Sunday, October 09, 2005

Weather War? With the power of hurricanes & earthquakes...

New evidence suggests US & Russia are embroiled in an illegal race to harness the power of hurricanes & earthquakes


The Daily Express (U.K.) October 8, 2005 - The huge mushroom cloud soared skywards, the captain was gripped by fear, believing his plane was about to be engulfed by the fall-out from a nuclear explosion. After declaring mayday and ordering his crew to don oxygen masks, the experienced pilot had the presence of mind to record that the cloud measured an estimated 200 miles in diameter and was tipped by an eerie light, like nothing he had seen before. Eventually, it soared harmlessly into the atmosphere, leaving the passenger jet to continue safely on its journey from Anchorage, in Alaska, to Tokyo.

But far below, a fleet of fishing boats trawling the sea between Japan and the Soviet Union was drenched by a violent but short-lived downpour before the weather suddenly cleared. Nuclear tests and volcanic activity were later ruled out but scientists concluded that this was not a natural phenomenon. More than two decades later suspicion still exists that the stunned airline crew and fishermen in 1973 were witnessing a sinister Cold War experiment, in which water from the Sea of Japan was blown into the air to create clouds and rain.

British government papers, just released by the National Archives, show that throughout the Seventies there was deep mistrust between the two superpowers over environmental warfare. The documents reveal that both the US, which led the field, and the Soviet Union had secret military programmes with the goal of controlling the world's climate. "By the year 2025 the United States will own the weather, " one scientist is said to have boasted.

UNITED NATIONS TREATY?

Since then, a United Nations treaty has been signed which bans environmental warfare, such as causing earthquakes, melting the polar ice caps and altering climate. But some experts believe that clandestine work to create the ultimate weapon of mass destruction continues.

These claims are dismissed by sceptics as wild conspiracy theories and the stuff of James Bond movies but there is growing evidence that the boundaries between science fiction and fact are becoming increasingly blurred. The Americans now admit that they invested L12million over five years during the Vietnam war on "cloud seeding" - deliberately creating heavy rainfall to wash away enemy crops and destroy supply routes on the Ho Chi Minh trail, in an operation codenamed Project Popeye.

It is claimed that rainfall was increased by a third in targeted areas, making the weather-manipulation weapon a success. At the time, government officials said the region was prone to heavy rain.

However this sort of rain-making experiment was nothing new. In Britain, it has been alleged that before the devastating Lynmouth floods in Devon in 1952, the RAF had been conducting secret rain-making tests. Aircraft showered clouds with silver iodide, on which water droplets formed, became heavy and eventually fell to the ground as rain. In the next 12 hours nine inches of rain fell - 250 times the normal amount for August - and 35 people were killed.

Former North Devon MP Tony Speller, then a 22-year-old soldier who helped in the relief effort, sought answers from the MoD.

"I have no doubt they were seeding in the area because there were RAF log books to prove it, " he says now. "Of course the MoD denied any knowledge but that is not to say it did not happen."

SPELLER, NOW 76, ADDS: "I DOUBT WE WILL EVER KNOW THE TRUTH."

Early work on climate control was crude and unpredictable but it is claimed that both the Americans and Russians continued to experiment behind closed doors even after the UN ban in the mid-Eighties, and both now possess sophisticated systems which are capable of controlling the weather - with potentially devastating results.

In the US, the technology was developed under the high-frequency active auroral research programme ( HAARP) - originally part of Ronald Reagan's controversial Star Wars defence system. Based in Gokoma, Alaska, the weapon operates by beaming powerful radio waves into the upper atmosphere to alter weather patterns. Some experts claim the system is already up and running, while others say it won't be ready for another 20 years.

MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA IN CANADA, WHO HAS STUDIED OFFICIAL MILITARY DOCUMENTS ABOUT HAARP, IS IN NO DOUBT THAT THE WEAPON IS READY.

[FPF - HAARP etc. Url.: http://bellaciao.org/fr/article.php3?id_article=18603]

"There are very clear statements by the US Air Force to the effect that weather modification technology is available. HAARP will be fully operational by next year and could be used in actual military situations, " he says.

