Wars and Rumours of Wars: August 2011

Friday 26 August 2011

New World Order

26/8/11 - CNN Wants This Video Banned (See Why)

EbookCashStreams on Jul 13, 2011

26/8/11 - "El Nino doubles risk of civil wars"

The El Nino climate cycle, which spreads warm, dry air around the globe every four years or so, doubles the risk of civil wars in 90 tropical countries, researchers reported on Wednesday.

And because El Nino patterns can be predicted up to two years in advance, scientists suggest their findings could be used to help prepare for some conflicts and the humanitarian crises they cause.

Historians and climate specialists have noted signs that changes in climate sent past societies into conflict and decline, but this is the first study to quantify the link between El Nino's heat, the droughts that follow, and upheaval in countries that bear the brunt of it.

Between 1950 and 2004, one out of every five civil conflicts were influenced by El Nino, scientists reported in the journal Nature.

El Nino starts as a large patch of warm water in the tropical Pacific and influences global climate and weather across much of Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Americas.

This pattern can cause large crop losses and increased risk of natural disasters like hurricanes and the spread of infectious diseases, study co-author Kyle Meng of Columbia University's Earth Institute. more

26/8/11 - Tectonic Weaponry: How to make an Earthquake (From History Channel)

Friday 19 August 2011

19/8/11 - Weather Warfare & Manipulation - Modification, is it fact or fantasy?

Many individuals believe, or are at least led to believe that weather manipulation, (modification) technologies is something that falls into the category of science fiction, and is made up by those with wild and vivid imaginations. Generally speaking, most individuals have come to view weather modification as a Hollywood type story line, where circus and carnival type hucksters are seen selling scam like rainmaking schemes to unwary townsfolk desperate for rain. Many others have come to view weather modification as airplanes seeding clouds in hopes of bringing about rain. For most individuals these are the image's that come to mind whenever weather modification is mentioned.

It is no wonder that many have come to believe that weather modification carried out by man is a subject and reality that belongs in the category of being science fiction. People have been led to believe by those who are in places of high power, especially those in the government and military, that weather modification is nothing more than the idea of those who have a creative and wild imagination and dwell on science fiction fantasy, and that weather modification cannot be done, or cannot happen.

Recently, a very popular and well visited Earth Changes site, one that routinely engages in lies and disinformation, and that is in no way affiliated with Earth Changes Central, actively engaged in denying the existence of weather modification. If one is going to consider the existence and ramifications of Earth Changes and Global Climate Change in a knowledgeable, educated and serious manner, then weather modification technologies must be considered into the Earth Changes equation for the argument about Earth Changes to be valid; at least from the standpoint of sudden and catastrophic weather changes.

Since the US Air Force took down the Project 2025 site in August 2005, there has been an increase in individuals and sites spreading disinformation about weather modification technologies, and calling the sites and those who are spreading the word about weather modification technologies, crackpot's and worse, and additionally, have gone so far as to state that the individuals spreading the information about weather modification do not know what they are talking about.

How convenient and coincidental that the 'smoking gun,' the US Government's Project 2025 site and the papers at it, including, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, pointing to an ongoing project about the US Government and military manipulating the weather, should be taken down by them at this time, on the heels of it looking like Hurricane Katrina may have been manipulated!

The timing of the Project 2025 site being taken down, before Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Coast-New Orleans catastrophe, was of course most likely not a mere coincidence, or was it an accident on the part of the US Government.

Weather modification of course is not fiction or fantasy, it is fact. How of course can I make this bold statement, without the proof of the Project 2025 Internet site being up? Easy, I copied and saved the entire PDF copy of the Project 2025 site, including the section, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, in the very likely event something like the Gulf Coast-New Orleans event happened, and the US Government tried to hide the facts about Project 2025, which of course it did.

The following information has been excerpted from Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025.

"Technology advancements in five major areas are necessary for an integrated weather-modification capability: (1) advanced nonlinear modeling techniques, (2) computational capability, (3) information gathering and transmission, (4) a global sensor array, and (5) weather intervention techniques. Some intervention tools exist today and others may be developed and refined in the future."
Project 2025, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, US Air Force, 1996, pg. vi

"Current technologies that will mature over the next 30 years will offer anyone who has the necessary resources the ability to modify weather patterns and their corresponding effects, at least on the local scale. Current demographic, economic, and environmental trends will create global stresses that provide the impetus necessary for many countries or groups to turn this weather-modification ability into a capability.

