing reforms minister Roberto Calderoli resigned under pressure after he was accused of “fueling the fury” by wearing one of those t-shirts displaying the controversial cartoon image.

A Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper printed a full page apology from the Danish daily that first published cartoons of Prophet Mohammed unleashing a wave of fury by Muslims worldwide.

It was the strongest expression of regret yet from the paper, but stopped short of explicitly saying sorry for printing the cartoons themselves. Instead, the paper apologized for the turmoil caused in their aftermath.

"These drawings apparently hurt millions of Muslims around the world, so we now offer our apology and deep regret for what happened because it is far from the paper's intention," said the statement. It was titled "Apology" in big bold letters addressed to Muslim citizens.

Car Bombs In Saudi Arabia

Suicide bombers in cars packed with explosives attempted to attack the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia today. The plot was foiled outside the gates when guards opened fire, detonating their vehicles.

Guards began shooting when two cars tried to drive into the heavily protected facility, Both vehicles exploded outside the first of three fences around the sprawling complex. The attackers were killed and the blast was strong enough that two guards were critically wounded.

Saudi Arabia's oil minister said the blast "did not affect operations" at the facility, but the news of the attack caused oil prices to spike on world markets. The markets were already jittery about supply disruptions in Nigeria and a diplomatic standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Osama’s Truce Offer

Osama bin Laden vowed never to be captured alive and said the U.S. military had become as "barbaric" as Saddam Hussein in an audiotape reposted on a militant Islamic Web site after first being broadcast last month.

In the tape posted to the Web site Monday, bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce. If we turn him down, however, he warned that his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil. The tape was initially broadcast Jan. 19 on Al-Jazeera satellite channel.

Iraq Bloodshed

Three bombs killed at least 19 people in Iraq on Monday, breaking a relative lull in guerrilla violence The bloodiest attack took place in central Baghdad, where a suicide bomber strapped with explosives climbed aboard a bus and blew himself up. The blast killed at least 12 people

On Tuesday still more car bombs caused extensive loss of life in Baghdad and Dora. A bomb blast at an outdoor market in southwestern Baghdad killed 22 people and left another 28 wounded. The Dora bombing killed about seven more and left cars and nearby stores burning.

By Wednesday all hell was breaking loose and Iraq was on the edge of civil war. A famous Shiite shrine in Baghdad was destroyed by a huge explosion. After this, five Sunni mosques in Baghdad were hit and two were attacked in Basra. Religious leaders were calling for calm.

Maoist Guerrillas

Maoist militants, including the Indian revolutionaries known as Naxalites, are on the march in south Asia and intensifying their guerrilla wars further afield. In the past five years, terrorist attacks by Islamist fundamentalists and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have persuaded governments to focus almost exclusively on the threat of Islamist extremism. An unfortunate side effect has been to underestimate the dangers of the Maoist movements that have gathered strength after a period of weakness in the 1990s.

The mountain kingdom of Nepal is on the verge of becoming a failed state, and is already a haven for Maoist guerrillas, just as the failed state of Afghanistan became a refuge for fanatical Islamists in the 1990s.

After 10 years of war in which 13000 people have died, Maoist rebels control much of Nepal. They successfully terrorized candidates and voters in this month’s municipal elections, and wrecked King      Gya-nendra’s attempt to bolster his fading legitimacy.

Maoist leader Prachanda — a name that translates “the fierce one” —  has emerged from the shadows to call for the king’s execution.

Maoism is spreading among the 1,1-billion people of neighboring India as well. Naxalites — named after a 1967 uprising in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari — were once confined to remote rural areas. But guerrilla attacks are becoming more frequent. There is now a patchy but recognizably Maoist zone of influence running from Nepal through parts of six Indian states.

Ohio Terrorists

A federal grand jury indicted three Toledo-area men this week for planning terrorist bombings in the United States and even attacking our troops in the Middle East. 

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says it was work by the F.B.I. and the Toledo Joint Terrorism Task Force that led to the indictments.  If convicted on the most serious charges, the men could be sentenced to life in prison.

According to the indictment, the suspects were living in the Toledo area. One of them operated a car business in Toledo with his brother.  The indictment accuses him of offering to use his dealership as a cover for traveling to and from Iraq so that he could learn how to build small explosives using household materials.

The indictment also names an un-indicted co-conspirator called "The Trainer," who has a U.S. military background in security, and bodyguard training.

In count 1 of the indictment, prosecutors say the three met together many times, going back as far as November 2004.  The three reportedly conspired to recruit and train others for a violent jihad against United States forces and US allies in Iraq.  They also reportedly put together the funding needed for the operation, collected the equipment needed, and even traveled together to a local indoor shooting range for target practice.

Prosecutors said the three communicated by computer with an individual in the Middle East, passing information about potential attacks and terrorist training materials back and forth, as well as communication about potential weapons and targets.

In count 2, the grand jury found that the three had plans to kill US citizens abroad in addition to US service members.

The last three counts in the indictment dealt specifically with one of the men.  One count said the man distributed information on bomb-making, which in itself is a federal crime.  Prosecutors also said he verbally threatened President George W. Bush, and filed two counts for that.  Those crimes are separate from the conspiracy.

English Bank Heist

In world news, a gang of armed robbers, disguised as police officers, kidnapped the manager and his family, forced him to give them access to a southern England security company, tied up 15 employees and fled with what may be the largest cash heist in England’s history.

First reports said the gang stole 25 million pounds in bank notes, which amounts to an estimated $43.5 million in US currency. Later reports said the theft may have been as high as $87. The thieves loaded a white lorry before making their get-away. No one was hurt.

By mid-week police said they made two arrests and recovered at least three vehicles used in the robbery. The saga continues today.

Chavez Loses His Patience

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has warned he was taking potential steps to cut off oil shipments to the United States, in the event Washington goes too far campaigning against his elected leftist rule.

"The US government must know that if it crosses the line, it won't be getting Venezuelan oil," the leftist leader cautioned late Friday, repeating threats he has made in his long, simmering dispute with the United States.

Chavez was reacting to Thursday's call by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for an international "united front" against Venezuela.

Historic Train

A Pakistani train arrived Saturday to a rapturous welcome in India after a historic journey marking the reopening of a rail link between the nuclear-armed rivals that has remained closed for four decades.

Hundreds of people on the platform cheered and a band played lively tunes as the train chugged into the Indian border town of Munabao from the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi with around 300 passengers aboard.

The passengers waved energetically as the green-and-yellow Thar Express, named after a desert in the region, pulled into the station. Some people aboard the train as well as on the platform were in tears.

Nigerian Oil Assaults

Militants who seized nine foreign oil workers in a string of attacks across Nigeria's troubled delta region threatened Sunday to step up assaults by firing rockets at international oil tankers.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which claims to be fighting for a greater local share of Nigeria's oil wealth, claimed responsibility for a series of raids, including one in which militants abducted three Americans, two Egyptians, two Thais, one Briton and one Filipino. The violence cut the West African nation's crude oil exports by 20 percent.

Philippine Coup Attempt

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo declared emergency rule today after security forces claimed to have foiled a coup attempt.

Armed forces chief General Generoso Senga said the commander of the elite Scout Rangers regiment had been detained as the alleged leader of troops who planned to join protests against Arroyo by her political foes.

Congo Constitution

Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday adopted a new constitution aimed at bringing an end to decades of dictatorship, war and chaos in the vast country, and paving the way for elections by mid-2006.

Thousands of people, including regional presidents, gathered in the gardens of the presidential palace in the capital Kinshasa, cheering and waving paper replicas of the country's new flag as President Joseph Kabila signed into law the new constitution. The event was marked with a gun salute.

Court Abortion Issue

The US Supreme Court decided this week to reconsider that controversial state late-term abortion law that bans what critics call partial birth abortion. The Bush Administration has been pressing the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.

The ruling will test the two new judges appointed by President Bush. Justices were split 54 in striking down the state law in 2000. Sandra Day O’Conner, who cast the tie-breaking vote, has retired and she was replaced by Sam Alito.

The decision also will let us know whether conservatives will make a new attempt this year to overturn the 1973 Roy vs. Wade decision, which legalizes abortion in the United States.

The federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act prohibits a certain type of abortion, generally carried out in the second or third trimester, when a fetus is partially removed from the womb and the skull is punctured or crushed. Which gives you some idea just how wicked some of those Christian nut bags out there can be. They would force families to raise a brainless creature just because it has a living human body. We already have enough idiots in the word that can barely tie their shoelaces. We don’t need to clutter the place with creatures that can’t even wipe their own butts.

South Dakota Anti-Abortion Move

South Dakota in the meantime rushed ahead with state legislators approving a law banning virtually all abortions. The bill is designed to force the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe vs Wade as early as possible. The law, which is expected to be signed by Gov. Michael Rounds, will punish doctors who perform abortions with a five-year prison term and a $5000 fine.

You didn’t fight ladies. Now you are being stripped of your freedom of choice. And the war of the sexes is about to rage. This is not about abortion. It is about control. The men want to control you women and it looks like you are going to allow it.

Hallucinogenic Tea

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.

Justices, in their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice. They said federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church, Roberts wrote in the decision.

The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of the church, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions. Members believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea, which is consumed twice a month at four-hour ceremonies.

A similar ruling some year ago opened the door for members of the Church of the Navajo to drink a peyote tea during their religious ceremonies.

Arab Port Takeover

Two Republican governors are threatening legal action to block an Arab company from taking over operations in six major U.S. ports. They are getting verbal support from some GOP lawmakers that say the deal should be closely examined.

In the uneasy climate after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration decision to allow the transaction has developed into a major political headache for the White House.

New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich voiced doubts Monday about the acquisition of a British company that has been running the ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.

The British company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., runs major commercial operations at ports in Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.

Both governors indicated they may try to cancel lease arrangements at ports in their states because of the DP World takeover.

In the meantime, all the public chatter about this issue has resulted in a decision by the Arab owned business to delay finalizing the takeover.

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras parades rolled ahead in New Orleans this week, offering hope for people still haunted by the devastating Hurricane Katrina that flooded most of the city six months ago.

Under dark gray skies and damp weather, the parades began at about midday Saturday in the city's garden district, kicking off an abbreviated eight days of celebration in streets that only a few months ago were submerged and strewn with debris.

The floats were less elaborate and the crowds thinner than in previous years, but the spirit of Mardi Gras seemed intact despite the effects of the hurricane, which forced the total evacuation of the southern city.

Jumping Carp

In Earth news, scientists fear that a hyperactive Asian carp will soon reach the Great Lakes, devour the base of the food chain and spoil drinking water for 40 million people.

In less than a decade since escaping southern U.S. fish farms in Arkansas, the hardy and voracious carp have come to dominate sections of the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

The leaping fish are silver carp that jump haphazardly when alarmed by passing boats and have injured boaters, some of whom have taken up garbage can lids as shields.

The only barriers between dense populations of silver and bighead carp -- two closely related Asian carp species -- and the world's largest collective body of fresh water are a few miles of waterway and a little-tested underwater electrical field spanning a canal near Chicago.

But scientists believe the carp could set off an ecological collapse in the lakes, ruining the primarily recreational $5 billion fishery and posing a threat to water quality for millions of people.

Mozambique Quake

A powerful earthquake sent thousands of panicking people fleeing from swaying buildings in Mozambique and Zimbabwe soon after midnight Thursday. At least two people died.

Thousands of residents slept in the open, fearful of returning to their beds as aftershocks rocked the region.

"It felt like the building was going to fall down and it went on for a long time, the trembling," one man in Beira said. "It felt like you were in a boat, it was shaking everything yet, it's strange, nothing is broken, even the windows."

The magnitude-7.5 quake was felt as far away as Durban, South Africa, and Harare, Zimbabwe.

Pileup In A Snowstorm

Over 100 vehicles piled up and four people died in two separate crashes caused by strong winds and blowing snow as last week’s big snow storm swept through eastern Canada.

Three people died in a heap of twisted metal after more than 60 vehicles collided on a highway outside Ottawa midday last Friday, officials said.

Moments later, dozens more were injured in a pileup east of Montreal after some 50 cars and trucks slammed into each other, leaving at least one person dead.

Meanwhile, a freight train was left hanging off a bridge west of Montreal after a derailment, and electricity was knocked out at 154,000 homes, also blamed on bad weather.

American Deep Freeze

A deep freeze stretched from the Rockies to New England Sunday as workers tried to restore power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses left dark by fierce winds The storm also was blamed for four deaths.

Rochester had a low of 10 degrees Sunday morning, and wind of up to 17 mph made it feel like almost 10 below zero. In the Upper Midwest, the 8 a.m. reading of 2 below zero at Duluth, Minn., combined with 17 mph wind for a wind chill of 23 below.

As far south as Arkansas, Little Rock had a Sunday morning low of just 18. Farther west, Alliance, Neb., bottomed out at 8 below.

Prostrate Cancer Virus?

Researchers say they have found a virus in some prostate cancer patients. This is a finding that opens new research avenues in the most common major cancer among men in the United States.

The virus, closely related to one previously found only in mice, was found in cancerous prostates removed from men with a certain genetic defect. The researchers, with the University of California, San Francisco and the Cleveland Clinic, warn that they have not yet discovered any links between the virus and prostate cancer.

"It is a very exciting discovery," said Dr. Eric Klein of the Cleveland Clinic. Klein will present the findings today at an American Society of Clinical Oncology prostate symposium in San Francisco. "There is now a suggestion that prostate cancer could be caused by an infectious disease."

Fighting Bird Flu

Health and farm workers were slaughtering thousands of domestic birds this week in India, Italy and Germany after cases of the deadly H5N1 virus began showing up in flocks. In India, a 27-year-old poultry farm worker died of bird-flu-like symptoms. Tests, however, showed that he did not die of the H5N1 virus.

First reports of bird flu cropped up over the weekend in widely separated countries - India, Egypt and France - highlighting the disease's accelerating spread to new territories.

International health experts have been predicting widespread outbreaks of the virus for about six months, since concluding that it could be spread by migrating birds. But the acceleration of the disease's appearance has perplexed experts, who had watched the H5N1 virus stick to its native ground in Asia for nearly five years.

To Circumcise Or Not Circumcise

A clash over of their son's circumcision has landed the parents of an eight-year-old Illinois boy in a US court where there is no apparent precedent.

A Cook County judge ordered the mother in the case not to have her son circumcised until the court can hear arguments from the child's father, who opposes the operation, and decide if it is in the boy's best interest.

The mother, 31, is a homemaker from Northbrook, Illinois. She says two doctors recommended the procedure for health reasons.

But her ex-husband, 49, a building manager in Arlington Heights, Illinois, has called the procedure an "unnecessary amputation" that could cause his son physical and emotional harm.

Mexican Mine Disaster

Another mine disaster has occurred, this time in a Mexico coal mine. Some 65 miners have been trapped by a gas explosion since last Sunday and rescue workers are still burrowing through debris under extremely toxic conditions in an effort to reach them. Several other workers near the mine entrance escaped but were treated for burns and broken bones.

A struggling operation to save the 65 miners has been facing new obstacles all week as relatives of the trapped miners have waited near the mine entrance. Workers have battled terrible underground air quality and piles of heavy rubble from collapsed roofs.

Since the collapse there has been no contact with the miners, who only had six hours' worth of oxygen with them and no food.  

Russian Roof Collapse

Another snow-covered roof has collapsed. This time it was a market in Moscow and it has killed at least 56 people. Rescue workers used metal cutters and pickaxes to break through the concrete and steel wreckage. They stopped working every few minutes to listen for signs of life under them. They said heavy snow is blamed for the disaster.

Bangladesh Textile Fire

Fifty-one workers died and more than 100 were injured when a fire swept through a locked textile factory crowded with an estimated 1,000 night-shift workers in southern Bangladesh Thursday.

About 500 workers, mostly women, were on the job and the others were on a lunch break when the fire broke out at the KTS Composite Textile factory in the southern city of Chittagong.

Firefighters said they found the main entrance to the factory locked and were forced to use ropes and ladders to break open windows and rescue the trapped workers. Workers in nearby factories and platoons of military officers also helped in the rescue effort with bamboo ladders and ropes.

The fire, believed to have been started by a short circuit, whipped quickly through the four-story building die to stacks of yarn lying on the floors and encroaching onto stairways. The burning stairways made it impossible for some workers to escape.

China Bus Crash

Twenty-three people were killed and another 24 injured when a bus plunged into a valley in southwest China, the government's safety bureau said. The bus overturned and plunged 100-feet over a cliff. Careless driving was the likely cause of the tragedy.

At The Mud Slide Site

Rescuers using high-tech equipment said they detected sounds at the site of an elementary school buried by that massive landslide last week in the Philippines. They said they didn’t know if the sounds were made by people trapped inside the building or shifting mud.

The search for survivors in the farming village focused on the school because of unconfirmed reports that some of the estimated 300 children and teachers trapped there may have sent cell phone text messages to relatives after the disaster.

No survivors were found and digging has continued all week. Local workers have been accompanied by US Marines at the site. Most of the 1,800 villagers were feared buried under the earth, rocks and trees that thundered down a rain-drenched mountain following an earthquake one week ago. The only survivors were pulled out within the first hours.

Downed Choppers

The U.S. military confirmed Sunday that 10 U.S. troops died when two transport helicopters crashed into the sea last week off the coast of Africa.

The CH-53E choppers, carrying a dozen crew and troops from a U.S. counterterrorism force, went down Friday in the Gulf of Aden. Two crew members were rescued.

Holocaust Denial

An Austrian court sentenced British historian David Irving to three years in prison for denying the Holocaust during a 1989 stopover in Austria. The court dismissed his argument that he had changed his views.

Irving pleaded guilty, hoping for a suspended sentence. The Vienna criminal court, however, concluded he was only making a pretence of acknowledging Nazi Germany's genocide against Jews in order to escape a jail term.

Execution Torture

The scheduled California execution of convicted murderer-rapist Michael Morales was put on hold Tuesday after court-ordered anesthesiologists refused to participate. The prison warden abruptly changed plans and announced that the inmate would be executed with a lethal dose of barbiturates.

Warden Steven Ornoski announced that the prison would carry out the execution later in the day with an unprecedented single dose of sodium pentothal, a lethal barbiturate, rather than the standard three-chemical potion.

Injecting Morales with five grams of barbiturates was expected to lengthen the execution from the usual 11 minutes to as long as 45 minutes.

One hour before the second scheduled execution the affair was postponed again because of concerns about the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection policy. The execution was called off for the day. Imagine the agony that man has been going through. It seems that the mental cruelty might be worse than the killing.

Last week U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel responded to defense claims that lethal injection violated a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment by offering three options: He ordered lethal injection of only barbiturates; having an anesthesiologist on hand to ensure Morales was unconscious when the standard three-chemical injection was administered; or a stay of the execution pending a hearing.

Ghouls At The Graveyard

A dentist and three other men were charged in New York with illegally harvesting bones and organs from more than 1,000 corpses. The case is likened by prosecutors to "a cheap horror movie."

The four defendants allegedly made millions of dollars selling unscreened body tissue taken from the bodies of people who never consented to be donors. Among the desecrated bodies was that of veteran BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke.

Cheap Labor Plant

The world's largest chipmaker Intel has received a license from the Vietnamese government to build a chip plant worth 605 million dollars in southern Ho Chi Minh City.

According to recent reports in the state media, the plant will cover 115 acres and employ 2,000 local workers, providing a massive boost to Vietnam's IT industry.

Working Hard And Earning Less

Average income of US households after inflation fell 2.3 percent from 2001 to 2004, a Federal Reserve study showed.

The analysis showed real household income fell to 70,700 dollars compared with 72,400 dollars on an inflation-adjusted basis.

The Fed indicated that household income appeared to be stagnating compared with the prior six years.

Over the 1998-2001 period, average income rose 17.3 percent with the median income up 9.5 percent.

Buying Less

US durable goods orders plunged 10.2 in January on a steep decline in aircraft orders, the government reported.

Despite the surprisingly sharp drop, analysts said the underlying trend for durable goods, a gauge of the health of manufacturing, remained strong.

Satellite Radio Trouble

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. posted a wider quarterly loss due to a surge in promotional costs for the holiday season in the weeks before the launch of a new show by radio host Howard Stern.

Despite Sirius's expanding subscriber base and rosy forecasts, its shares fell almost 6 percent amid growing investor gloom about costs. This came after a director at larger rival XM Satellite Radio Holding Inc. resigned and warned of a looming "crisis" if XM does not rein in spending.

Scrapping Rusted Ships

The fiasco over scrapping a French aircraft carrier in India highlights Europe's lack of facilities for wrecking old ships, according to industrialists and environmentalists.

Since the 1970s the rendering of rust-bucket vessels into valuable scrap metal has shifted from Europe to shipyards in developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, China and Pakistan.

While labor costs are a fraction of those in Europe, the practice also delegated the problem of disposal of toxic substances such as asbestos, lead-based paint, oil and coolants.

The French industry group Shipbuilders of France says demolition in Europe, where wage rates are 10 times higher than in India, is no longer viable.

Open House At The Whore House

The houses of prostitution offered their first ever “open day” to the public in Amsterdam Saturday. Crowds of wide-eyed visitors gained free entry to peep-shows and brothels as the town whores pitched their case and tried to shed a negative reputation.

Twenty-five establishments opened their doors and flung back their red curtains for the day. Hundreds of tourists and locals seized the chance to see a prostitute’s bedroom, watch peep-shows and chat with the girls.

Reports of forced prostitution and human trafficking have been causing a public outcry in recent months. The city councilors have been calling for the 800-year-old red light district to be shut down.

“The open day is partly to promote the red light district but also to help change the image of the area,” said organizer Mariska Maioor, a former prostitute now running an information center in the district.

Real Life Drama

The actors who play terrorists in the new movie The Road to Guantanamo were questioned by police at Luton airport under anti-terrorism legislation.

The men, who play British inmates at the detention camp, were returning from the Berlin Film Festival where the movie won a Silver Bear award when airport authorities took them aside for questioning. They were not arrested.

The Blob Under LA

A mysterious black blob attacked downtown Los Angeles on Monday with a tar-like goo that oozed from manholes, buckled a street and unmoored a Raymond Chandler-era brick building.

About 200 residents were forced to flee as a hazardous materials team and dozens of firefighters worked throughout the day to identify what was first deemed "a black tarry substance" and later morphed into a "watery mud."

While outside temperatures struggled to break 60, sidewalks in the vicinity steamed at 103 degrees.

Firefighters were alerted at 3 a.m. by complaints of a sewer-like smell at an apartment house in the area, but found nothing. They returned at 1 p.m. to find a black slimy ooze lurking beneath central Los Angeles.

"We were called back because there was a gooey substance, a tarry-type substance, coming out the underground electrical vaults, out of manhole covers in the street, through the sidewalks and possibly in one older apartment building," a fire fighter said.