"TO CLAIM THIS SYSTEM HAS ANY NONMILITARY PURPOSES IS TWISTING THE TRUTH.

"I don't think there are any peaceful applications - it is a weapon of mass destruction, capable of major climatic disturbance. Part of the beauty is that the enemy might never know that a weapon had been used. I believe the UN agreement is certainly being violated."

He claims that at least one British firm has been involved in its development.

"It is time people began focusing on these weapons instead of concentrating solely on global warming, " Chossudovsky adds. "Both are a serious threat."

The Russians are thought to have their own "weather steering" system, called Woodpecker, involving the transmission of low-frequency waves which are capable of disrupting the atmosphere and altering the path of the jet stream. It is claimed that a prolonged drought in California in the Eighties was caused by the blocking of warm, moist air for many weeks.

According to Damian Wilson, a physicist with the Met Office, controlling climate is a reality but not a precise science. "Clearing fog by dropping dry ice into clouds is a proven technique which has been around for decades, " he says.

"Large amounts of research have been invested in seeding clouds to generate rain and it is done in countries where there are water shortages. The problem is that it is unpredictable and you need clouds to start with. The technology does not exist to make rain fall from clear blue skies so it cannot be used in the desert to end droughts and famines."

WILSON believes it is possible to alter the course of a hurricane, which could have enormous life-saving potential. The current mayhem in the Caribbean and America's Eastern seaboard also shows what a destructive weapon a well-targeted storm could prove.

The Americans used cloud seeding to try to control a hurricane in 1947 but the tactic backfired when it picked up strength and hit Savannah, Georgia.

It is known that the US carried out further hurricane-manipulation experiments between 1962 and 1983, under the codename Project Stormfury, after it was calculated that a single hurricane contained as much energy as all the world's power stations combined. More recent projects have involved pouring tens of thousands of gallons of vegetable oil on to the sea.

"Hurricanes gather their strength from the warm sea surface, " says Wilson. "By spreading a large film of oil on the sea it would reduce the intensity by cooling the surface. In theory it is possible to change the path of the hurricane this way. It would not surprise me if military research into controlling the weather goes on. As we suffer more summer droughts in the south-east of England I would also expect to see pressure for cloud seeding to be introduced in this country."

IT IS NOT JUST THE WEATHER THAT HAS ATTRACTED THE ATTENTION OF THE MILITARY.

Scientists have also researched ways of triggering earthquakes. By setting off small quakes, pressure could be released and a disaster averted. But military scientists believe it is also possible to direct powerful energy beams into vulnerable fault zones, causing the Earth's plates to shift, creating a massive earthquake. Along fault lines beneath the oceans, the same technology could be used to launch devastating tsunamis.

Part of the problem in banning experiments involves agreeing a definition of what environmental warfare is. It has been argued that the famous Dambusters mission during the Second World War, when bouncing bombs were used to flood the German industrial heartland, were a form of environmental warfare.

HALF A CENTURY LATER, THE THREAT IS STILL BEING TAKEN SUFFICIENTLY SERIOUSLY.

Former US defence secretary William Cohen warns: "Terrorists are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts."

Owen Greene, director of research at Bradford University's Department of Peace Studies, believes efforts are continuing in secret to develop weapons that harness nature.

"There is so much money within the Pentagon that it would surprise me if they were not looking into it, " he says. "I suspect it is going on in both the US and Russia. You can't stop people researching the weather. As for earthquakes, you don't even need to spend money on active military programmes because there is so much other work going on which could easily be adapted. Some of the ideas are quite credible."

ANOTHER DEFENCE SOURCE SAYS: "THE RISK IS THAT BY FOOLING AROUND WITH NATURE, WE MAY UNLEASH IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE AND CHANGE OUR ENTIRE PLANET'S ATMOSPHERE."

DESPITE THESE STARK WARNINGS, SUCH IS THE IMMENSE POWER OF NATURE, IT SEEMS INEVITABLE THAT MAN WILL CONTINUE TO PLAY GOD.