In the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications."
Project 2025, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, US Air Force, 1996, pg vii

"People have always wanted to be able to do something about the weather. In the US, as early as 1839, newspaper archives tell of people with serious and creative ideas on how to make rain. In 1957, the president’s advisory committee on weather control explicitly recognized the military potential of weather modification, warning in their report that it could become a more important weapon than the atom bomb."
Project 2025, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, US Air Force, 1996, pg 3
"Today, weather-modification is the alteration of weather phenomena over a limited area for a limited period of time. Within the next three decades, the concept of weather-modification could expand to include the ability to shape weather patterns by influencing their determining factors. Achieving such a highly accurate and reasonably precise weather-modification capability in the next 30 years will require overcoming some challenging but not insurmountable technological and legal hurdles."
Project 2025, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, US Air Force, 1996, pg 4-5

"In the broadest sense, weather-modification can be divided into two major categories: suppression and intensification of weather patterns. In extreme cases, it might involve the creation of completely new weather patterns, attenuation or control of severe storms, or even alteration of global climate on a far-reaching and/or long-lasting scale."
Project 2025, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, US Air Force, 1996, pg 5-6

"On the other hand, the weather-modification applications proposed in this report range from technically proven to potentially feasible."
Project 2025, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, US Air Force, 1996, pg 6

"Advances in these two areas would make it feasible to affect regional weather patterns by making small, continuous nudges to one or more influencing factors. Conceivably, with enough lead time and the right conditions, you could get “made-to-order” weather."
Project 2025, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, US Air Force, 1996, pg 12
For those who would like to read the rest of Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, or are still having doubts about weather modification, Earth Changes Central has made a copy of the original US Air Force PDF file available for reading, which can be located here:
http://earthchangescentral.com/research/Project2025/vol3ch15.pdf

Following is an excerpt from Michel Chossudovsky's website in reference to weather modification:

Environmental warfare is defined as the intentional modification or manipulation of the natural ecology, such as climate and weather, earth systems such as the ionosphere, magnetosphere, tectonic plate system, and/or the triggering of seismic events (earthquakes) to cause intentional physical, economic, and psycho-social, and physical destruction to an intended target geophysical or population location, as part of strategic or tactical war." (Eco News)

What are the underlying causes of extreme weather instability, which has ravaged every major region of the World in the course of the last few years?
Hurricanes and tropical storms have ravaged the Caribbean. Central Asia and the Middle East are afflicted by drought. West Africa is facing the biggest swarm of locusts in more than a decade. Four destructive hurricanes and a tropical rain storm Alex, Ivan, Frances, Charley and Jeanne have occurred in a sequence, within a short period of time. Unprecedented in hurricane history in the Caribbean, the island of Grenada was completely devastated: 37 people died and roughly two-thirds of the island's 100,000 inhabitants have been left homeless; in Haiti, more than two thousand people have died and tens of thousands are homeless. The Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida have also been devastated. In the US, the damage in several Southern states including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas is the highest in US history.
A study released in July 2003, by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) places the blame, without further examination, at the feet of global warming:

"These record extreme events [high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and droughts] all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years," the WMO said in its statement (CNN, July 3, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/07/03/wmo.extremes/ )

While global warming is undoubtedly an important factor, it does not fully account for these extreme and unusual weather patterns.
Weather Warfare
The significant expansion in America's weather warfare arsenal, which is a priority of the Department of Defense is not a matter for debate or discussion. While, environmentalists blame the Bush administration for not having signed the Kyoto protocol, the issue of "weather warfare", namely the manipulation of weather patterns for military use is never mentioned.
The US Air Force has the capability of manipulating climate either for testing purposes or for outright military-intelligence use. These capabilities extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes. In recent years, large amounts of money have been allocated by the US Department of Defense to further developing and perfecting these capabilities.

Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally... It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, ... and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power. (US Air Force, emphasis added. Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/ emphasis added)

While there is no firm evidence that the US Air Force weather warfare facilities have been deliberately applied to modify weather patterns, one would expect that if these capabilities are being developed for military use, they would at least be the object of routine testing, much in the same way as the testing of new conventional and strategic weapons systems.
Needless to say, the subject matter is a scientific taboo. The possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military and intelligence agenda, while tacitly acknowledged, is never considered as relevant. Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter, and environmentalists are strung on global warming and the Kyoto protocol.

Ironically, the Pentagon, while recognizing its ability to modify the World's climate for military use, has joined the global warming consensus. In a major study (pdf) , the Pentagon has analyzed in detail the implications of various global warming scenarios.
The Pentagon document constitutes a convenient cover-up. Not a word is mentioned about its main weather warfare program: The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) based in Gokona, Alaska --jointly managed by the US Air Force and the US Navy.
The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction:"Owning the Weather" for Military Useby Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO409F.html

19/8/11 - Continuous Palestinian missile blitz after Israel bombs 12 terrorist targets in Gaza

DEBKAfile Special Report August 19, 2011, 9:29 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Palestinian terror

Israeli air strike

Gaza

Egypt

Sinai

Hizballah

Terrorists attack southern Israel

After the Israeli Air Force struck 12 Hamas and other terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Thursday, Aug. 18, a hail of missiles hit the towns of Ashdod, Beersheba, Ashkelon and the smaller Sdot Negev, Shar Hanegev and Eshkol villages in a continuous blitz Friday, Aug. 19. Ten worshippers were injured - two seriously - when one of the six Grads aimed at Ashdod hit a synagogue. Police detonated a second in a controlled explosion. The town's population is advised to stay in sheltered spaces.

Iron Dome is in action in Ashkelon. Red alerts have sounded in Gedera, Kiryat Gath and Gan Yavne.
Since 20 heavily armed gunmen killed eight Israelis and injured 33 in a multiple terrorist attack outside Eilat in southern Israel Thursday, Israel's armed forces, police and emergency services have been on high alert and reinforced. All weekend public events were cancelled in the South.
In the attack, gunmen from Gaza crossed the unfenced border from Egyptian into southern Israel and attacked two buses, two civilian cars and a military vehicle in an unfolding, complex terrorist operation which bore the signature of the Lebanese Hizballah and possibly al Qaeda fugitives from Iraq.

Seven were located and killed by police and army special forces. Shortly after the Palestinian attack, the Israeli Air Force struck a building in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, killing the six top leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees which directed the attack along with other Palestinian groups linked to al Qaeda. Israel's overnight air strikes hit more PRC as well as Hamas installations, weapons stores and smuggling tunnels.

Israeli forces backed by helicopters dropping flares combed the 70 kilometers of borderland running south from the Gaza Strip along the Egyptian Sinai border to flush out escaped terrorists and explosives traps. The searches continue Friday. The death Thursday night of Border Police Counter-Terror Unit's Senior NCO Paskal Avrahami, 49, from Jerusalem, raised the day's toll from terrorist attacks to eight. He was killed by one of the terrorists at large who had crossed back into Sinai.
1st Sgt. Moshe Naftali, 22, from Ofra, member of the Golani unit, was killed in the multiple attacks earlier that day. The other six victims were civilians.
Egyptian forces carrying out an anti-terror operation in Sinai were beefed after the multiple attack in Israel to block further passage of terrorists from Gaza into Israel. One unit traded shots with a suicide team early Friday after Egyptian chief of staff Gen. Sami Annan paid an overnight visit to the Sinai forces.

Read earlier reports:

19/8/11 - Two more rockets from Gaza explode in Eshkol Region

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, JPOST.COM STAFF AND REUTERS

08/19/2011 22:18
Smoke trails after rockets are fired in Gaza

Seven injured by Grad rocket that explodes in Ashdod yeshiva; small fire started by rocket explosion near Kiryat Malachi in the South.

Talkbacks (21)

Three rockets exploded in the Eshkol Regional council Friday night over a period of several hours. No injuries or damages were reported.

