Australian Judge Aborts Drug Trial Because Jurors Were Playing Sudoku

A judge aborted a drug conspiracy trial Tuesday after some jurors were found to have been playing the puzzle game Sudoku while evidence was being given.

Sydney District Court Judge Peter Zahra ended the trial Tuesday for two men facing a possible life sentence for drug conspiracy charges. The trial had been running for 66 days and had cost taxpayers an estimated 1 million Australian dollars (US$950,000).

The judge was alerted after it was observed the jurors were writing vertically, rather than horizontally. It had been assumed they were taking notes.

"Yes, it helps me keep my mind busy paying more attention," the jury foreman told the judge Tuesday. "Some of the evidence is rather drawn out and I find it difficult to maintain my attention the whole time, and that doesn't distract me too much from proceedings."

Jurors in the trial are anonymous and no action can be taken against them for the puzzle playing.

The foreman admitted to the judge four to five jurors were playing puzzle games for up to half the time the trial had been going.

"Jurors are sort of the judges of the facts and it's very disappointing they weren't giving our clients a fair trial," said Robyn Hakelis, a lawyer for one of the defendants.

A new trial is expected to begin in a few weeks.

Who conspired to use X-ray machine to kill Ahmadinejad?

"Enemies of Iran attempted to kill President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with high-intensity X-ray radiation during his recent trip to Italy," Iran's former ambassador in Rome, Abolfazi Zohrevand, said on Monday.

Ahmadinejad attended a global summit on food at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Rome headquarters in early June.

"On the eve of the [Iranian] president's visit to Rome, we checked the radiation levels in his temporary residence," Abolfazi Zohrevand told Iran's IRNA news agency.

"We found out that the radiation was higher than normal and its intensity was rapidly increasing," he said, adding that several devices were used to avoid potential error in readings, but they all showed the same results.

"A day before Ahmadinejad's arrival in Rome, I checked and found out that the (security) X-ray machines installed gave off too powerful radiation. It measured over 900 instead of 300 as normal," Zohrevand told Iran's IRNA news agency.

"We changed the machine, thinking that it was faulty, but realized the rays were being remotely controlled," he said.

"Bearing in mind that rays of over 1,500 are extremely dangerous to human life, this makes us think there was a plot," Zohrevand continued.

Former ambassador would not report any other details of the unsuccessful assassination attempt. According to him, the additional information including the one revealing the masterminds, will be publicized "in its proper time".

Last week Italian media reported referring to Iran's presidential adviser Ali Zabihi that the plotters were masterminding an assassination attempt against Ahmadinejad during his visit to Italy.

In mid-June Ahmadinejad himself mentioned another assassination attempt during his March visit to Baghdad and said only changes to his schedule had foiled the plot. Head of the Iranian government also pledged to provide proof that the United States was behind an attempt on his life in early March in Baghdad.

British 'super-spy' in coma amid fears of poisoning by Russian assassin

Britain's leading spy was fighting for his life after he mysteriously fell into a coma on the 4th of July.

Alex Allan, the head of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, was found unconscious at his west London home on Monday and taken to hospital.

The 56-year-old chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee's condition deteriorated after he complained of feeling unwell towards the end of last week.

Friends say he is a keen athlete who is extremely fit and doctors are trying to find out whether he has contracted pneumonia.
Toxicology experts were also carrying out tests.

Gordon Brown was immediately informed of Mr Allan's condition, which was described as critical, because of his role at the top of the intelligence services.

The civil servant had direct access to the Prime Minister and gave him regular briefings about the terrorist threat to Britain.

His unexpected coma has raised fears of an assassination attempt which coincide with a warning from intelligence sources today that Russia is now the third biggest threat to national security after Al Qaeda and Iranian nuclear proliferation.

Sources say the three main Russian spy agencies have 'flooded' Britain with agents dedicated to military and industrial espionage.

Former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in London in November and Russian agents have been accused of poisoning his drink with radioactive polonium.

The members of the Joint Intelligence Committee Mr Allan chairs include the heads of the UK's three intelligence agencies, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.
The committee is responsible for giving ministers assessments of the country's security.