[enditem]

The Daily Express (U.K.) - Url.: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=THE20051008&articleId=1061

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

MAIN$TREAM MEDIA MAKE MORONS!

* *The Dutch author this far has worked abroad for international media for more than 4 decades, as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism.

* The Nuremberg principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/byurp

* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC: video & text-interview of the United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* The leaked 'Downing Street Memos' expose the criminal lies by war criminals like Bush, Blair, Berlusconi(It.) Balkenende(NL) - their collaborating media and other malignant ilk - Url.:http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

* MSNBC - Poll: Ninety-four (94) percent believes that George Bush and the neocon media mislead the nation to go to war with Iraq - Url.: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8248969/

* American car magnate Henry Ford investigated 85 years ago the global problem - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2xz35

* Never trust the BBC - (Broadcasting Blair's Crap) - nor all their war propaganda - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6td3d

* Are their Corporate News Media Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

* Brainwashed? - Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave, or not - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc

* Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/22p6c -

* Wayne Madsen: ''What has Israel to do with 9/11?'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bj754 - 'American neocons' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b5vsb

* A good start: Former PM Wim Kok, and other Dutch Govt's war criminals in Court - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

* Help all the troops of whatever nationality to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE PAID FOR BY TAXES - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

* The World Can't Wait! - Drive out the neocons and their 'Bush Regime' - Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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Open Letter to Amnesty International on the Iraqi Constitution

The following letter was composed by members of the Brussels Tribunal , one of the groups from the World Tribunal on Iraq. For those interested in international law and the upcoming referendum vote on the Iraqi constitution, this is a must read:

We would like to congratulate Amnesty International on its courageous stand against the massive human rights violations inflicted upon the people of Iraq by the US-led occupation forces, as stated in the Amnesty International annual report of 2005.

"Armed groups committed gross human rights abuses, including targeting civilians, hostage-taking and killing hostages. Women continued to be harassed and threatened amid the mounting daily violence. The death penalty was reinstated in August by the new interim government.”

The recommendations made by Amnesty International's chief Mr. Schulz in the aftermath of this report were very clear:

"If the US government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior US officials involved in the torture scandal," said Schulz, who added that violations of the torture convention, which has been ratified by the United States and some 138 other countries, can be prosecuted in any jurisdiction.”

On August 9, 2005, Amnesty International launched a “Call for a human rights based constitution”. This action alert calls on people to write to Jaafari, asking him to make sure that the constitution is one that respects human rights. Of course, we embrace the idea that Iraqi’s human rights will be much better protected in the future than they are today.

Nevertheless, everyone who cares about human rights should question the validity of a constitution that is written under the current situation. A call we received from a well-know human rights activist from Baghdad, who has strong reservations against Amnesty International’s action alert, should illustrate our concern. For security reasons we can’t reveal the author’s name. We apologize for this, but in our opinion, people in a war zone should still have the right and opportunity to speak out without risking death. It also shows how grievous the situation in Iraq is, and how far the so-called ‘Salvador option’, the state-directed terror against the population, is now in action.

“I hear Amnesty International is campaigning for Human Rights in the new Iraqi draft constitution? How wonderful that they are concerned about our human rights in the future... but what about now? Why doesn’t Amnesty International campaign or at least say something about the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis who are held for months, years in the American prisons, without the least rights? The known and the unknown prisons inside and outside Iraq?

Why don’t they do something about the hundreds of Iraqis, whose bodies are found every day on the garbage piles, with evidences of horrible torture on their bodies after they had been disappeared for a few days? What about the miserable life the Iraqi government is giving the Iraqis for months now, in every field? Does Amnesty International consider the rewriting of the constitution now a legal process? Obviously it does, but on what bases?

The war and occupation of Iraq are illegal (even Kofi Annan said it). Who wrote the draft? A member of the writing committee admitted that a draft was sent from the US. So, how far is this legal?

