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3/22/2003



Looted Veteran Disability Funds :.

As the media fawns over our beloved troops, consider the following:

JH writes:

Last night on the news there was another carefully manicured segment (interviews with old men in camis in front of mahogany paneling and a draped flag, video of a group of our boys running into shrubbery with their guns pointed, etc.) on how, if any of our guys are lost, they are so valuable that 'we' will do whatever it takes, risk however many lives, to rescue them. Meanwhile, we're paying for the war with looted veteran disability funds.

From the article:

By a vote along party lines, the majority members of the House Budget Committee passed and reported for a vote by the House a budget resolution that would cut $844 million from veterans� medical care next year and $9.7 billion over the next 10 years. In addition, the budget resolution would cut $15 billion from the disability compensation and other benefit programs over the next 10 years. The House leadership are pushing these cuts to offset the cost of the President�s $1.57 trillion tax reduction plan.

Update: I just heard on MSNBC that a U.S. Marine just had both of his legs blown off due to a landmine incident. He survived. And his future benefits are going to be cut so that rich people can get tax breaks. Simply incredible.





Chevron Texaco to Suspend Operations in Nigeria :.

I wonder if Al Qaeda will be found to be operating in Nigeria? <--- Sarcasm:

The violence prompted the US oil company, Chevron Texaco, to suspend operations in the region on Thursday - slashing output levels in Africa's biggest producer by 13%.

Some reports said the Anglo-Dutch company Shell had also confirmed it would not be able to meet its contractual obligations on Friday.





Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss :.

Has the U.S. chosen an accused war criminal to eventually lead Iraq? This is almost too much to believe, even by my standards:

FORMER Iraqi army chief Nizar al-Khazraji, who disappeared from his home in Denmark last week, was spirited away by CIA agents and taken to Saudi Arabia, a Danish newspaper has said.

Khazraji, believed to be the highest ranking officer to have defected from Iraq and touted by US media as a possible successor to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was reported missing from his address on March 17.

Danish newspaper BT said the 64-year-old former general, who has been charged with war crimes for alleged chemical weapon attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s and was under house arrest in Denmark, was useful to US intelligence in their war against Iraq.





Turkey Sends Troops Into Northern Iraq :.

There goes the neighborhood:

This is slap to the United States, which has �cautioned� the Turks not to move into the region, but the negotiations between Turkey and the United States possibly grew so bitter that Turkey feels it now doesn�t trust the United States to watch out for its interests in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Qubad Jalal Talabani, the deputy representative of the PUK in Washington, appeared on BBC to explain his party�s viewpoint.

�It is very worrying for my people,� he said. �We believe that Turkish intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan is a recipe for disaster.�





Iraqis Hunted in Mexico :.

Recall Armed Men of Unknown Origin Near the Southern U.S. Border. And now this:

CIA sources have revealed that several Iraqis are being hunted in Mexico. The six suspects are thought to have chemical and biological weapons with them. According to reports, the men have tried to persuade smugglers, who profit from helping people cross the Mexican border into the US, to get them into America. Officials say they were given a tip off and are treating the reports seriously.

And now: Mexico Denies Conducting Search for Iraqi Terrorists :.

A Mexican security official has denied reports that authorities are searching for six Iraqis alleged to be transporting toxic gases.

Spokesman for the Secretary of Government Hector Villarreal said Friday there is no evidence of Iraqi terrorists in Mexico.

Mr. Villarreal was responding to news reports Thursday, which said local officials in Tamaulipas state had received news of the alleged search. The reports said the terrorists were planning to cross the border into the United States with toxic gases.


Uhhh: Mexico Detains Three Iraqi-Born Men Near U.S. Border :.

Mexico has detained three Iraqi-born men who were planning to cross into the United States, authorities said on Saturday, adding that the men wanted to seek political asylum rather than carry out terror attacks.

The men were picked up late Friday in a bus depot in the city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego in California, because their Mexican immigration papers were not in order, authorities said.

"One is a U.S. national of Iraqi origin who was guiding the other two, who are seeking political asylum in the United States," said an official from the National Immigration Institute. "They have nothing to do with terrorists or anything and there are no charges against them."


