buckthesystem

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../21/nspy121.xml New anti-terrorism rules 'allow US to spy on British motorists' By Toby Helm and Christopher Hope Last Updated: 3:06am BST 21/04/2008 Routine journeys carried out by millions of British motorists can be monitored by authorities in the United States and other enforcement agencies across the world under anti-terrorism rules introduced discreetly by Jacqui Smith. The discovery that images of cars captured on road-side cameras, and "personal data" derived from them, including number plates, can be sent overseas, has angered MPs and civil liberties groups concerned by the increasing use of "Big Brother" surveillance tactics. Images of private cars, as well as registration numbers, could be sent outside to countries such as the USA Yesterday, politicians and civil liberties groups accused the Home Secretary of keeping the plans to export pictures secret from Parliament when she announced last year that British anti-terrorism police could access "real time" images from cameras used in the running of London's congestion charge. A statement by Miss Smith to Parliament on July 17, 2007, detailing the exemptions for police from the 1998 Data Protection Act, did not mention other changes that would permit material to be sent outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to the authorities in the US and elsewhere. Her permission to do so was hidden away in an earlier "special certificate" signed by the Home Secretary on July 4. The certificate specifically sets out the level of data that can be sent to enforcement authorities outside the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) by anti-terrorist officers from the Metropolitan Police. It says: "The certificate relates to the processing of the images taken by the camera, personal data derived from the images, including vehicle registration mark, date, time and camera location." advertisementA spokesman for Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, confirmed that the certificate had been worded so that the images of private cars, as well as registration numbers, could be sent outside to countries such as the USA. Officers from the Metropolitan Police have been given the right to view in "real time" any CCTV images from cameras that are meant to be enforcing the congestion charge. Sources said that officers would access the cameras on behalf of overseas authorities if they were informed about a terrorism threat in the UK or elsewhere. They would then share the images, which can be held for five years before being destroyed, if necessary. Last night, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "This confirms that this Government is happy to hand over potentially huge amounts of information on British citizens under the catch-all pretext of 'national security'." Civil liberties campaigners said they were appalled that images of innocent people's journeys could end up in the hands of the British police, let alone foreign investigators. They feared that it was a move towards the US-style system of "data mining" - in which powerful computers sifted millions of pieces of information as they tried to build patterns of behaviour and match them to material about suspects. Gus Hosein, who runs Privacy International, said he was making a complaint to the information commissioner having obtained a copy of the certificate. However, the Home Office defended the powers in the certificate, which was signed specifically for the purposes of counter terrorism and national security. A spokesman declined to say how many times images had been sent from London to other countries. However, he added: "We would like to reassure the public that robust controls have been put in place to control and safeguard access to, and use of, the information."

I think Pope Benedict genuinely doesn't believe that there will be an antichrist! He also believes that the doctrine of the OWG and the UN is the future and is all good.

The first story I read about this sounded like a spoof, or the script for an episode of "my name is Earle", so I looked for other versions of the story and it seems that this is real enough, and incredibly it would seem "they have issued 1292 traffic violations to speeding terrorists and illegally parked terrorists" and one sheriff's deputy has described it as "martial law training". Now I got to thinking that what with the new regulation saying that the FBI will be forcing a DNA sample out of "everyone arrested", this all sounds rather scary (I already know I'm paranoid, so please don't point out the obvious), but it would be interesting to know what other think. I have bolded the bits in the article that make it sound like a comedy or spoof. "Potential terrorists" (they are talking about non-seatbelt wearers) - I can't believe it. Maybe it is all a joke, anyone know anything that I don't? ******************************************************************************** ** http://www.wmcstations.com/Global/story.asp?S=8160677 Reported by Anna Marie Hartman Operation Sudden Impact targets terrorists Posted: April 14, 2008 03:23 PM Updated: April 18, 2008 03:20 AM More than 50 law enforcement agencies gathered in Memphis late Saturday and early Sunday to catch criminals. The purpose of the multi-agency crackdown on crime, dubbed "Operation Sudden Impact," was to expose terrorist activity in the Midsouth. The sweep resulted in the arrest of almost 80 people, 31 of which were fugitives. Now, the federal government will determine if any of the suspects have ties to terrorism. "Potential terrorists are smart people," said Chief Jeff Dyer of the U.S. Coast Guard. "They utilize every advantage that they can find." Operation Sudden Impact united 53 state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell said information gathered during the 24 hour crime fighting effort will be cross referenced with a Homeland Security terrorist database. "We have to be on constant alert on every level," Luttrell said. "At the rural areas, and the urban areas." Luttrell said agencies at every level need to communicate, because smaller crimes often lead to bigger crimes. Case in point - Sheriff's Department Patrolman Jason Kopacko pulled over a driver for improperly displaying a temporary tag. A closer look revealed the driver had no insurance and no license. Most criminals caught by the sweep did not have terrorist ties, but law enforcers said you can't be too careful. "Terrorism is an event that could happen anywhere," Luttrell said. Even in Memphis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/19/2221529.htm Countries that act unilaterally on the world stage undermine the authority of the United Nations and weaken the broad consensus needed to confront global problems, Pope Benedict said. In a major speech to the UN General Assembly, the pope also said the international community sometimes had the duty to intervene when a country could not protect its own people from "grave and sustained violations of human rights." Pope Benedict, who is on the second leg of a six-day US trip, was only the third pontiff in history to address the General Assembly. Speaking in French and English from the Assembly's green marble podium, he gave a wide-ranging address on issues such as globalisation, human rights and the environment. The international community must be "capable of responding to the demands of the human family through binding international rules," said the 81-year-old pope, who spoke after meeting privately with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He said the notion of multilateral consensus was "in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jR80fyX...5MVpbQD903M76O0 300,000 vets have mental problem, 320,000 had brain injuries By PAULINE JELINEK