I would like to ask Amnesty International one question: why is it so necessary to write a new constitution for Iraq now? All the political parties, the government, the National Assembly, the media ..etc are preoccupied with the (controversial points) in the constitution for months now, and will be for the next few months. Meanwhile, the country is full of problems: the security, the services, the economy, the environment, the corruption, the Human Rights conduct of the Iraqi government... to mention only few ..two days ago I went to a dentist compound, one of the biggest in Baghdad, where at least 50 dentists work. They could not pull out my tooth because they did not have anesthetic...a very common problem in the Iraqi hospitals for months. Too bad for my teeth, but imagine with emergency cases?

In Tallafar families did not get the food ration, neither any other food since the beginning of this year. In many Iraqi towns, the majority, there is no authority, no law, no police, no courts, only the armed militias and their political parties. Racial cleansing has begun in many parts of Iraq. The government in the heavily fortified Green Zone is very busy working on the constitution.

During the last attack on Haditha, for more than two weeks, all the news programs, the dialogue, the forums were focused on the constitution and in the meantime an Iraqi major city was practically slaughtered.

No one said a word about it as if it was happening on the moon. Do you think that this is just a coincidence?

And, by the way, it happened and is happening continuously in other places.

WHY IS IT SO URGENT?

There are so many problems in Iraq now, so many crimes committed daily, where innocent people are killed, arrested, tortured…

Why is it so important to neglect all these crimes and be busy with the constitution? Why is it so urgent?

Saddam did not write the Iraqi constitution, and if there were some changes or resolutions added to it during the last 30 years, they can be cancelled, simple. We can keep our constitution until we have a proper government and national assembly. After we are done with the most urgent problems, we can take our time writing the most humanitarian and progressive constitution in the world!

Maybe more dangerous is the fact that rewriting the constitution now is deepening the divisions between the Iraqis and pushing them to the verge of civil war, because some of them were given guarantees to participate in the political process, which they refused in the beginning, and after they agreed, the guarantees proved to be untrue.

Now these groups are saying that they were deceived, and they reject the draft presented to the National Assembly. All these problems are for what? Just to help Bush look more successful in Iraq, to give him more diplomatic credit?

TO HOLD THE ELECTION, THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WERE KILLED AND THE ENTIRE CITY OF FALLUJAH WAS DEMOLISHED. NOW, WHAT IS NEEDED TO IMPOSE A CONSTITUTION? A CIVIL WAR ?

FPF-Falluja - Url.: http://www.apfn.net/Messageboard/11-11-04/discussion.cgi.53.html

The full version of the conclusions of the Jury of Conscience can be read at - Url.: http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=91.

These crimes have been and are committed by the occupying forces, the US forces in particular, who are controlling the country of Iraq until now, and by the Iraqi institutions that were established under US supervision.

Wasn’t it the present US government, which threatened to invade the Netherlands in case one of the members of the US government would be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court of The Hague?

[end quote - Full Open Letter text at the link below.]

FPF - The so called "Hague Invasion Act" - Url.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hague_Invasion_Act

PLEASE READ THE FULL VERSION OF THE LETTER WHICH EASILY CAN BE FOUND HERE - URL.: HTTP://WWW.URUKNET.INFO/?P=M16537&L=X&SIZE=1&HD=0

The Illegality Of Iraq’s Constitution - by Dahr Jamail - Url.: http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-jamail081005.htm

FPF - The 'New' constitution in Iraq is Illegal - Url.: http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=15022&s2=25

FPF - The infamous US 'Lie Factory' - http://tinyurl.com/8ncal

FPF - Reference guide to the Geneva Conventions - Url.: http://www.genevaconventions.org

More writing, commentary, photography, pictures and images at - Url.: http://dahrjamailiraq.com

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

MAIN$TREAM MEDIA MAKE MORONS!

* *The Dutch author this far has worked abroad for international media for more than 4 decades, as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism.