This is extremely weird. Nobody is able to keep this story straight, but there's enough noise on this to know that something big is happening.





Friends Rerun More Popular than Live War Coverage :.

Complete oblivion:

U.S. television networks, facing a bill of up to $20 million each per day to cover the Iraq war, found that "Friends" are more popular than enemies as a repeat episode of the top sitcom on Thursday night beat live war cover on ABC in the ratings.


3/21/2003



Rocket Hits Oil Refinery Depot in SW Iran :.

A rocket hit an oil refinery depot in southwestern Iran close to the border with Iraq and two people have been injured, Iranian government sources told Reuters on Friday.

The sources said it was not clear where the rocket, which hit the depot in the city of Abadan, had come from. Abadan is about 30 miles east of the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

It hit the building around 7:45 p.m. local time, they said.





"This is a regime that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people." --- Donald Rumsfeld, Press Briefing Today

Never forget:

Research Credit: MS





Shock and Awe: Federal Deficit Soars to Record :.

The government ran up a deficit of $193.9 billion in the first five months of the 2003 budget year, nearly three times the deficit for the same period a year earlier.

In February alone, the deficit was $96.3 billion, the largest on record.

The latest figures, released Thursday by the Treasury Department, highlighted the government's deteriorating fiscal situation.





More Than 1,000 Arrests in San Francisco :.

Protests are raging all over the world.

Police arrested more than 1,000 people in San Francisco on Thursday -- the most demonstrators taken into custody on a single day in the city in 22 years -- as tens of thousands protested across America against the U.S. war in Iraq.

"If this was happening in every city, there would either be martial law or an end to war," said one Berkeley student who chained himself to 16 others on a major San Francisco street.


3/20/2003



WARNING TO LOS ANGELES ACTIVISTS

Black Bloc Anarchist elements have put out a call to show up at the Federal building in Westwood to mix with the peaceful protestors. These guys will have .gov/police agents mixed in with their ranks. The purpose of Black Bloc in a crowd is to give the cops an immediate excuse to shut down the protest. Local media is reporting U.S. Army aircraft over Los Angeles. Part of this could be the SPECOPS controllers that have been observed during Black Bloc actions. Be careful.





China and Russia Demand Immediate End to U.S. Aggression

China:

The Chinese foreign ministry has urged the USA to immediately stop military action in Iraq and return to peaceful means of settling the Iraqi issue, Kong Quan, an official foreign ministry spokesman, told a briefing in Beijing.

Russia:

Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Thursday that the United States quickly end its attack on Iraq, and said the use of military force against Saddam Hussein was not justified.

Russia, along with France and Germany, opposed any resolution in the U.N. Security Council that would have sanctioned the use of force. President Bush withdrew the resolution on Monday.

"Russia demands the swiftest end to military action," Putin said at the start of a meeting with top officials. "The military action against Iraq is a big political mistake."





Pentagon Threatens to Kill Independent Reporters in Iraq :.

The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares....They've been warned."

According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the the free spread of information."

"I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs," she told Irish national broadcaster, Tom McGurk on the RTE1 Radio "Sunday Show."


Research Credit: JH





Roundups of Iraqis Beginning in U.S. :.

Several dozen Iraqis in the United States believed to pose a wartime threat will be detained by the FBI using new powers to arrest people on immigration violations ordered by Attorney General John Ashcroft.





Scalia Accepts Free Speech Award, Recordings and Video Banned :.

An ironic rule was in force as Justice Antonin Scalia accepted a free speech award from a Cleveland public affairs organization yesterday: At the justice's insistence, no video or audio recorders were allowed during his speech.

Some saw the decision to exclude those media from Scalia's talk as inconsistent with the City Club of Cleveland's self-description as "the oldest continuous free speech forum in the country."

Terry Murphy, vice president and executive producer of C-SPAN, wrote the club to express "disappointment and bewilderment" at the camera ban, adding that "any insistence that television cameras not cover the event . . . seems to be in conflict with the award itself. How Free is Speech if there are limits to its distribution?"