Security expert Chris Dobson said of the sudden illness: 'Alex Allan's illness raises suspicions of foul play simply because of his job.
'He oversees and coordinates every aspect of our intelligence community.

'He is therefore a prime target for an assassination attempt by Britain's enemies. The nature of his sudden illness, if it is an assassination attempt, points towards the FSB, successors of Russia's KGB. 'They are acknowledged masters of assassination by poison,' he told The Sun.

'Al Qaeda is another suspect. They would see his death as a great victory, fulfilling Osama Bin Laden's threat to strike at the heart of the ‘infidel' enemy. What better target than the man whose job is dedicated to wiping them out?'

Despite the fears security sources say they are 'as certain as we can be at this stage' that Mr Allan was not the target of a sinister attack by Bin Laden's operatives in Europe.

A Whitehall colleague who saw him recently said: 'He was fit, he was in cracking form when I saw him. He was very upbeat. Although his wife's death was a tragedy, it had happened some time ago.' Mr Allan's 58-year-old Australian wife Katie Clemson died from cancer in November.

The senior civil servant had also been asked to explain why top secret documents were found on a train and handed to the BBC last month.

Despite these concerns, colleagues insisted he was upbeat and that his job was safe.

The Whitehall source added: 'It's a tragedy because he was such a lovely man. I can't believe it is anything other than natural causes.'Intelligence sources added there would be a huge challenge replacing Mr Allan if that were necessary.

His role as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee was changed significantly in the wake of the Butler inquiry into the intelligence failings n the lead-up to the Iraq war.

The report specified that the Committee chairman should be someone of high standing within Whitehall but who had no further career ambitions. 'It is extremely difficult to find someone who is both extremely talented and willing to accept a job knowing that it will be their last,' the source said.

Mr Allan's career includes a spell as private secretary to former prime ministers John Major and Tony Blair.

"We should leave Iraq if they want us to"

Aides to Sen. John McCain sought on Wednesday to clear up their boss' position on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's recent insistence that a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops be included in any security agreement between the two countries.

"John McCain has always been clear that American forces operate in Iraq only with the consent of that country's democratically elected government," Michael Goldfarb, a McCain spokesman, told the Huffington Post. "The Senator speaks frequently with Iraq's leaders and they have made clear that they share his belief that any timeline for withdrawal must be dictated by the facts on the ground. He met with the foreign minister and President separately within the last month...He met with Maliki on his last trip to Iraq sometime in late March."

Goldfarb's remarks represent a more pronounced effort to bring McCain's position on Iraq in line with Maliki's. McCain has forsworn deadlines for troop withdrawal -- insisting that it be tied to conditions on the ground -- and he did not, initially, express support the prime minister's position.

"Prime Minister Maliki is the leader of a country and I'm confident he will act as the President and the Foreign Minister both told me in the last several days," said the presumptive Republican nominee. "It will be directly related to the situation on the ground -- just as they have always said. And since we are succeeding, I am convinced, as I have said before, we will withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable."

On Wednesday, aides to the Senator continued to argue that Maliki's statement was public posturing designed to improve his hand during the negotiations of a status of forces agreement.

McCain's allies also were forced to make concessions today in rationalizing how the U.S. could keep troops in Iraq against that country's wishes. Peter Hegseth, the head of the non-partisan Vets For Freedom (an advocacy group that supports McCain's Iraq War plan), acknowledged during a conference on Wednesday that the next president would ultimately have to listen to Maliki's directives.

"I think the Iraqi prime minister's prerogative is obviously important," he said. "They are a sovereign country. Their wishes, I think, are going to be granted by our government. And we've created an opportunity for them to make these kinds of statements and I think that is a good thing."

Critics of the war have jumped on Maliki's remark as evidence that criticism of Obama's Iraq policy (which calls for a responsible drawdown of U.S. troops) is entirely unfounded. They noted that Iraq's National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie restated his government's desire to see a decrease in U.S. presence, on Tuesday. And pointed to a 2004 remark given by John McCain in front of the Council of Foreign Relations, in which the Senator said the U.S. "would have to leave," if the Iraqi government asked it to.

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports (as emailed out by the Obama campaign) on another instance that seemed like collaboration between Vets for Freedom and the McCain camp.

Today... there appears to be another, similar coincidence in the way Vets for Freedom's ads are going up, just as McCain's ads are going down. According to a Democratic media firm, Vets for Freedom purchased advertising time in three Michigan television markets, Flint, Grand Rapids and Traverse City, covering July 10 to July 16. At the same time, the McCain campaign decreased its advertising in those three markets for the period from July 8 to July 14.

Coordination between the group and the campaign would be illegal.

U.S. attacks Russia over Georgia tension

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attacked Russia for adding to tension in Georgia as she landed in Prague on Tuesday at the start of a three-country European tour.

"We have said both Georgia and Russia need to avoid provocative behaviour but frankly some of the things the Russians did over the last couple of months added to tension in the region," Rice said.

"Georgia is an independent state. It has to be treated like one," she added. Latent tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow over the separatist regions of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia have flared up over the last week.
"I want to make very clear that the US commitment to Georgia's territorial integrity is strong," the Secretary of State said.

Contacts with the 'friends of Georgia,' which includes Russia, had taken place to seek a deescalation of tensions around Abkhazia in particular, Rice added.

Despite highlighting tensions with Russia over Georgia she said "there has been significant cooperation" with Russia in other areas.

Rice is in Prague to sign an agreement over sitting a US missile defence radar, opposed by Moscow, in the former Soviet-bloc country. She is also due to visit Bulgaria and Georgia in the next few days.

Poland, where the US wants to install missile interceptors, would not be included in her tour, she said.Washington and Warsaw have so far been unable to seal a deal on it hosting part of the missile shield. "There are remaining issues but the United States has made a very generous offer" to the Poles who want to improve their air defences, Rice said.

"It's a matter for others to go back and take a look at some of the issues that are there," she said of recent Polish and US talks. "I believe strongly that we are at a place where these negotiations need to come to a conclusion.

"I don't think it really makes sense for me to go to Poland because we have had the meeting in Washington and now we're going to have to see if we can close the remaining gaps," she added.

Concerning Russia's anxiety about the anti-missile system in what used to be its backyard, Rice said: "We want the system to be transparent to the Russians."The US has in the past said suggested that Russian inspectors could visit the anti-missile sites as long as Prague and Warsaw agreed.

Prague has objected to a permanent Russian presence for monitoring the radar's operations, which is what Moscow is seeking.

U.S. Calls for International Police Force in Abkhazia

The U.S. Department of State said on July 7 there was "an urgent need" for an international police presence in breakaway Abkhazia.

In a statement the Department of State condemned recent explosions in the breakaway region with the latest in Gali district, which killed four people."We note the urgent need for an international police presence in the areas where these bombings have occurred," it said.

The Georgian government reiterated in a statement also on July 7 that it wanted a joint Georgian-Abkhaz joint police force in Gali and Ochamchire under international supervision.

Sokhumi and Moscow, however, are strongly against any change in the current Russian-led peacekeeping operation in the region.

The U.S. Department of State also called on Russia "to reverse its recent provocative steps in Abkhazia and consult Tbilisi on any future steps in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

Tbilisi wants Russia to revoke its April 16 decision on establishing official links with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as to withdraw additional troops brought in Abkhazia as part of the peacekeeping forces.

"We urge the Georgian Government and Abkhaz de facto authorities to build on efforts of the UN Friends group and resume direct talks to elaborate their own peace plan to reduce military tension, provide for the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, foster economic cooperation, and pursue a political settlement of the Abkhazia conflict," the U.S. Department of State said.

The statement does not contain a call for Tbilisi to sign a treaty on the non-use of force - something, which is part of almost every statement made by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Georgia's conflict zones.

Dicks: "This immoral self expression goes beyond freedom of expression."

Flint Police Chief David Dicks "announced that his officers would start arresting people wearing saggy pants that expose skivvies, boxer shorts or bare bottoms."

"Some people call it a fad," Dicks told the Free Press this week while patrolling the streets of Flint. "But I believe it's a national nuisance. It is indecent and thus it is indecent exposure, which has been on the books for years."

It's a misdemeanor that could put you in jail for up to a year!

A lot of people think Dicks is going too far:

"If I pay for my pants, I should be able to wear them how I want to," said 16-year-old Montez Phifer, taking a break from playing hoops in the city Monday. "Everyone thinks it's gangster, but it's a fashion. Nothing more."

His friend, Lorenzo Johnson, 14, said his mother warned him about the chief's stance on sagging.

"I pulled them up to respect her," he said. "When she left I pulled them back down."

Another friend, Senita Abrams, 18, said: "I think it's cute when boys sag."....

Greg Gibbs, a lawyer and chair of the ACLU Flint chapter, said the crackdown sounds like a "vast waste of resources."

Ha ha. Crackdown. You know which side the newspaper is on.

R= BS Squared

One of the things that had always puzzled me about Einstein was his tenacious adherence to Judaism. It seemed such a paradox for someone who was so intimately familiar with the complexities of the Universe to adhere to the superstitions of religion. Very often, religious people would cite his practice of Judaism as a symbol of his faith and therefore his belief in GOD (Bum bum BUUUM),

Well as Richard Dawkins observed, most rational men of science defer not to the religion itself but to the tradition that binds them to it, out of an "Enormous respect" for the institutions.

Dr. Dawkins certainly knows the scientific mind, as a newly unearthed letter by Einstein in his latter years now gives us new light into the thoughts of a great mind.

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish," Einstein wrote.

Einstein said he started questioning religion at the age of 12.

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," the letter said. "And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.

"As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are better protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

Jesse Helms dead at 86

Former U.S. Sen. Jesse A. Helms, the son of a Monroe police chief who rose to national prominence as one of the leading lions of the American right, died early yesterday morning. He was 86.

Read News Observer's and Alf's articles.

"'Mongol' might as well be called 'Braveheart in a Yurt.'"

So writes Michael Phillips. That's what I thought: This is like "Braveheart," right down to the deep, minimalistic love story.

There's a lot in this war movie — the coming of age of Genghis Khan — that women can love. Beautifully photographed landscapes. Fabulous fashion. (Those hats!) Horses galore. Feisty kids. Manly men who sing in that amazing overtone voice. Beautiful women who make the first move, stand their ground, and accomplish daring feats. Lovers separated and united. Bondage. (Do you know what a cangue is?) Tribal customs from the 12th century. Lots of eating and drinking. (Meat carved off the bone and eaten from a knife and endless bowls of (occasionally poisoned) liquid). Also a lot of knives, arrows, and blood.

"Mongol" should count as a law movie too. Temudgin (Genghis Khan) comes up with the big idea: "Mongols need laws." And that related idea: "I will make them obey, even if I have to kill half of them." He also happens to say: "Mongols have the right to choose."

Here's Stanley Kauffmann:

... Immediately we think of... John Ford's The Searchers ...

Other reminders of Ford abound, as well as reminders of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia... Olivier's Henry V and Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky must also be tucked away in [the director Sergei] Bodrov's head...

"The supermen marched us, without food, water or sleep to Limberg, a distance of about sixty miles, I think, where we were loaded and locked up..."

"... sixty men to each small, unventilated, unheated box car. There were no sanitary accommodations—the floors were covered with cow dung. There wasn't room for all of us to lie down. Half slept while the other half stood. We spent several days, including Christmas, on that Limberg siding. On Christmas eve the Royal Air Force bombed and strafed our unmarked train. They killed about one-hundred-and-fifty of us. We got a little water Christmas Day and moved slowly across Germany to a large P.O.W. Camp in Muhlburg, South of Berlin. We were released from the box cars on New Year's Day. The Germans herded us through scalding delousing showers. Many men died from shock in the showers after ten days of starvation, thirst and exposure. But I didn't."

From a letter from Kurt Vonnegut Jr., dated May 29, 1945, in Newsweek and in his new book "Armageddon in Retrospect."

Urban warfare

Members of China's armed police demonstrate a rapid deployment during an anti-terrorist drill held in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province July 2, 2008, roughly one month ahead of the Beijing Olympics.