* The Nuremberg principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/byurp

* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC: video & text-interview of the United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* MSNBC - Poll: Ninety-four (94) percent believes that George Bush and the neocon media mislead the nation to go to war with Iraq - Url.: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8248969/

* The leaked 'Downing Street Memos' - Url.: http://www.downingstreetmemo.com - expose the criminal lies by war criminals like Bush, Blair, Berlusconi(It.) Balkenende(NL) - their collaborating media and other malignant ilk - Url.: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/Intl_Jew_full_version/ijtoc_.htm

* Help all the troops of whatever nationality to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE PAID FOR BY TAXES - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

* The World Can't Wait! - Drive out the neocons and their 'Bush Regime' - Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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British and American leaders likened to Nazi war criminals

Good news: Even in a mainstream paper like 'The Telegraph' in England reality begins to dawn:

British and American leaders likened to Nazi war criminals

By Andrew Sparrow, Political Correspondent - Telegraph - UK*

London - 08/10/2005 - Tony Blair and George Bush were compared to Nazi war criminals yesterday by Scott Ritter, the former UN chief weapons inspector.

"Both these men could be pulled up as war criminals for engaging in actions that we condemned Germany in 1946 for doing," he said.

He said the Prime Minister and the US President were "guilty of the crime of planning and committing aggressive warfare". Speaking in London at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Mr Ritter said the two leaders would have been in a much stronger position if they had got a UN resolution explicitly authorising the invasion.

He also said Britain gained very little from the "special relationship". "Britain gets nothing, other than to say they are America's closest ally in Europe," he said.

Mr Ritter, who was a UN weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998, said intelligence services had been correct to say that Iraq's missile programme had been destroyed soon after the first Gulf conflict of 1991.

He recalled how he delivered a report in 1992 stating that the programme had been eliminated. It was met with "stony silence" and he was told that Iraq still possessed 200 missiles.

The inspectors returned to track down the weapons, which never materialised.

[enditem] - Telegraph/UK - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9tor5

FWD. - IN AGREEMENT WITH RITTER - BY:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC: video & text-interview of the United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* The leaked 'Downing Street Memos' expose the criminal lies by war criminals like Bush, Blair, Berlusconi(It.) Balkenende(NL) - their collaborating media and other malignant ilk - Url.: http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

* American millionaire and car magnate Henry Ford: The reason why - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2xz35

* Never trust the neocons which are degrading the BBC - Broadcasting Blair's Crap - nor all their warmongering propaganda - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6td3d

* Are their Corporate News Media Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

* Brainwashed? Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave or not - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc

* Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/22p6c

* Wayne Madsen: What has Israel to do with 9/11? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bj754 - 'American' neocons - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b5vsb

* When will it be Bush and Blair's turn? - Former PM Wim Kok, and other Dutch Govt's War criminals in Court - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

* Help all the troops of whatever nationality to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE PAID FOR BY TAXES - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managing ilk - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

The World Can't Wait! - Drive out the neocons and their 'Bush Regime' - Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

MAIN$TREAM MEDIA MAKE MORONS!

-0-

Weather War? With the power of hurricanes & earthquakes...

New evidence suggests US & Russia are embroiled in an illegal race to harness the power of hurricanes & earthquakes


The Daily Express (U.K.) October 8, 2005 - The huge mushroom cloud soared skywards, the captain was gripped by fear, believing his plane was about to be engulfed by the fall-out from a nuclear explosion. After declaring mayday and ordering his crew to don oxygen masks, the experienced pilot had the presence of mind to record that the cloud measured an estimated 200 miles in diameter and was tipped by an eerie light, like nothing he had seen before. Eventually, it soared harmlessly into the atmosphere, leaving the passenger jet to continue safely on its journey from Anchorage, in Alaska, to Tokyo.

But far below, a fleet of fishing boats trawling the sea between Japan and the Soviet Union was drenched by a violent but short-lived downpour before the weather suddenly cleared. Nuclear tests and volcanic activity were later ruled out but scientists concluded that this was not a natural phenomenon. More than two decades later suspicion still exists that the stunned airline crew and fishermen in 1973 were witnessing a sinister Cold War experiment, in which water from the Sea of Japan was blown into the air to create clouds and rain.

British government papers, just released by the National Archives, show that throughout the Seventies there was deep mistrust between the two superpowers over environmental warfare. The documents reveal that both the US, which led the field, and the Soviet Union had secret military programmes with the goal of controlling the world's climate. "By the year 2025 the United States will own the weather, " one scientist is said to have boasted.

UNITED NATIONS TREATY?

Since then, a United Nations treaty has been signed which bans environmental warfare, such as causing earthquakes, melting the polar ice caps and altering climate. But some experts believe that clandestine work to create the ultimate weapon of mass destruction continues.

These claims are dismissed by sceptics as wild conspiracy theories and the stuff of James Bond movies but there is growing evidence that the boundaries between science fiction and fact are becoming increasingly blurred. The Americans now admit that they invested L12million over five years during the Vietnam war on "cloud seeding" - deliberately creating heavy rainfall to wash away enemy crops and destroy supply routes on the Ho Chi Minh trail, in an operation codenamed Project Popeye.

It is claimed that rainfall was increased by a third in targeted areas, making the weather-manipulation weapon a success. At the time, government officials said the region was prone to heavy rain.

However this sort of rain-making experiment was nothing new. In Britain, it has been alleged that before the devastating Lynmouth floods in Devon in 1952, the RAF had been conducting secret rain-making tests. Aircraft showered clouds with silver iodide, on which water droplets formed, became heavy and eventually fell to the ground as rain. In the next 12 hours nine inches of rain fell - 250 times the normal amount for August - and 35 people were killed.

Former North Devon MP Tony Speller, then a 22-year-old soldier who helped in the relief effort, sought answers from the MoD.

"I have no doubt they were seeding in the area because there were RAF log books to prove it, " he says now. "Of course the MoD denied any knowledge but that is not to say it did not happen."

SPELLER, NOW 76, ADDS: "I DOUBT WE WILL EVER KNOW THE TRUTH."

Early work on climate control was crude and unpredictable but it is claimed that both the Americans and Russians continued to experiment behind closed doors even after the UN ban in the mid-Eighties, and both now possess sophisticated systems which are capable of controlling the weather - with potentially devastating results.

In the US, the technology was developed under the high-frequency active auroral research programme ( HAARP) - originally part of Ronald Reagan's controversial Star Wars defence system. Based in Gokoma, Alaska, the weapon operates by beaming powerful radio waves into the upper atmosphere to alter weather patterns. Some experts claim the system is already up and running, while others say it won't be ready for another 20 years.

MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA IN CANADA, WHO HAS STUDIED OFFICIAL MILITARY DOCUMENTS ABOUT HAARP, IS IN NO DOUBT THAT THE WEAPON IS READY.

[FPF - HAARP etc. Url.: http://bellaciao.org/fr/article.php3?id_article=18603]

"There are very clear statements by the US Air Force to the effect that weather modification technology is available. HAARP will be fully operational by next year and could be used in actual military situations, " he says.

"TO CLAIM THIS SYSTEM HAS ANY NONMILITARY PURPOSES IS TWISTING THE TRUTH.

"I don't think there are any peaceful applications - it is a weapon of mass destruction, capable of major climatic disturbance. Part of the beauty is that the enemy might never know that a weapon had been used. I believe the UN agreement is certainly being violated."

He claims that at least one British firm has been involved in its development.

"It is time people began focusing on these weapons instead of concentrating solely on global warming, " Chossudovsky adds. "Both are a serious threat."

The Russians are thought to have their own "weather steering" system, called Woodpecker, involving the transmission of low-frequency waves which are capable of disrupting the atmosphere and altering the path of the jet stream. It is claimed that a prolonged drought in California in the Eighties was caused by the blocking of warm, moist air for many weeks.

According to Damian Wilson, a physicist with the Met Office, controlling climate is a reality but not a precise science. "Clearing fog by dropping dry ice into clouds is a proven technique which has been around for decades, " he says.

"Large amounts of research have been invested in seeding clouds to generate rain and it is done in countries where there are water shortages. The problem is that it is unpredictable and you need clouds to start with. The technology does not exist to make rain fall from clear blue skies so it cannot be used in the desert to end droughts and famines."