3/19/2003



U.S. Army Blackhawk Helicopters Patrolling Los Angeles

I just saw a report on KNBC TV that U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters are actively patrolling the skies over LA. They didn't say anything about it, but they also showed video tape of what looked like a CH-47 Chinook troop carrier/air lift helicopter.





Jeremiah 51:2-4

I will send foreigners to Babylon to winnow her and devastate her land; they will oppose her on every side in the day of her disaster. Let not the archer string his bow, nor let him put on his armor. Do not spare her young men. Completely destroy her Army. They will fall down slain in Babylon, fatally wounded in her streets.





Rachel Corrie: How She Died :.

People all over the world are choosing how they want to go down. Read about Rachel Corrie's last moments and behold the true nature of one of America's closest allies: Israel. In Chinese Try Mobile Death Vans, I said that the blood of the woman being taken away for execution was on all of our hands, because we buy the goods that support China's murderous, fascist regime. The blood of Rachel Corrie is also on all of our hands, because our tax money is funneled to Israel's murderous, fascist regime:

"Rachel had been staying in Palestinian homes threatened with illegal demolition, and today Rachel was standing with other non-violent international activists in front of a home scheduled for illegal demolition. According to witnesses, Rachel was run over twice by the Israeli military bulldozer in its process of demolishing the Palestinian home. Witnesses say that Rachel was clearly visible to the bulldozer driver, and was doing nothing to provoke an attack."



More: Teargas and Stun Grenades at Memorial Service for Rachel Corrie :.

Israeli forces fired teargas and stun grenades yesterday in an attempt to break up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist killed by an army bulldozer in Gaza on Sunday.

Witnesses including several dozen foreigners and Palestinian supporters say Israeli armoured vehicles tried to disperse the gathering at the spot in Rafah refugee camp where Ms Corrie was crushed to death.


3/18/2003



Is Martial Law Imminent? :.

Here we go, folks. This is so shocking that I decided to post the entire story:

Red alert? Stay home, await word

Sunday, March 16, 2003

By TOM BALDWIN
Gannett State Bureau
TRENTON

If the nation escalates to "red alert," which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state's anti-terror czar says.

"This state is on top of it," said Sid Caspersen, New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism.

Caspersen, a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters, alongside Gov. James E. McGreevey, on Thursday, when for the first time he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down.

A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.

"Red means all noncritical functions cease," Caspersen said. "Noncritical would be almost all businesses, except health-related."

A red alert means there is a severe risk of terrorist attack, according to federal guidelines from the Department of Homeland Security.

"The state will restrict transportation and access to critical locations," says the state's new brochure on dealing with terrorism.

"You must adhere to the restrictions announced by authorities and prepare to evacuate, if instructed. Stay alert for emergency messages."

Caspersen went further than the brochure. "The government agencies would run at a very low threshold," he said.

"The state police and the emergency management people would take control over the highways.

"You literally are staying home, is what happens, unless you are required to be out. No different than if you had a state of emergency with a snowstorm."


Research Credit: MR





Cryptogon Plan During the War

I'm not going to focus on topics that will be endlessly hyped by corporate media sources. I want to know about:

1) Verifiable, U.S. caused atrocities in Iraq.

2) Indications that the war is spreading, or involving combatants from neighboring countries inside Iraq.

3) U.S. legislation that is passed after the war starts: Those whores in Congress are going to be up to something ugly, I'm almost sure of it. If there is an attack in the U.S., all bets are off. They'll roll out Patriot Act 2 and that thing will be law. Who knows, sites like this, and their operators, might just go away. *poof* Which leads me to #4...

4) Secret arrests, detentions and other extra-Constitutional weirdness.

5) Israel: Israel is out of control in the Palestinian areas. Israel may use the fog of war in Iraq as an opportunity to commit more war crimes at home. Sharon knows the media spotlight will be pointed far away from Gaza and the West Bank. And if Iraq flings something at Israel, uhh...

