German police boarded a Dutch airliner Friday at Cologne-Bonn airport and seized two men suspected of terrorism who had been under surveillance for several months, the police said.

Michaela Heyer, a police spokeswoman, said that, contrary to initial reports, the airplane was not stormed by police. “The arrest was entirely unspectacular,” she said. There was “no indication” that either man was carrying explosives or weapons.

The Canadian Crown has, for the first time, successfully prosecuted a crime designated as an act of terrorism, thanks to the wide net cast by new laws.

A 20-year-old man was yesterday found to be an “eager acolyte” to more senior suspects who discussed storming Parliament, and exploding truck bombs in downtown Toronto. Despite the fact there was no evidence that he planned, or even knew about, any specific plot, he was found guilty of participating in a terrorist group.

... but it is getting some press.

This will not be the first bail out and it won’t be the last. But it is, far and away, the most expensive so far. I can see why the administration would like to see a clean and complete bill. Even congress realizes that this bill will be studied and anything in the way of earmarks or pet projects will be examined by the voters. That’s why they want to divide it up and only offer smaller amounts of money. They assume that the next payment will not be as closely watched and they will be able to ‘lard it up’. The markets at home ad abroad need to know that all the money is in place and available and can not be tampered with in the future by congress.

The $700B will not be spent or used as soon as the bill is signed. If like other bailouts, smaller amounts are spent as needed. Take a look at the Resolution Trust Company (RTC) of the savings and loan bail out. They took over failing savings and loans, sold their assets and helped other savings and loans on the edge. This was all done in the private markets and purchases and sales had to meet the ‘market test’. In the end RTC made money. The Chrysler bail out gave money to the corporation, expected repayment and the government loan required stock options that it could purchase of the corporation.

No one knows how much money is need for the Freddie / Fannie bail out. But it should use a combination of the above methods. A number of us for years had hoped it would be totally privatized. It should be packaged in smaller units and sold (or given away if needed). Stock purchases should travel with the individual package and the public should have the opportunity to invest. (Another reason that $700B needs to be committed and accessible.)

But privatization did not happen.  Instead it got larger and more governmentally run. And now congress thinks that we should allow them even more control even though management has been top heavy and horrid. You would think that after the 2006 disaster they would have realized that a mortgage company is not a great place to make social policy and that too many rules, if not enforced, leads to nepotism, bad judgement and corruption.

The first UK identity card for more than 60 years will start to be issued in November, the Government announced today.

Ms Smith, the Home Secretary, said the card, which will cost £30, will replace up to 50 paper documents. “ID cards for foreign nationals will replace old fashioned paper documents; make it easier for employers and sponsors to check entitlement to work and study and for the UK border agency to verify someone’s identity.”

I have no idea why these are so expensive and why they don’t have at least three levels of security.

In the US we have nearly one third of our meals out. Now many of these are at MacDonald’s or Starbuck’s but still it is a choice. Many or these are also at much nicer restaurants. Food in the US simply costs less. It’s part of a fairly un-regulated market system. Large chain buyers and restaurants can buy very good food with volume discounts making the decision to cook or go out even harder. These choices, like $30 blue jeans and $4 t-shirts, are one of the best measures of freedom.

And you simply have many more of these choices in a capitalist system.

Economic gloom is hitting the French where it hurts most - their tastebuds - as they rein in their eating habits to balance the monthly budget.

Alarm bells were rung this week following a report by market research company Euler Hermes, which found that about 3,000 establishments went out of business in the six months from January.

At least five Palestinians have been killed and four others injured after an explosion collapsed a tunnel running under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Israel has been pressing Egypt to close the tunnel so weapons cannot reach Hamas.

The Mumbai police have arrested five suspected members of the Indian Mujahideen. While Afzal Mutalib Usmani (32) was arrested from Uttar Pradesh, Mohammed Saddik Shaikh (31), Mohammed Arif Shaikh (38), Mohammed Zakir Shaikh (28) and Mohammed Ansar Shaikh were apprehended from their Mumbai residences on Tuesday night.

All the accused are originally from Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh. All of them have worked with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Joint Commissioner (Crime), Mumbai, Rakesh Maria told journalists.

A Toronto-area youth accused of being part of an Islamic terrorist conspiracy finds out Thursday morning whether a judge agrees with the charge.

The judge has had to decide if the plot was real and the youth a knowledgeable participant, as the Crown argues.

Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, the star witness of the money-stuffed suitcase scandal which involves Argentine and Venezuelan officials, declared in a federal court in Miami that the plane in which he flew August 2007 to Buenos Aires was carrying a second suitcase with 4.2 million US dollars besides the 800.000 which were seized by Buenos Aires Customs.

Before the court Antonini insisted that the money was not his, it belonged to the Venezuelan government oil corporation and only found out later that the suitcase was stuffed with cash.

Here.

Although I have posted on it since the original arrest.

The episode comes as the U.S. is urging Thailand to hand over Viktor Bout, an alleged Russian arms smuggler dubbed “The Merchant of Death,” on charges of conspiring to kill Americans. A U.S. agent testified in a Thai court Monday that Bout is one of the world’s biggest arms dealers.

Fundación Nueva Sociedad will sue Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the expulsion of two directors of Human Rights Watch (HRW), reported on Tuesday a Salvadorian newspaper.

“It is urgent that the IACHR as well as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the UN Human Rights Commission intervene to impede these type of acts in Latin America”, said José Francisco García, the president of Fundación

As opposed to dead and buried, where it actually belongs.

Spain’s prime minister vowed Monday to bring “ETA terrorist assassins” to justice after a soldier was killed and 11 people were wounded in a trio of bombings blamed on the Basque separatists.
“Spanish society will never yield. It will never submit to the dictates of the ETA terrorist gang,” Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said at his government headquarters.