WILSON believes it is possible to alter the course of a hurricane, which could have enormous life-saving potential. The current mayhem in the Caribbean and America's Eastern seaboard also shows what a destructive weapon a well-targeted storm could prove.

The Americans used cloud seeding to try to control a hurricane in 1947 but the tactic backfired when it picked up strength and hit Savannah, Georgia.

It is known that the US carried out further hurricane-manipulation experiments between 1962 and 1983, under the codename Project Stormfury, after it was calculated that a single hurricane contained as much energy as all the world's power stations combined. More recent projects have involved pouring tens of thousands of gallons of vegetable oil on to the sea.

"Hurricanes gather their strength from the warm sea surface, " says Wilson. "By spreading a large film of oil on the sea it would reduce the intensity by cooling the surface. In theory it is possible to change the path of the hurricane this way. It would not surprise me if military research into controlling the weather goes on. As we suffer more summer droughts in the south-east of England I would also expect to see pressure for cloud seeding to be introduced in this country."

IT IS NOT JUST THE WEATHER THAT HAS ATTRACTED THE ATTENTION OF THE MILITARY.

Scientists have also researched ways of triggering earthquakes. By setting off small quakes, pressure could be released and a disaster averted. But military scientists believe it is also possible to direct powerful energy beams into vulnerable fault zones, causing the Earth's plates to shift, creating a massive earthquake. Along fault lines beneath the oceans, the same technology could be used to launch devastating tsunamis.

Part of the problem in banning experiments involves agreeing a definition of what environmental warfare is. It has been argued that the famous Dambusters mission during the Second World War, when bouncing bombs were used to flood the German industrial heartland, were a form of environmental warfare.

HALF A CENTURY LATER, THE THREAT IS STILL BEING TAKEN SUFFICIENTLY SERIOUSLY.

Former US defence secretary William Cohen warns: "Terrorists are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts."

Owen Greene, director of research at Bradford University's Department of Peace Studies, believes efforts are continuing in secret to develop weapons that harness nature.

"There is so much money within the Pentagon that it would surprise me if they were not looking into it, " he says. "I suspect it is going on in both the US and Russia. You can't stop people researching the weather. As for earthquakes, you don't even need to spend money on active military programmes because there is so much other work going on which could easily be adapted. Some of the ideas are quite credible."

ANOTHER DEFENCE SOURCE SAYS: "THE RISK IS THAT BY FOOLING AROUND WITH NATURE, WE MAY UNLEASH IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE AND CHANGE OUR ENTIRE PLANET'S ATMOSPHERE."

DESPITE THESE STARK WARNINGS, SUCH IS THE IMMENSE POWER OF NATURE, IT SEEMS INEVITABLE THAT MAN WILL CONTINUE TO PLAY GOD.

[enditem]

The Daily Express (U.K.) - Url.: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=THE20051008&articleId=1061

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Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
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MAIN$TREAM MEDIA MAKE MORONS!

* *The Dutch author this far has worked abroad for international media for more than 4 decades, as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism.

* The Nuremberg principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/byurp

* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC: video & text-interview of the United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* The leaked 'Downing Street Memos' expose the criminal lies by war criminals like Bush, Blair, Berlusconi(It.) Balkenende(NL) - their collaborating media and other malignant ilk - Url.:http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

* MSNBC - Poll: Ninety-four (94) percent believes that George Bush and the neocon media mislead the nation to go to war with Iraq - Url.: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8248969/

* American car magnate Henry Ford investigated 85 years ago the global problem - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2xz35

* Never trust the BBC - (Broadcasting Blair's Crap) - nor all their war propaganda - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6td3d

* Are their Corporate News Media Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

* Brainwashed? - Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave, or not - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc

* Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/22p6c -

* Wayne Madsen: ''What has Israel to do with 9/11?'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bj754 - 'American neocons' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b5vsb

* A good start: Former PM Wim Kok, and other Dutch Govt's war criminals in Court - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

* Help all the troops of whatever nationality to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE PAID FOR BY TAXES - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

* The World Can't Wait! - Drive out the neocons and their 'Bush Regime' - Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

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