In the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, an explosion occurred near a local kibbutz Friday evening. Local officials said a Kassam rocket landed in an open area. No injuries or damages were reported.
RELATED:
Counter-terror officer killed by terrorist fire near Eilat
Timeline of the attacks on the Sinai border

An hour earlier, two rockets fired from Gaza fell in northern Lachish not far from Kiryat Malachi. No injuries were reported although the explosion sparked a fire, which spread to an empty building. The building was lightly damaged before firefighters put out the fire.

Police have asked members of the public in the affected areas to follow instructionsfrom the home front command.

One person was seriously injured and another moderately injured after a Grad rocket fired from Gaza landed in the courtyard of a yeshiva in Ashdod on Friday morning.

Four other people were treated for shock following the attack. All were taken to Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. An additional Grad that failed to explode subsequently fell in the area and was neutralized by the bomb squad.

Light damage was caused to the building as a result of the rocket fire.

The rocket attack came less than a day after a three-stage terror attack near Eilat killed eight people.

Earlier on Friday, at least 10 rockets were fired at various targets in the South including Ashkelon and Beersheba.

All of the rockets landed in open territory and no injuries or damage were reported.

IAF aircraft struck seven Hamas security installations in Gaza early Friday morning, killing at least one Palestinian, in further retaliation for the attacks on Thursday.

Gaza residents said three compounds controlled by Hamas were hit in the overnight raids. Medical officials said a 13-year-old boy in a nearby building was killed and 17 people were wounded.

Defense sources said the attackers infiltrated from Gaza via Egypt's Sinai desert, despite stepped up efforts by Egyptian security forces in recent days to rein in Palestinian terrorists.

"If anyone thinks the State of Israel will resign itself to this, they are wrong," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a brief television address about the most deadly attack in Israel since 2008.

The IDF said seven gunmen were killed in southern Israel, including two who blew themselves up in suicide attacks on one of the buses and in a confrontation with soldiers.

Egyptian soldiers apparently shot dead two gunmen, the military said.

19/8/11 - Rockets, airstrikes follow attack on Israel

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinian militants in Gaza while Palestinians fired rockets into southern Israel, hitting a synagogue and a school and wounding several Israelis in the aftermath of the deadliest attack against Israelis in three years.

Palestinian militants in Gaza launched more than two dozen rockets into Israel on Friday, the Israeli military said. One smashed through a roof of a Jewish seminary, damaging a synagogue in the port city of Ashdod and wounding six Israelis who were standing outside, Israeli emergency services said. One hit an empty school and another, aimed at the city of Ashkelon, was intercepted by the new Israeli anti-missile system known as Iron Dome.

Israeli aircraft struck several targets in Gaza on Friday in retaliation for the rocket attacks, the military said, killing four Palestinian militants. One strike hit a motorcycle carrying senior militants from the Palestinian group Israel says is behind Thursday's violence. Another five militants were killed Thursday night.

Gunmen who appear to have originated in Gaza and crossed into southern Israel through the Egyptian desert ambushed civilian vehicles traveling on a remote road, killing eight people. Six were civilians, and two were members of Israeli security forces responding to the incursion.

Thursday's attack signaled a new danger for Israel from its border with the Sinai Peninsula, which was always restive but had been kept under control by former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. He was deposed in February, and the desert of the Sinai Peninsula — controlled largely by Bedouin tribes — has become increasingly lawless.

The sudden spike in violence threatened to upset the already frayed ties between Israel and Egypt and escalate the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel's south has been equipped with early warning systems and bomb shelters over years of rocket fire from Gaza, and those measures have helped keep casualties low.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited some of the wounded in hospital Friday afternoon. "We killed the head of the group that sent the terrorists but this is just an initial response."

The Israeli military's chief spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said it was "too early" to say that a broad escalation in Gaza was imminent.

"If we see that Hamas is choosing to escalate, we will not hesitate to expand the scope of our actions, respond in strength and exact a price from Hamas," he told Israel Army Radio on Friday morning.

Israeli aircraft hit multiple targets in Gaza in response to the rocket attacks, the military said.

Egyptian officials said five Egyptian security personnel died as a result of Thursday's gunbattles. An Egyptian security official said three died Thursday and two others died of wounds on Friday. He said they were apparently caught in a crossfire as Israeli soldiers chased the attackers.

On Friday the Egyptian news agency said Egypt filed an official protest over the deaths and called on Israel to investigate.

An Israeli military officer gave a different version of the events. He said one of the attackers was a suicide bomber who fled back across the border into Egypt and detonated his explosives among the Egyptian security personnel. It was not possible to reconcile the two versions.

The military said Friday that Israeli forces killed seven militants during the clash. The officer, briefing reporters by phone on condition of anonymity according to military regulations, said there were at least 15 attackers — Palestinian militants from Gaza, members of an extremist group.

Israel responded hours after the border attack with an airstrike in Gaza that killed five members of the group, known as the Popular Resistance Committees. The dead included the group's leader.

A spokesman for the group, Abu Mujahid, would not confirm or deny responsibility for the attack inside Israel.

Also Friday, dozens of Palestinians trying to reach the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for Muslim prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan scuffled with police at one of the gates to the Old City. The police were allowing access only to older Muslims in a measure police said is meant to prevent unrest.

The officers used a water cannon to disperse the crowd and made several arrests, police said. No injuries were reported.

The violence in the south focused Israel's attention on its border with Egypt — 125 miles (200 kilometers) of mountainous desert with no fence for most of its length. Bedouin smugglers ferrying drugs and thousands of African asylum-seekers into Israel have crossed the border almost unimpeded for years.

Thursday's attack — the deadliest for Israel since a Palestinian gunman killed eight people in a Jerusalem religious seminary in 2008 — took place near Israel's popular Red Sea resort city of Eilat, at the height of the tourist season.

Though the desert outside Eilat showed signs of an increased military presence on Friday morning, the city itself appeared unaffected. Joggers and cyclists were visible along the beach.

A new fence is currently under construction, and the military says it will be completed by the end of 2012.

The attack came after a prolonged period without negotiations between Israel and the Western-backed Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. That deadlock has led the Palestinians to unilaterally seek recognition of statehood at the United Nations next month, a largely symbolic move opposed by Israel and the U.S.

19/8/11 - Israel-Gaza attacks stoke tension with Cairo

19/8/11 - Attack on British Council compound in Kabul kills nine

Gunmen have stormed the British Council office in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing at least nine people and taking over the compound for hours.

A suicide car bomb destroyed the compound wall and a number of heavily armed men forced their way inside.

After several hours of gunfire and blasts, the UK's ambassador in Kabul said all the gunmen had been killed.

The Taliban said the attack marked the anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from the UK in 1919.

At least eight Afghan policemen and a foreign security official - reportedly a New Zealand special services soldier - were killed, Afghan authorities said.

Isaf confirmed that one of its troops had been killed during the operation without giving further details about the soldier's nationality, AFP reports.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the "cowardly attack", saying he had spoken to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key to thank him for the role the country's special forces had played in defending the compound. (more)

19/8/11 - Violence escalates as Karachi death toll rises to 39

At least 39 people have been killed in two days of political and gang violence in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi.

Following Wednesday's killing of 13 people including ex-MP Waja Karim Dad, violence escalated and officials say more bodies were recovered overnight.

Police say many of those killed were kidnapped first and that some victims appear to have been tortured.

The attacks unfolded as Karachi's main MQM political party announced it will rejoin Pakistan's coalition government.

The party had left the PPP-led coalition after accusing its majority partner of not doing enough to stop the violence.

Police say that 315 people were killed in such attacks in Karachi in July 2011. (more)

19/8/11 - Dozens killed in attack at Pakistani mosque

Thirty-four people were killed and 100 wounded in a blast during Friday prayers at a mosque in Pakistan's Khyber Agency, a government official said.

The mosque had about 300 people when the blast went off, officials said.

One worshipper said the blast was so loud, he passed out.

"When I stood up, I saw dead bodies and injured people everywhere," Hikmat Ullah Afridi said.

Officials were still trying to get more information on the blast in the village of Ghondi, said Mutahir Zaib, a senior government official of Khyber Agency.