All large U.S. cities are increasing security. Los Angeles and New York are stepping up efforts to lock things down. I don't want to sound nuts, but if anything happens within the U.S., as a shooting war is underway, who knows what kind of frightening executive orders and secret PDDs (Presidential Decision Directives) might be triggered?!? I guess there isn't really a lot left to do but hold on and stay alert.

More: Details on New York Lockdown (Operation ATLAS)

CNN just showed video tape from Manhattan. Cops wearing ski masks and brandishing loaded machine guns are walking around on the streets.





The Primacy of PSYOPS in Modern Warfare :.

Psychological operations are a critical component of all U.S. military activities; not only PSYOPS directed at the enemy, but PSYOPS directed at Americans. Try to keep this in mind and they break out the big flat screens, sophisticated graphics, makeup and tits. Don't expect to see close quarters battle, urban warfare and incinerated civilians. That stuff is not part of the script:

One of the first major ground campaigns in the war against Iraq will be the seizure of the country's largest southern city, Basra, to capitalize on any scene of liberation that can be beamed to a skeptical world.

Military and allied officials familiar with the planning of the upcoming campaign say they hope that a successful and "benign" occupation of Basra that results in flag-waving crowds hugging British and American soldiers will create an immediate positive image worldwide of American and British war aims while also undermining Iraqi resistance elsewhere in the country.

With this strategic goal, part military and part political, White House and senior Pentagon officials are seeking to trump the negative imagery associated with a contentious Security Council debate over the legal authority for commencing the war in the face of significant international opposition, the officials said.





Armed Men of Unknown Origin Near the Southern U.S. Border :.

Americans are being subjected to every possible type of ridiculous surveillance, patdowns, checkpoints and the southern border of the U.S. is basically a wide open free for all!?!? I suggest carrying this story on your person at all times, just in case you get stopped or accosted because of measures related to "homeland security." Say something like, "I wish we had officers like you down on the border, where unidentified military personnel and terrorists can move about freely. I'm just carrying my meager groceries home, after working all day for penury, but golly, I hope those guys down there weren't bringing in parts for a thermonuclear bomb or radiological dispersal weapon. Have a nice day, officer, you're making me feel really safe."

What the Hell is this?

A southern Texas sheriff is warning the public that unidentified armed men dressed in military fatigues have been spotted on numerous occasions in his county near the border with Mexico.

For the "country's safety," Sheriff Erasmo Alarcon Jr., of Jim Hogg County, published a letter in a local newspaper to alert citizens of reports he has received for some years from ranchers who have spotted the unknown troops, equipped with "professional backpacks" and walking together in a military cadence.





Germany's Top Neo-Nazis Are German Intelligence Operatives :.

Every resistance movement with a command structure WILL be infiltrated with government agents. These groups are very useful when it comes time for the government to pass some new nightmarish legislation. The terrorists are the government:

One in seven of Germany's top neo-Nazis is a secret service agent, the government has admitted in an attempt to sustain faltering efforts to ban a far-Right political party.

Government lawyers have offered the information in the hope that it will save agents from being identified in court.


3/17/2003



Prime Directive to Iraqis from Bush: Don't Destroy Oil Wells :.

Oil wells are higher on the list of priorities than the use of chemical and biological weapons!? What was the main reason for going to war? If it was to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing and using weapons of mass destruction, why did Bush mention the oil wells first? <--- That's a rhetorical question, by the way. Quote from the speech:

And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning: In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."

Such a subtle, yet very telling, blunder. What an imbecile.





A Note on Today's Updates

This batch is dark, folks. And there's a lot of it. My goal is not to get you to stop reading. I know that when you go about your daily lives, many of you see no evidence that any of this stuff is happening. Keep in mind that the rockets and bombs the U.S. is about to unleash on Iraq are part of the litany of nightmares that make the world appear "normal" to Americans. Without exporting horror abroad, things would be very different at home. What we must understand, if we are to survive, is that we have a relationship to the horror our government spreads around the world. We pay for it. We are responsible for it. We will ultimately be held accountable for it.

Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative states, "act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." In other words, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Would it seem right for Iraq to invade America, level its cities and annihilate its civilian population in order to steal its natural resources? Well, America has already done that to Iraq, has been doing it for years and is about to ramp up the effort with over 250,000 troops and billions of dollars worth of otherworldly weapon systems.

Have no doubt about it: If the U.S. launches this invasion of Iraq, the U.S. will have insured its own doom. We will be demonstrating to the world just how depraved and desperate we have become. No state can get away with something this egregious without paying a VERY heavy price. And just as the world came together against Saddam Hussein during the first Persian Gulf War, perhaps the world will unite against a much more powerful and frightening opponent, the United States of America, as it prepares to do to Iraq what Iraq did to Kuwait in 1990. Indeed, where will America strike next after Iraq?

Get focused, get quiet, get clear and pray, meditate or think on an outcome to this situation that is Good, True and Beautiful.





Chinese Try Mobile Death Vans :.

The next time you visit Walmart, Ikea, Target, Kmart or any other chain store, try to notice the blood dripping down the walls and smeared all over the floor. What!? You can't see it? Oh, it's there. Just take a look at where most of the products are made. Chinese elites have sold out their people to other global elites and allowed China to be used as a slave camp for the production of finished goods for export.

Look at the picture of the woman being taken away for execution. Take a good look. That woman's blood is on my hands. It's on your hands. And it's on the hands of just about everyone else in the West (including Japan). When we buy products that are made in China, we support the most overtly fascist regime on the planet. What can we do about it? I'll repeat the familiar mantra: Get self sufficient, create local economies, buy things used, buy things that will allow you to get out of the cycle of death that is our economic system, reduce, reuse, recycle. But when it comes time to buy something, try to buy things that aren't made in China!

Good luck.

I am, of course, a hypocrite. Knowing everything I know about this stuff, I bought a $7 lamp from Ikea a couple of months ago. At first glance, one would marvel at the apparent bargain. It certainly is a nice lamp. It is sufficiently well-made. It has an appealing look. There's one problem. The lamp is drenched in blood. Invisible blood of dead Chinese people. Like all of the other lamps at Ikea, and all of the lamps at the other stores, the one I bought was made in China.

I could have found a lamp that wasn't made in China. Perhaps if I made it my sole mission in life for a week, fed Dick Cheney by burning up a tank of gasoline and hardened myself to the weird reactions I'd get from sales people when I'd ask, "Do you have any lamps that aren't made in China?" maybe I could have found a simple floor lamp that wasn't made in China. But I didn't do that. I bought the $7 lamp from Ikea because to exist in this system requires that we support and propagate evil. While we are in this system, we support slavery and brutal regimes like China's. While we are in this system, nothing is cheap, except human life. If you're still reading at this point, which I would find hard to believe, here's the point: While we are in this system, paying taxes, driving gas burning cars, buying imported manufactured goods, nearly everything we do supports evil. If we can't leave the system, or change it, what we must do is limit our support of evil. The only substantive power we have is related to the choices we make when we buy things. When you spend money, try not to support the kind of activity you see in this picture. I'll try to do the same.

From the article:

China is equipping its courts with mobile execution vans as it shifts away from the communist system's traditional bullet in the head, towards a more "civilised" use of lethal injection.

Intermediate Courts of the southern province of Yunnan were issued with 18 new execution vans on February 28 and a court official said some have already been used.

"We cannot tell you how many executions so far, otherwise you could work out from the daily rate how many we carry out," the official said.

Chinese authorities keep execution numbers a secret, but Western human rights monitors believe it is about 15,000 a year, more than the rest of the world's judicial executions combined.

The death penalty can apply for serious crimes against the person, armed robbery, drug trafficking, major cases of corruption and political violence.

Many public executions have been held in football stadiums so traditional execution methods are no secret. The condemned criminal is taken by open truck to the execution ground and made to kneel with hands cuffed and head bowed, before being shot in the head. Families who want to reclaim the body are charged for the bullet.


Note: If that picture goes away, it means the WalMart legal mafia made me an offer I couldn't refuse.





More on the Real Economic Stimulus Package :.