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4486438a12.html Teams of university scientists backed by US government funds hope to grow new skin, ears, muscles and other body tissue for troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $US250 million ($NZ317 million) effort aims to address the Pentagon's unprecedented challenge of caring for troops returning from the war zones with multiple traumatic injuries, many of which would have been fatal years ago. "We've had just over 900 people, men, some women with amputations of some kind or another since the start of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Many have also suffered burns, spinal cord injuries and vision loss. "Getting these people up to where they are functioning and reintegrated, employed, able to help their families and be fully participating members of society, this is our task," he said. Under the initiative, the Pentagon launched the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine made up of two teams

This sort of thing seems to be rather "run of the mill" these days but I am posting it because it is yet another example of the world-wide trend towards government workers not being allowed to employ basic common sense, or the education system ensuring that they are so dumbed down that they have no common sense to employ, and don't question obviously stupid rules and are not capable of working out ways of solving problems. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770 A deaf and blind pensioner has been forced to live off her savings after she was told by Post Office staff that they won't pay her pension - because they can't recognise her signature. Joan Hopton, 81, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, has had to get by on personal savings for the last year because the Post Office will not release her pension money - which now stands at

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=57118 Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has badly stumbled in discussing the Bush administration

Received this by email today. It is interesting, but I don't know where he got it from. I just can't resist posting it. What do others think: ***************************************** BBC Caught Editing Story To Appease Global Warming Lobbyist The BBC has sensationally been caught red-handed editing a news story about global warming in order to appease a rhetorical e mail sent by an environmental activist, while it has also emerged that BBC writers are aware of the growing suspicions about apparent attempts to censor skeptics of man-made global warming. A report concerning the fact that global warming stopped in 1998 by the BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin was altered to omit the fact that such evidence is cited by skeptics as a reason to doubt the link between Co2 emissions and temperature increase, and the headline was also changed. The activist who e mailed Harrabin, Jo Abbess, also urged the BBC to censor skeptics of man-made global warming and not make reference to them, an order that was followed despite Harrabin revealing that BBC newsroom writers were aware that sidelining the skeptical side of the debate was making people suspicious. Read the full e mail exchange here. http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002906.html Harrabin initially dismisses the demand to change the article, stating, "No correction is needed. If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will decrease, that's what we will report." After being threatened with a wider propaganda offensive on behalf of other environmental activists, Harrabin still refuses to budge, and responds to Abbess' outright lie that, "Nobody is seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased global temperatures," by stating, "We can't ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of increase since 1998. It is appearing regularly now in general media." As we have tirelessly documented - a growing body of scientists and other experts are questioning the global warming orthodoxy. Tellingly, Harrabin concludes his second e mail with "People feel like debate is being censored which makes them v suspicious," underscoring the media's awareness of the fact that the climate change cult's insistence that "the debate is over" is only causing more people to question man-made global warming. Down the memory hole - the BBC changes an entire article at the behest of an environmental lobbyist. Notice the last updated time on both articles is 1:42. CLICK FOR ENLARGEMENTS. Abbess then orders the writer outright to censor global warming skeptics. "It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics," she writes, "Their voice is heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing the emergence of the truth." Abbess threatens the writer again that he will be the target of a campaign on behalf of the environmentalists, stating, "You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics." Harrabin responds, "Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more." Is it the BBC's remit, as a so-called independent and neutral news organization, to amend entire articles and headlines in order to make environmental lobbyists "happier"? Abbess' e mails contain no source references or hyperlinks to document her claims, yet they were subsequently followed to a tee as the BBC changed the article to reflect her wishes, and the sentence, "This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory," was completely scrubbed. Despite the changes, the time that the story was last updated - 01:42AM - remained the same. According to blogger Paul Biggs, the BBC headline has actually been changed three times and at one stage was: Global warming 'dips this year'. Considering the fact that British citizens are taxed on a regular basis in order to own a TV license and therefore directly fund the existence of the BBC, the notion that the BBC would acquiesce to the polemic whim of a bias environmental activist and significantly amend a report that was initially based on raw data from the World Meteorological Organization is an absolute outrage. We are encouraging people to contact the BBC via this link and demand an explanation as to why the BBC's science writers can be swayed to tailor an apparently neutral article so it appeases the demands of a highly politicized environmental lobbyist, while brazenly agreeing to censor any opposing viewpoint.