Khyber Agency is a one of the seven districts of the tribal region in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. (source)

18/8/11 - Bombings and rocket attacks reported in Gaza and Israel

The Israeli military bombed sites in Gaza and militants fired rockets from Gaza into Israel on Friday as tensions remained high a day after one of the worst terrorist attacks on Israelis in recent years.

A rocket that hit the Israeli port city of Ashdod injured six people, including one who suffered serious wounds, the Israeli medical services said. It was one of 14 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel on Friday, the Israeli military said.

Also Friday, Israeli jets bombed a group of militants in Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, injuring one, and hit a militant training field, Palestinian security sources said. An airstrike north of Gaza City killed a boy in a home and injured five early Friday, Palestinian medical officials said. Three other people were injured in a strike on a Hamas government compound south of the city, they said.

The Israeli military said it hit two weapons manufacturing sites in central Gaza and "terror activity" sites in northern and southern Gaza. Israeli forces also fired on a militant as he prepared to fire a rocket in northern Gaza; the military said the militant fled.

The attacks come a day after assailants killed seven Israelis in a string of attacks on buses, civilian vehicles and soldiers in southern Israel on Thursday.

Israeli police said an eighth Israeli, a special operations officer, was killed late Thursday in fighting with Sinai border infiltrators. (more)

19/8/11 - In Sinai, security is like a house built upon sand: Egypt

Gunmen snuck across Egypt’s border and killed seven people in southern Israel, provoking quick strikes in response that left at least 13 others dead. The attack highlights the increasing lawlessness in Egypt’s border region after the fall of president Hosni Mubarak.

The flurry of violence started on Thursday afternoon near the quiet resort town of Eilat, a place so far removed from conflict that onlookers initially did not recognize the distinctive sound of Kalashnikov fire when attackers sprayed bullets at a bus carrying Israeli soldiers.

The hours that followed saw at least three other locations inside Israel hit with automatic rifles, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and even an anti-tank missile in a series of co-ordinated attacks.

Israel’s military responded with air raids and ground assaults and said that those responsible for the incursion had been killed. News agencies reported that medics listed a two-year-old boy among those who died in the Israeli strikes. Two Egyptian border police were also killed in the crossfire. (more)

19/8/11 - Suicide Bombers Hit UK Offices In Kabul

Suicide bombers have attacked the British Council offices in Kabul on the public holiday marking Afghanistan's independence from Britain.
At least three people were killed in an initial attack from a car bomb outside the building, the city's criminal investigations chief told the AFP news agency.
But a fresh explosion from a suicide bomber inside the building took the death toll to at least eight. Most of the dead are thought to be police.
Insurgents holed themselves up inside the compound and exchanged fire with Afghan and Nato security forces for more than four hours after the first blast.
"Eight people, mostly police, are killed and 10 others injured," Siddiq Siddiqui of Afghanistan's interior ministry said.
"There is one person, one of the attackers who is still alive and resisting. The area has not yet been cleared."
The Times' Kabul correspondent Jerome Starkey told Sky News gun battles continued after the blasts amid the bombed offices. Read More

Saturday 13 August 2011

13/8/11 - Preparing for an Apocalypse in America

Uploaded by RTAmerica on Aug 10, 2011

The American Preppers Network is a group of people storing supplies, equipment and ammunition in case an end of the world disaster strikes the U.S. RT visits one such family.

Friday 12 August 2011

12/8/11 - London Retailers, Before and After the Riots

When asked why he targeted a certain store during the London riots, one teenaged looter told Sky News: "They didn't reply to me emailing my CV, or going up there so this was payback man, payback."

His "payback" contributed to estimated losses by business owners of £17.4 million in stolen merchandise stock and £43.5 million on repairs,and shopping comparison site Kelkoo predicts a collective loss of £392 million in one week.

Stolen during the looting sprees, which quickly fanned out from London to other cities, were iPads, BlackBerrys, XBoxes, Playstations, clothes, athletic shoes, even diapers -- but thieves have largely left bookstores untouched.

In a statement, eBay announced that it will "cooperate fully with the investigating authorities to identify and remove any listings which are linked to criminal activity."

Here's a look at some before-and-after shots of the damage done to small businesses (and one Sony regional distribution center) over the past few days -- as well as a wonderful example of a very British stiff upper lip in the face of adversity:

Before: