] ElBaradei had urged Washington "to allow the IAEA to send
] a mission to Al-Tuwaitha (south of Baghdad) to
] investigate the disturbing reports of looting at the
] nuclear site".
]
] "We don't consider it necessarily a problem of nuclear
] proliferation but it could be a problem of health and
] safety and environmental contamination . . ."

Finally, the mainstream media and agencies are catching up with what MEMRI reported last week (http://www.memestreams.net/thread/bid6610/ ) -- that looters stripped a nuclear site in Iraq, carting off radioactive barrels and using them to store food and eating utensils, until they learned the barrels were "hot" at which point they dumped them in the river and sewage systems. :( This story could potentially be huge, so I'm glad it's getting more attention.

U.N. requests permission to investigate looting at Tuwaitha nuclear site in Iraq

] Garner named Massoud Barzani from the Kurdistan
] Democratic Party, Jalal Talabani of the rival Patriotic
] Union of Kurdistan, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim from the Supreme
] Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi of
] the Iraqi National Congress and Iyad Allawi of the Iraqi
] National Accord.

Ugh. I knew it, he's been laying low, but they named him anyway. Chalabi, the one who's already up on fraud charges in Jordan. Blech.

US names five Iraqis to form core government

] The "Sinful Six" is the name for the subject categories
] that customers most frequently ask 8e6 to block -
] pornography, anarchy, criminal skills, gambling,
] hate/discrimination, and obscene or tasteless material.

I'd be interested to know how they define "anarchy" and "obscene" sites. Many of the sites that I surf to on a daily basis (especially the blog sites) might easily fit into either of those categories. ;)

They look at porn all day, so others won't be able to

] Open Smiler, then scroll through the over 2,500 available
] smileys. When you found one you want, click it and the
] smiley code will appear in the text box below. Click the
] Copy to Clipboard button, then switch to your AIM chat
] window. To paste the smiley into your chat window, Use
] Edit / Paste or the keyboard shortcut CTRL-V.

This uses the same "click on the link and drag it up to your browser's 'Links' menu to make a button" system that Memestreams does. I thought it was pretty spiffy, and gives you access to literally thousands of different "emoticon" graphics that can be pasted into an IM window. I haven't tested it yet to see if it works with Trillian, but it looks like it's worth a shot!

AIM Smileys - BigBlueBall.com

] BAGHDAD – In an Iraqi teenager's youthful hand, Amal wrote her
] war diary, committing to the pages of her orange journal the
] emotions of a family at Baghdad's ground zero.

Daily entries from March 16 - April 17.

Iraqi Teen's War Diary

This is an article from last week (4/25/2003) about the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center. In this article, there's brief mention that looting evidently took place, but not what was taken. The MEMRI article from today (5/1: http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD49703 ) goes into more detail about what was taken, and how the radioactive material is steadily contaminating civilian homes in the area.

Washington Post: Iraqi Site That Contained Uranium Was Looted After War

] "When order was disrupted, simple citizens -- sorry
] to say -- did not have containers to store drinking
] water, so they stole those barrels, each one containing
] 400 kilos of radioactive uranium. Some of them dumped the
] powder on the ground in very large quantities, and others
] took the contaminated barrels to their homes, and the
] barrels appeared in various areas. They stored water in
] them, and had every intention of drinking from them or
] [using] the barrels to sell milk."
]
] "I visited some homes and measured radioactivity; I saw
] with my own eyes in one of the homes a contaminated
] barrel used to store tomatoes for eating. In other
] barrels they stored cooking utensils and other household
] utensils for everyday use, not knowing that some of them
] were contaminated. When they realized that these
] components were radioactive, they dumped some of them in
] the river or the sewer system. We found radioactive
] materials in homes, in beds, and in clothing. I saw a
] ten-year old girl, who had a yellow cake [disc] hanging
] from the button of her shirt."

OMG

MEMRI: Iraqi Citizens Accidentally Stole Uranium Containers and Used Them to Store Food, Then Dumped Them in the River

] A PERFORMANCE-BASED ROAD MAP TO A PERMANENT TWO-STATE SOLUTION
] TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
]
] The following is a performance-based and goal driven roadmap,
] with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks
] aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties
] in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and
] institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet.
] The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the
] Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President
] Bush's speech of 24 June, and welcomed by the EU, Russia, and
] the UN in the 16 July and 17 September Quartet Ministerial
] statements.

This is the full list of goals and timeline. I have profound doubts that either side will be able to stick to it though. :/

albawaba.com: Full text of Middle East ''road map'' to peace

] Since 9/11, US sources have monitored several websites
] linked to al Qaeda that appear to contain elements of
] cyberplanning:
]
] alneda.com, which US officials said contained encrypted
] information to direct al Qaeda members to more secure
] sites, featured international news on al Qaeda, and
] published articles, fatwas (decisions on applying Muslim
] law), and books.

I had mixed feelings reading this report. On the one hand, it seemed to have some interesting ideas. On the other, some of it seemed to be poorly researched. For example, on the subject of steganography, the author states:

] The practice of steganography, which involves hiding messages
] inside graphic files, is a widespread art among criminal and
] terrorist elements.

However, based upon my own research, steganography is *not* in widespread use. Also, the author misquoted other Al Qaeda statements which I've run across, which makes me doubt the reliability of other statements in the same article. Ultimately, this seems to be a lot of speculation and/or parroting of unresearched comments in other open source reports, and not much in the way of new hard info. But there are a few snippets here and there which, as long as they're taken with a grain of salt, are worth noting.

US Army War College Quarterly - Al Qaeda and the Internet

] U.S. forces refused to arrest former Iraqi Information
] Minister Mohammed al-Sahaf, who tried to turn himself in,
] [according to] the London-based Arabic daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Nope, this isn't satire, this is a real report. As for whether it's true, I'm not believing anything I hear about Sahaf, ever again. But if it *is* true: LOL!

Report: US forces refuse to arrest al-Sahaf