You guys read it here long ago. Here it is again:

The Bush administration's audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war's end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported.

The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children.


Remember, socialism is bad, unless you are an evil corporation. Then the U.S. government will kill people and give you handouts.





Israel Murders Peace Activist :.

In a matter of months, Rachel Corrie went from the orderly peace movement of this small liberal city to a deadly world of gunfire, bulldozers and violent political conflict.

Corrie, 23, a student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, died Sunday in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah while trying to stop a bulldozer from tearing down a Palestinian physician's home. She fell in front of the machine, which ran over her and then backed up, witnesses said.





Passenger Finds 'Chilling' Note from Bag Handler :.

I've always said that American fascism would be particularly ugly once it started to gather speed. Hold on because we've super sized the freedom fries, pushed the accelerator on the SUV to the floor, pointed her down the road to oblivion and flung the steering wheel out the window! Yeee-HA! Kick ass! Support our troops! God Bless Ame.....

What we are seeing now is run of the mill jingoism coupled with fat asses, empty brains and corporate logos. Consider people who dine in gas stations and talk with great interest about what happens on television. That's America, man. Love it or leave it! We are moving into the next phase of fascism, where dissents will be shunned by "average, patriotic, law abiding citizens." Soon, people who question U.S. foreign and domestic policies will be arrested. Oh, woops, that's already happening:

An airline passenger who had two "No War with Iraq" signs in his suitcase says the federal security agent who opened his luggage inserted a note criticizing his "anti-American attitude."

"I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have received this message," said Seth Goldberg, 41, of Cranbury, New Jersey.





FBI 'Nightstalkers' Track Terror Suspects :.

Shocking:

The FBI has a fleet of aircraft, some equipped with night surveillance and eavesdropping equipment, flying America's skies to track and collect intelligence from suspected terrorists.

The FBI will not provide exact figures on the planes and helicopters, but more than 80 are in the skies. There are several planes, known as "Nightstalkers," equipped with infrared devices that allow agents to track people and vehicles in the dark.

Other aircraft are outfitted with electronic surveillance equipment so agents can pursue listening devices placed in cars, in buildings and even along streets, or listen to cell phone calls. Still others fly photography missions, although officials would not describe precise capabilities.





U.S. and France Supplied Iraqi Bioweapons Materials :.

Yawn. Here it is ONE MORE TIME, in case you didn't get it previously:

The document shows that the American and French supply houses shipped 17 types of biological agents to Iraq in the 1980's that were used in the weapons programs. Those included anthrax and the bacteria needed to make botulinum toxin, among the most deadly poisons known. It also discloses that Iraq had tried unsuccessfully to obtain biological agents in the late 1980's from other biological supply houses around the world.

The quantities of the agents were described in terms of ampuls, which are sealed glass or plastic containers about the size of test tubes.

Iraq has acknowledged that it used the American and French germ samples to produce tons of biological weapons in the 1980's.





South African 'Smart Gun' :.

If this is the future of firearms, you should be stockpiling baseball bats, pitchforks, large kitchen knives, rocks, etc. I could say more, but I won't. Draw your own conclusions as to where you think this is heading:

The IFA, as it�s known, uses a biometric sensor located just above the handgrip to activate its firing capability. The sensor is encoded with the thumbprint of an authorised user (or users): unless it recognises the imprint, it remains inoperative. As Van Zyl says, an unauthorised person could use it to clobber someone over the head, but that�s about it.

�This is the first firearm to enter the electronics age in terms of authorised use. It could be used for personal protection, or in a responsible peacekeeping role. There is a real need for a gun like this.�

In conjunction with the biometric sensor, the electronic chip located in the gun�s pistol grip will be encoded with a range of additional information regarding the user�s personal details, including fingerprints, identity number, and licence status (that is, whether the firearm is for personal protection, hunting, police or military use).

The device is designed to empower a country�s authorities with absolute control over the gun�s life history, says Van Zyl. When the firearm is issued, it can be �loaded� with one or more authorised users� details. This data is stored in a fixed memory that cannot be changed. And it records each and every shot fired by the IFA.




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