Oscar-Tango | despardes.com

DEC 27: The Iraqi Defence Minister stated that Iraq would soon display footage of Iranian meddling throughout the country. Hazem Shaalan said that Iraqi security forces were able to obtain foreign satellite footage of 50 suicide vehicles entering the country from Iran.

In an interview with the Saudi daily, al-Watan, Shaalan also added that 14 of the 50 vehicles had explosives installed and were ready for suicide missions while the remainder were caught whilst they were being fitted with the explosives.

The defence chief said that the footage along with other documents and evidence of Iranian meddling would be aired on Iraqi TV stations, before Iraq's upcoming elections, as soon as Iraq�s interim-Prime Minster, Ayad Allawi, gave the final approval.

The minister apparently made the remarks in reply to recent Iranian officials� demands for further proof of their alleged meddling in Iraqi affairs.

�Diplomatic negotiations with Iran serves no purpose�, he said, adding that he believed that all diplomatic channels with Iran had been exhausted with no concrete results.

Iraqi interim-government officials have arrested a large number of Iranian agents who had been rounded up in Iraqi cities whilst planning or attempting to carry out terrorist operations. Iran�s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid-Reza Asefi, recently announced that some �1,500 Iranians were currently in Iraqi prisons�, accused of being terrorists.

Asked about his recent comments on Iran, Shaalan said that he stood by what he said and would not retract his comments until Iran fundamentally changed its behaviour. Last week Shaalan said: �We discovered that the key to terrorism is in Iran, which is the number one enemy for Iraq�. (Iran Focus)

Quake's power = million atomic bombs?

DEC 27: The Sunday quake was so powerful it made the earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional map, US geophysicists said. It may have moved small islands as much as 20 meters (66 feet), according to one expert. "That earthquake has changed the map," US Geological Survey expert Ken Hudnut told AFP.

According to another expert, the quake may have altered earth's rotation. It may have shortened the day by 3 microseconds, said gravity expert Richard Gross of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena... On premise a slab slid into core, Gross said he's done calculations 'to see what effect this (earthquake) should have had.' The result: A day shortened... 'We won't know for weeks,' said a geophysicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'So it's a guess, as of now'...

Scientists describe Sunday's devastating earthquake off the island of Sumatra as a "megathrust" -- a grade reserved for the most powerful shifts in the Earth's crust. according to geologist Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology, "Sunday was one of the biggest earthquakes in the region in the past 200 years." How powerful? By some estimates, it was equal to detonating a million atomic bombs. Sieh and other scientists said it probably jolted the planet's rotation. "It causes the planet to wobble a little bit, but it's not going to turn Earth upside down," Sieh said.

Giant quakes also rocked the area in 1797, 1833 and 1861. But they were preludes to Sunday's event.

More than 12,000 people have died in Sri Lanka, nearly 5,000 in Indonesia, and 4,000 in India. The International Red Cross has reported 23,700 deaths.

Late Monday, Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla was quoted as saying he believed the toll in the country could be as high as 25,000, that would be 20,000 more deaths than confirmed there so far and push the overall death toll to 42,000.

Sunday's massive quake of 9.0 magnitude off the Indonesian island of Sumatra's northern tip sent 500-mph waves surging across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in the deadliest known tsunami since the one caused by the 1883 volcanic eruption at Krakatoa - located off Sumatra's southern tip - which killed an estimated 36,000 people.

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The magnitude-9.0 earthquake that struck Indonesia Sunday was the world's fourth most powerful since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

1. May 22, 1960, magnitude-9.5, Chile.

2. March 28, 1964, magnitude-9.2, Prince William Sound, Alaska.

3. March 9, 1957, magnitude-9.1, Andreanof Islands, Alaska.

4. Dec. 26, 2004, magnitude-9.0, Sumatra, Indonesia.

4. Nov. 4, 1952, magnitude-9.0, Kamchatka peninsula, Soviet Union (now Russia).

6. Jan. 31, 1906, magnitude-8.8, off the coast of Ecuador.

7. Feb. 4, 1965, magnitude-8.7, Rat Islands, Alaska.

8. Aug. 15, 1950, magnitude-8.6, Tibet.

9. Feb. 3, 1923, magnitude-8.5, Kamchatka.

9. Feb. 1, 1938, magnitude-8.5, Banda Sea, Indonesia.

9. Oct. 13, 1963, magnitude-8.5, Kuril Islands

Rumsfeld's Flight 93 remark fuels conspiracy theories

DEC 27: A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

"Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists.