Terrorists could use Internet to launch Nuclear Attack

According to research, terrorists groups could soon use the internet to help set off a devastating nuclear attack. This may be an easier alternative for terrorist groups than building or acquiring a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb themselves. Cyber-terrorists could provoke a nuclear launch by spoofing early warning and identification systems or by degrading communications networks. Full Story :  Technology.am….

Hate goes viral on social network sites

Militants and hate groups increasingly use social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube as propaganda tools to recruit new members, according to a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Examples of what the report calls “digital terrorism and hate” range from a Facebook group named “Death to gays” in Croatian to a YouTube video of a Koran being burned and various Web sites promoting militant groups such as Hezbollah, the Taliban, al Qaeda and Colombia’s FARC. Full Story : MSNBC.com…..

C.I.A. to Close Secret Prisons

The Central Intelligence Agency said Thursday that it would decommission the secret overseas prisons where it subjected Al Qaeda prisoners to brutal interrogation methods, bringing to a symbolic close the most controversial counter terrorism program of the Bush administration. The C.I.A. has never revealed the location of its so-called black sites overseas. Full Story : NYTimes.com….

Pentagon seeks $3B for Pakistan military

The Obama administration plans to seek as much as $3 billion over the next five years to train and equip Pakistan’s military, and is considering sending 10,000 more troops to battle the Taliban in Afghanistan, defense officials said Wednesday. The $3 billion for Pakistan would complement a plan for $7.5 billion in civilian aid. Full Story : YahooNews……

Pakistan army ends bloody siege of Lahore police academy

Pakistani troops and paramilitaries overpowered a group of militants who took over the police training academy in Lahore and killed at least 20 people during a seven-hour siege today. Pakistani officials say it is too early to say who is responsible for Monday’s assault in Lahore. The Lahore academy has been named by local media as the Manawan police training school. It is on the outskirts of the city, on a road to the border with India. Full Story : Timesonline…..

CIA destroyed 92 interview tapes

The Central intelligence Agency (CIA) has destroyed 92 tapes of interviews conducted with terror suspects, a US government lawyer has admitted. In January 2008, the justice department launched an investigation to answer questions over the tapes. Full Story : BBC.com

Criminalizing dissent? RNC protesters face felony terrorism charges

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman talked to Luce Guillen-Givins who is one of the first people ever to be charged under the 2002 Minnesota version of the federal PATRIOT Act. Full Story : Rawstory.com……

Pakistan Announces Arrests for Mumbai Attacks

Pakistan acknowledged for the first time in public on Thursday that parts of the murderous Mumbai terror attacks were planned on its soil and said six new suspects were being held, including “the main operator.” Full Story : NYTimes…..

CIA warns Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US

American spy chiefs have told the President that the CIA has launched a vast spying operation in the UK to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks being launched from Britain. Full Story : Telegraph.co.uk……..

@ a glance : Under Obama, `war on terror’ catchphrase fading

The “War on Terror” is losing the war of words. The catchphrase burned into the American lexicon hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is fading away, slowly if not deliberately being replaced by a new administration bent on repairing the U.S. image among Muslim nations. Full Story : Yahoo News…..

@ a glance : Pakistan asks India to stop blame game

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Monday asked India in a special briefing for foreign envoys to avoid blame game on Mumbai attacks and cooperate with Pakistan to help bring the culprits of this heinous crime to justice. Full Story: Xinhuanet……

@ a glance : Pakistan angrily denies Mumbai claims

 Pakistani leaders say Indian suggestions that official agencies may have been involved in training November’s Mumbai terrorists are pushing the region to war. Full Story : UPI.com……..

The war in Afghan cannot be won : British Commander

In an interview with the Sunday Times,Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, UK’s most senior commander in Afghan said it was unrealistic to think there would be a decisive military victory. He added that there was likely to be ‘low but steady’ levels of rural insurgency once international troops eventually leave Afghanistan. Since the start of operations in 2001, 120 UK military personnel have been killed in Afghanistan. The War in Afghanistan, was began on October 7, 2001 as the U.S. military operation Operation Enduring Freedom, was launched by the United States with the United Kingdom in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

9/11 moment by moment

On September 11, 2001,terrorists crashed two airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the building, causing both buildings to collapse within two hours. As the world marks the seventh anniversary of the attack on the twin towers we look back at the key moments of that day .

• 7:59 a.m: American Airlines Flight 11 a Boeing 767-223ER with a maximum capacity of 181 passengers and 23,980 gallons of fuel, lifts off from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, bound for Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California.
• 8:01 a.m: United Airlines Flight 93 a Boeing 757-222 with a maximum capacity of 200 passengers and 11,489 gallons of fuel, rolls from the gate in Newark International Airport, Newark, New Jersey with 44 people aboard bound for San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California.
• 8:13:31 a.m: American Airlines Flight 11 last transmission from Boston Air Traffic Control.
• 8:14 to 8:20 a.m: American Airlines Flight 11 goes off course and is hijacked.
• 8:20 a.m: American Airlines Flight 11 transponder signal stops transmitting Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) beacon signal.
• 8:21 a.m: Betty Ong, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, calls Vanessa Minter at American Airlines reservations from the seatback phone.
• 8:22 a.m: Amy Sweeney another flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, calls American Airlines ground manager Michael Woodward and speaks calmly to him until the plane crashes.
• 8:26 a.m: American Airlines Flight 11 is heading westnorthwest, its location is between Albany and Lake George, New York, when it suddenly makes a 100 degree turn to the south and starts heading directly toward New York City.
• 8:32 a.m: Bush�s motorcade leaves The Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, Florida for Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota.
• 8:40 a.m: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) notifies NORAD that American Airlines Flight 11 has been hijacked.
• 8:41:32 a.m: United Airlines Flight 175 last communication with the New York air traffic control.
• 8:46:26 a.m: American Airlines Flight 11 impacts the north side of the North Tower (1 World Trade Center) of the WTC between the 94th and 98th floors.
• 8:49 a.m: United Airlines Flight 175 now deviates from its assigned flight path.
• 8:51 a.m: Bush arrives at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida for a photo op with 16 second graders.
• 9:02:54 a.m: United Airlines Flight 175 impacts the south side of the South Tower of the WTC between the 78th and 84th floors at a speed of over 500 MPH. Parts of the plane including an engine leave the building from its north side, to be found on the ground up to six blocks away.
• 9:08 a.m: FAA orders all aircraft to leave New York area airspace and orders all New York-bound planes nationwide to stay on the ground.
• 9:15 a.m: American Airlines orders no new takeoffs in the United States.
• 9:32 a.m: The New York Stock Exchange closed.
• 9:37 a.m: American Airlines Flight 77 is lost from radar screens and impacts the western side of the Pentagon.
• 10.05: The south tower collapses, 62 minutes after being hit.
• 10.29: The north tower collapses. The death toll was feared to be as high as 20,000 but gradually dropped to about 2,800.

For more detail information 911timeline.

Russia and Georgia at War

Russia sent its troops into South Ossetia, a day after Georgian forces were sent in to seize the region. South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia after a 1992 civil war. Around 1,400 people had been killed by the aerial bombardment of The South Ossetia capital of Tskhinvali by Georgian air force. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Georgian forces were engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Georgia, a U.S. ally against war against terrorism, has about 2,000 troops in Iraq. It is the third-largest contributor to coalition forces after the United States and Britain.

Image Credit :http://www.globalsecurity.org

How War Affects Children

War tears the childhood happiness apart. According to the United Nations, children in 50 countries are currently growing up in the midst of war. When researchers asked few moral questions to these children, there was a whole new moral outlook found. When researchers questioned these children about the morality of stealing or harming someone. Although they grew up in an environment filled with homicide, theft and physical violence on daily basis, surprisingly, these children all said that stealing and harming others was wrong, morally wrong, even if everybody did it. But the children had a whole different view of right and wrong within the context of revenge. They will harm someone when it comes to revenge.

Fights, terrorism and all-out conflict are based in real or imagined scenarios where each side see themselves as victims. These children justified the reason for revenge. You have harmed me or those I love, so I can righteously harm you and yours which is a social context of tit-for-tat. These children are dragged into the complex network of revenge justice.

Reason For Irrational Fear

We worry too much about man-made catastrophe. We are disproportionately afraid of some things but can ignore others. The reason for this is how our brains are wired, which allow us to respond to danger before we’ve even had time to think about it.

Asteroids are natural and dangerous, but we are more terrified by risks such as terrorism or bio-engineered foods. Because we don’t believe that the asteroid impact can happen. Our experience and culture taught us what to fear. We are born with some basic phobias, and we learn few others from media and everyday life. We’re more afraid of catastrophic events such as airplane crashes than of everyday risks like cancer which kills may people every single day.