A 120-foot stretch of Olive Street buckled 1 1/2 feet. A nearby brick apartment building shifted one foot from its foundation. Sidewalks were as hot as Jacuzzis.

And a pressurized liquid shot from every street orifice.

Incident commanders are evaluating some form of drilling operation one or two blocks away as the possible cause, fire officials said added. It seems the area is located over what was once a historic oil field.

Costly High Speed Crash

Police in Los Angeles's plush Malibu district were hunting for the driver of a one-million-dollar Ferrari after the sports car was reduced to scrap in a dramatic high-speed crash.

The driver of the high-performance Ferrari Enzo, which retails for between 600,000 dollars and one million dollars and has a top speed of more than 200 miles per hour, fled the scene after the early-morning crash.

Police estimated the vehicle was traveling at well over 100 miles per hour when it struck a utility pole and was sheered into two parts.

A reported passenger in the vehicle, who was injured but survived the crash, was Stefan Eriksson, the owner of the vehicle. Eriksson said the driver was a German man who he hardly knew. Police are having a problem believing this story. Ironically, Eriksson was the owner of a failed computer game business that created games involving racing exotic sports cars.

How did he survive the crash?

"For a million dollars, you get a very good passenger-safety system, and apparently, in this case, it did work," one officer said.

Chicken With Teeth

There is a saying that a chicken will grow teeth when pigs can fly. So start searching the skies for flying port because scientists have discovered a mutant chicken with a full set of choppers.

The peculiar chicken, called a Talpid, was discovered 50 years ago. It had severe limb defects and died before hatching. No one bothered to search its beak until now.

The researchers found they could create more Talpids by tweaking the genes of normal chickens, and cause them to also grow teeth.

The teeth look a lot like the teeth of a crocodile. This should not be surprising since birds are close relatives of reptiles. Actually, Psychic Aaron C. Donahue says birds are surviving dinosaurs that adapted to Earth changes by getting smaller.

Record Lottery Win

Eight workers at a Nebraska meatpacking plant stepped forward Wednesday to claim the biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history _ $365 million.

The seven men and one woman bought the winning Powerball ticket at a convenience store near the ConAgra ham processing plant where they worked. At least three of the winners are immigrants _ two from Vietnam and one from the Congo.

Snaking The Snake

Bessy the Burmese python is recovering in an animal shelter after spending two weeks dodging searchers and an infrared camera in a 57,000-square-foot apartment complex in Rexburg, Idaho.

The 8-foot-long snake's hiding spot was found Tuesday by another "snake" _ a 100-foot-long device with a camera on the end designed to locate plumbing problems in hard-to-reach places.

Buried In Pig Shit

The village of Elsa in the German state of Bavaria is recovering after being flooded with a truckload of liquid pig manure.

A tank containing the fetid fertilizer burst, sending a deluge of waste into the courtyards and streets of the town, police said. The was half a meter (1.6ft) deep in places.

"The village was swamped with green-brown liquid - the mother of all muck," a police spokesman said.

Poop Power

The US city renowned for its 1960s anti-war "flower power" is exploring a more malodorous future - that of poop power.  San Francisco city officials have directed their contracted trash-handling company to devise a system of turning pet droppings into methane gas that could be used as fuel for home heating, electricity generation or other needs.

And that is the news for this week. We hope we have left you better informed than you were an hour ago. If not informed, at least somewhat entertained.

Be sure to listen tomorrow night for Infinite Chaos With Zurx beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. Then right after that Jennifer Sharpe will be offering another class in remote viewing for paid subscribers.

On Sunday you will not want to miss the Voice of Lucifer show. We believe you may be hearing some important messages from Psychic and Prophet Aaron C. Donahue and his psychic sister, Jennifer Sharpe, starting at 10 a.m. Aaron also will be appearing on Coast to Coast Radio with host Art Bell later that night. For folks in the Eastern Time zone, that show actually starts at 1 a.m. Monday. Aaron will be the main guest so expect a great show.

Goodnight