This might be "the tip of the iceberg". I wonder how many other trips to "fingerprinting countries" have been cancelled, by entertainers and the like. This particular incident has to do with UK, but it could just as easily be America. __________________________________________________________________ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-...les-807801.html Russian pianist's concert cancelled due to visa rules By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent Friday, 11 April 2008 The Barbican has been forced to cancel a concert by the Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov because of changes to visa regulations requiring non-EU citizens to provide fingerprints. Sokolov, 57, was due to perform a programme of Mozart sonatas and Chopin on 10 May at the London concert hall, followed by an appearance at Glasgow's City Hall. But the pianist will no longer travel to the UK, where he has been performing regularly for the past 18 years, because he is unwilling to disrupt his schedule to apply in person for the new biometric visa. A Russian citizen with Italian residency, Sokolov was told that, after years of someone else applying for a visa on his behalf, he would have to travel from his home in Verona to Rome to provide fingerprints. The Barbican is concerned that the changes to the visa system could deter other artists from travelling to perform in the UK. Robert Van Leer, head of music at the Barbican, said: "In the past, Grigory Sokolov has always been able to [apply for a visa] remotely. He hasn't had to go anywhere in person. We're dealing with an artist of the highest sort. He really only does two things. He practises and he goes to concerts and plays." Mr Van Leer added: "Even if we move past this individual situation, I don't see it as a tenable way of working with artists. We often have artists who are not back in their home country for weeks on end. I'm worried about how we're going to deal with these artists." Born in St Petersburg, then called Leningrad, in 1950, Sokolov studied at the Leningrad Conservatory. He came to worldwide attention after winning the 1966 International Tchaikovsky Competition although his career in the West did not start until the late 1980s. He has now developed a loyal following and is known for his wide repertoire, including the music of William Byrd, Francois Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, as well as more mainstream material by Beethoven and Chopin. A spokeswoman for the pianist said: "He's been coming for the past 18 years and he's never had a problem before. The whole process has become incredibly complicated, time-consuming and difficult. "Some artists just can't quite handle that sort of intrusion into their music. For someone like Sokolov, who languished behind the Iron Curtain for years and his career in the West started very late, having suffered at the hands of that regime, to find all this obstruction to playing in a country he's played in for 18 years is very distressing." A UK Border Agency spokesman said: "Fingerprint visas are an integral part of making sure we maintain a strong border. To date we have used fingerprints to match more than 13,000 visa applicants to UK immigration and asylum records and identified hundreds of identity fraudsters. Everybody who needs a biometric visa to enter the UK must provide fingerprints." The visa regulations are soon due to change again to a points-based system, raising more concerns over the cost of entry to the UK for classical musicians, who are often poorly paid. Atholl Swainston-Harrison of the International Artist Managers' Association, said: "Our concern is that, in the classical music world, many acts are not well-paid. With the cost of a visa, it's not going to be worth coming to the UK." Iama is campaigning for visas to be extended from one year to two to cut costs.

Well, didn't you just know that this would very soon happen, legislation "rushed through" (with politicians screaming "run for the hills, the terrorists are coming but we will lead you to safety with these laws") with "terrorism" as the excuse used to create these sorts of laws, and now look for they're used for. ____________________________________________________________________ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm Council admits spying on family A council has admitted spying on a family using laws to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were really living in a school catchment. A couple and their three children were put under surveillance without their knowledge by Poole Borough Council for more than two weeks. The council admitted using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) on six occasions in total. Three of those were for suspected fraudulent school place applications. It said two offers of school places were withdrawn as a consequence. Human rights pressure group Liberty called the spying "ridiculously disproportionate" and "intrusive". James Welch, legal director for Liberty, said: "It's one thing to use covert surveillance in operations investigating terrorism and other serious crimes, but it has come to a pretty pass when this kind of intrusive activity is used to police school catchment areas. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Liberty's Alex Gask describes the use of powers as 'ridiculous' "This is a ridiculously disproportionate use of RIPA and will undermine public trust in necessary and lawful surveillance." RIPA legislation allows councils to carry out surveillance if it suspects criminal activity. On its website, the Home Office says: "The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) legislates for using methods of surveillance and information gathering to help the prevention of crime, including terrorism." It goes on to say the act allows the interception of communications, carrying out of surveillance and the use of covert human intelligence sources. Poole council said it used the legislation to watch a family at home and in their daily movements because it wanted to know if they lived in the catchment area for a school, which they wanted their three-year-old daughter to attend. It said directed surveillance was carried out by a council officer who was fully trained and authorised to exercise RIPA powers, once it had decided it may be a criminal matter. 'Potential criminal matter' The council is keen to ensure that the information given by parents who apply for school places is true Tim Martin, Poole Borough Council Tim Martin, head of legal and democratic services at Poole Borough Council, said: "The council is committed to investigating the small minority of people who attempt to break the law and affect the quality of life for the majority of law-abiding residents in Poole. "On a small number of occasions, RIPA procedures have been used to investigate potentially fraudulent applications for school places. "In such circumstances, we have considered it appropriate to treat the matter as a potential criminal matter. "The council is keen to ensure that the information given by parents who apply for school places is true. "This protects the majority of honest parents against the small number of questionable applications. "An investigation may actually satisfy the council that the application is valid, as happened in this case."

They're talking about the OPENING CEREMONY, not the games themselves. Why are they not prepared to go as far as DOING THE JOB PROPERLY ? That would bring it home to China that their policies of human rights violations are just not acceptable and won't just be overlooked because the world is selfish and greedy and wants to indulge in the pleasure of watching sport.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4468336a4560.html A 28-year-old American woman has stabbed her husband after he rejected a plate of hotdogs she cooked for him, local police say. The husband then responded by getting a loaded .45 calibre handgun and threatening to kill his wife. Alfreda Van Bladel had cooked the plate of sausages for her husband, 32-year-old Anton, at their Orange County, Florida, home on Friday evening. But Anton refused when presented with the plate of cured sausages, slapping them out of Alfreda's hand, local media reported. That in turn caused Alfreda to stab her husband in the shoulder with a steak knife. Anton then responded by getting a loaded .45 calibre handgun and threatening to kill his wife. Police arrived shortly after and arrested both. Neither suffered any serious injuries. Both were later slapped with assault charges over the violent domestic dispute.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4470289a4560.html A mother who convinced her son he couldn't walk and kept him in a wheelchair for five years because she feared he would leave her has been jailed. The 31-year-old from Middlesbrough, UK - who cannot be named for legal reasons - was jailed for four years after a court heard she had tricked doctors into prescribing medication for the child, the Daily Mail reported. The woman had kept the boy - now 11 years old - in the wheelchair since he was three, the paper said. She had told doctors her son regularly had fits and needed medication, but her cruel ploy was discovered when the boy suffered a seizure after she gave him an accidental overdose. Paramedics called to treat the boy became suspicious after the woman attempted to hide medication she had given him, the Daily Mail said. The woman later confessed to a psychiatrist that she fabricated his condition because she feared her son would one day become independent and leave home. Judge Les Spittle, from Teeside Crown Court, said: "You robbed him (her son) of a normal childhood. "It is fortunate that he has not suffered any long-term physical disability but I don't know what the potential long-term psychological impact there will be." The court heard the fabrication began in 1999. The woman had started pushing her toddler, then three, around in a wheelchair, telling family and friends he regularly had fits and suffered painful swelling in his joints. He was referred seven times to pediatricians, but they found no explanation for his apparent illness, the paper said. Prosecutor Peter Makepeace told the court: "She succeeded in engendering in him the belief that he needed a wheelchair and that he had a condition for five and a half years. "This significantly hampered his mobility and social development. He had seven referrals to pediatricians but no abnormality was found."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4470314a4560.html An apparently healthy baby girl with two faces has been born in northern India, media reports say. The girl has been drawing crowds to the family's mud-and-brick house in a town 50km from New Delhi, Agence France Presse reported. "She's fed through one mouth and sucks her thumb with the other. We use whichever mouth is free to feed her," her father, factory worker Vinod Kumar, told AFP. Kumar admitted he was "a little scared" when he first saw his daughter, but she was a healthy baby who was eating and breathing normally, AFP said. "Whatever God has given me is acceptable. What can we do about it?" Some in the deeply conservative Hindu nation see the baby as a deity. The baby is yet to be named. Doctors said separating the two heads was not possible because the skulls were fused together, AFP said. The girl's birth occurred just a few months after Indian docotors removed the extra limbs of two-year-old Lakshmi Tatma, who was born with four arms and legs.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4442466a12.html Anti-Semitism, including government-promoted hatred toward Jews and prejudice couched as criticism of Israel, has risen globally over the last decade, the US government said. Holocaust survivors mark Krakow ghetto anniversary "Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event," the US State Department said in a report to Congress. US embassies have noted an increase in attacks on Jewish people, property, institutions, and religious facilities in the last decade, the report said. The report, titled "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism," did not give comprehensive statistics, and said that in any case such statistics were skewed against Western democratic countries more likely to report the incidents. But it said other governments and institutions had documented similar trends. For example, Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute listed 593 cases of major anti-Semitic incidents in 2006, the highest number since 2000, the report said. Of these, 277 were physical attacks on Jews; 105 synagogues were damaged. Over half the incidents took place in Western Europe. One attack in 2006 took the life of a young French Jew, Ilan Halimi. The 23-year-old was found naked, handcuffed and covered with burns near railway tracks outside Paris in February 2006, and died of his injuries soon afterward. While traditional anti-Jewish prejudice, a centuries-old phenomenon, persists, new forms have evolved, the report said. (continues - go to link)

What ever happened to Janet Reno? Is there a chance she could get back in? Did she ever face any awkward questions over her role in the Waco incident?

MARSTA, Sweden, April 4 (UPI) -- Swedish archaeologists said they have uncovered a horde of Viking-era silver coins near Arlanda airport in the country's Uppland region. The archaeologists, from the Swedish National Heritage Board, said the find -- 450 silver coins -- represents the largest collection of coins from the era found in the region during the modern age, Swedish news agency TT reported Friday. The coins are thought to date back to between A.D. 500 and A.D. 840, the archaeologists said. They said the coins, some of which came from Baghdad and Damascus, appear to have been buried around A.D. 850 near a grave that is thought to be about 1,000 years older than the coins.

KOFU, Japan (Reuters) - Call it a tale from the e-crypt or a tomb with a view. But Teruo and Miyoko Oba say there's nothing eerie about their new family grave site, equipped with a mobile phone bar code to offer connectivity long after their own bells have tolled. The family plot in this rural city near the Japan Alps boasts a high-tech, "QR" black-and-white square, linking the Oba's pictures and history to phone-carrying visitors who can enter virtually to pay their respects. Tombstone maker Ishinokoe says the QR codes, which users scan to link with everything in Japan from buses to bookings, are a new way to visit its "memorial service window" grave sites that contain more than the cremated ashes of the deceased. "We already have a patent and should get another this month, but we hope this service is not just for our customers, but the entire funeral industry," said Yoshitsugu Fukuzawa, head of Ishinokoe, which launched sales this month. In a rapidly greying nation with no shortage of last rites, the Japan External Trade Organisation calls the 1.6 trillion yen (7.9 billion pounds) funeral business a growth industry, but says consumers here are becoming more demanding. The Oba family say the new technology offers more options. "I thought the idea was great as usually the deceased don't have any input to how a grave site is arranged," said 73-year-old Teruo. "Visitors using this service can actually see the departed." His wife Miyoko, 70, says kids in particular will be connected. "It's bit of a new approach. We wanted our grandchildren to be able to use it when they visit the family site." But the e-grave site comes with a 21st century price tag of around 1 million yen, above the usual terrestrial rate. Fukuzawa says he hopes Ishinokoe's "window" service spurs on the funeral industry, while bringing families closer together. "Nowadays most memorial services are simplified to under five minutes of just burning incense and offering flowers," he said. "I hope our grave site changes that and families stay near the tomb and talk about memories of the deceased for a long time." (Editing by Hugh Lawson)

PROVO, Utah - A 96-year-old man who outlived two wives is separated from his third

But if the electrical cord was removed, the iron would be cold, so how could you iron anything properly?

Authorities are charged with the responsibility to rescue these underage girls that are being bound into marriages they don't choose when they are still children. When the young girl called for help they had to respond. What does your "We come in peace, shoot to kill!" quote mean anyway, bts???? To answer your question, my quote "we come in peace, shoot to kill" (originally from the song from the film - a spoof on Star Trek - you know "Klingons on the starboard bow etc. .....) has become a sort of "ironic catchphrase" to use in these sorts of situations. I was sort of sarcastically referring to the infrared tape that was produced during the massacre by the FBI of the Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Tx, in 1993, where you seem to see people trying to leave the Davidian building being shot at by government agents. Perhaps it is a bit early to speculate with regard to this latest "invasion" yet, but you certainly seem to have fallen for the emotionally charged "we are rescuing the children" words that were used to try and justify the assault on the Waco compound. At that time (1993) the FBI (allegedly) "came in peace" - to rescue the children, but "shot to kill" - i.e. they killed the children. Irony comes in (I think, at least) when you get a statement such as the one above from this woman who first off claims that the invasion of the premises is for a "peaceful" motive, then finishes by talking of "forcibly removing" the sect's followers. I just don't see how any "forceable removal" of anyone from their home can be described as peaceful. I think a great deal of people, including myself now, become very suspicous when we read of "the authorities" invading someone's home and trying to justify it by claiming that they are "protecting children" or "for their own good". I have no idea how this particular scenario will turn out but after a few other incidents that started in a similar way, over recent years (OK more than a decade now) I'm not willing to assume that "the authorities" are 100% right. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is cynical here.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A group of 72 Australian scuba divers has flattened the world record for ironing under water, taking the plunge off a pier near the southern city of Melbourne with ironing boards and irons, and their linen. So-called "extreme ironing" has spawned a cult following in recent years. The Web site extremeironing.com espouses it as being the "latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt." The Australian group, who pipped the previous mark of 70, are seeking entry to the Guinness book of world records after taking their linen into murky, 3-metre-deep (9.8 foot) ocean on Saturday. "It was cold and I think they were bloody crazy," local councilor Tom O'Connor, who with police helped authenticate the new record, told Reuters on Tuesday. Event organizer Debbie Azzopardi said the group eclipsed a 2005 record set in a swimming pool at nearby Geelong, which in turn beat a world mark set in New Zealand. The irons all had their electrical cords removed for the attempt, which took place in chilly pre-winter seas. "I was having a chardonnay (wine) a few years ago with a girlfriend and I thought I'm going to beat that. We had a few fish going by and a sting ray. It was great," Azzopardi said. (Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Fri Apr 4, 1:39 PM ET WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Children in a New Zealand school have been banned from bringing cakes to share on their birthdays, due to new government healthy eating guidelines. ADVERTISEMENT Pupils at Oteha Valley primary school north of Auckland have been told they are allowed to celebrate their birthdays, but the cake must stay at home, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported. The Ministry of Education has been on a fat-busting crusade, introducing sweeping guidelines against unhealthy food in New Zealand schools. Oteha Valley has a large number of pupils born in September and October, and there can be up to four cakes a week in some classes, principal Megan Bowden told the Herald. It had gotten to the point where parents thought they were required to provide a cake for their child's birthday. The school has advised parents in a newsletter to stop sending cakes to school from the next term. A Ministry of Education spokesman told the Herald the government guidelines only applied to food sold on the premises, and schools did not need to monitor food brought in from outside. (Reporting by Adrian Bathgate; Editing by Valerie Lee)

Fri Apr 4, 1:39 PM ET BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported on Thursday. Branko Zivkov, 76, told Belgrade daily Kurir he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment. Instead, he bought a grinder and cut in two all his tools, including large items such as cattle scales, a harrow and a sowing machine. "I still haven't decided how to split the cow," he told the newspaper. "She should just say what she wants -- the part with the horns or the part with the tail." (Reporting by Ljilja Cvekic, Editing by Ellie Tzortzi)