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But today it emerged that Swedish investigators are helping Polish detectives investigate the theft of the sign from Auschwitz, amid reports that the robbery was linked to a rightwing terror plot.

The wrought iron plaque reading Arbeit Macht Frei (work sets you free) which spanned the entrance at the former Nazi death camp was wrenched from the gate on 18 December, and recovered three days later, cut into three pieces, in a forest in northern Poland.

The robbery prompted Poland to declare a state of emergency, and provoked impassioned calls for the sign’s return from concentration camp survivors and the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

The five men being held in police custody in Krakow in connection with the theft have been described by Polish prosecutors as common criminals who had apparently acted for financial gain.

But according to the Swedish daily Aftonbladet, the men were contracted by a neo-Nazi group which planned to sell it on to a third party, a foreign rightwing extremist or collector of Nazi memorabilia, with the aim of using the funds to finance a string of attacks in Stockholm.

Boguslawa Marcinkowska, the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office in krakow, said: “The evidence that we have so far points to there being links with Sweden”. Polish state television TVP1 quoted official sources saying that Swedish neo-Nazis were behind the theft.

Poland’s justice minister, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, said: “The investigations have taken on a much broader dimension than we had initially thought”.

The Swedish justice ministry has confirmed that it is helping the Polish police with investigations after the state prosecutor’s office in Krakow lodged an official application asking for its help.

Separately, the Swedish security service Säpo, confirmed that it was investigating an alleged neo-Nazi plot to blow up the Riksdagen, the parliament building in Stockholm, as well as the foreign ministry and the home of the prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt. The aim of the plot, according to Säpo, was to create as much disruption as possible ahead of the 2010 parliamentary elections. It would not confirm or deny reports of a possible connection between the plot and the Auschwitz sign theft.

Polish investigators, who said from the start of the inquiry that they suspected the mastermind of the robbery operated outside Poland, would only say today that he or she “came from a European country”.

The five suspected robbers, aged between 25 and 39, all have criminal records but none is suspected of having a neo-Nazi background. They were reportedly set to receive a total of 20,000 zlotys (£4,320) to share between them for the theft. The police told the Polish press agency PAP that they believe a foreign national, possibly the person who ordered the theft, visited the former death camp prior to the robbery in order to be able to plan it in detail.

The theft was carried out without attracting the attention of nightwatchmen or being caught on CCTV cameras. But in their haste to make off with the sign, the thieves dropped the letter i from the word Frei. It was found in the snow nearby.

The wider plot has the whiff of a thriller by the late Swedish writer Larsson, not least because he was an expert on right-wing extremism, a subject which he wove into many of his books.

Larsson sought to expose neo-Nazi activity in Sweden, forming in 1995 the group Expo-foundation, following eight murders for which neo-Nazis were held responsible. For several years the scene was considered small but particularly brutal.

There are plans next month to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in which around 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, died. Blacksmiths are meanwhile working on repairing the sign, which stands as a cynical commentary on the Holocaust, in time for the event.

Concern about the safety of the Auschwitz site, which is now a memorial and museum, has prompted local authorities to promise to install more close circuit television cameras and to review its security procedures.

We do know a couple of things. Dad, back in Nigeria, ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His “banking” is a cover. Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones who planned this?

According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen were released from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known terrorist there, without trial.

Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody.

Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary.

The legislation would require most Americans to have health insurance and to prove it on their federal tax returns. Those who don’t would pay a penalty to the IRS.

That’s one of several key duties the IRS would assume under the bills that have been approved by the House of Representatives and Senate and will be merged by negotiators from both chambers.

The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.

In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications.

Police and SIS must still obtain an interception warrant naming a person or place they want to monitor but, compared to the phone taps of the past, a single warrant now covers phone, email and all internet activity.

It can even monitor a person’s location by detecting their mobile phone; all of this occurring almost instantaneously.

Police say in the year to June 2009, there were 68 interception warrant applications granted and 157 people prosecuted as a result of those interceptions.

Police association vice-president Stuart Mills said the new capabilities are required because criminals were using new technologies to communicate, and that people who weren’t committing criminal offences had little to fear.

However, civil liberties council spokesman Michael Bott said the new surveillance capabilities are part of a step-by-step erosion of civil rights in New Zealand.

Police Minister Judith Collins responded to questions from the Sunday Star-Times about the new surveillance capabilities, saying: “I support the rule of law.” In last year’s budget she approved extra police funds to subsidise companies wiring surveillance devices into their telecommunications networks.

The measures are the consequence of a law, the 2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act, which gave internet and network companies until last year to install devices allowing automated access to internet and cellphone data.

Telecom, Vodafone and TelstraClear had earlier 2005 deadlines, and new cellphone provider 2degrees installed the interception equipment before launching last year.

Official papers obtained by the Star-Times show that, despite government claims that it was done for domestic reasons, the new New Zealand spying capabilities are part of a push by United States agencies to have standardised surveillance capabilities available for their use from governments worldwide.

He said “monitoring email, internet chatting and Facebook is like the police and SIS planting bugs in every cafe and park. It would probably help solve a few crimes, but the cost is just too great”.

The 2004 New Zealand law, which mirrors laws overseas, requires the content of any communication plus “call associated data”, such as times, phone numbers, IP addresses and mobile phone locations, to be able to be copied and sent to the police, SIS or Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) at the time of transmission or “as close as practicable” to that time.

In practice, a specialist said, this means someone’s email can be “at the agency within one or two minutes of it actually being on the wires”.

When the police and SIS were pushing for the interception capability law they argued repeatedly that it would not “change or extend in any way the existing powers”.

But civil libertarians say that the invisibility of electronic surveillance reduces the opportunity to challenge it.

A technician familiar with the developments said the previous surveillance technology dated from the early 1980s when the Telecom phone system went digital. Police bugged individual phones and could request suspects’ call logs.

More recently police had taken a warrant to telcos and gone away with printed emails, but did it rarely as there were problems using the evidence in court.

“This is the first big jump from there,” said the technician.

It is perhaps impossible to determine the exact moment at which a U.S.- supported self-professed holy warrior – trained to perpetrate acts of urban terrorism and to shoot down civilian airliners – ceases to be a freedom fighter and becomes a terrorist. But a safe assumption is that it occurs when he is no longer of use to Washington. A terrorist who serves American interests is a freedom fighter; a freedom fighter who doesn’t is a terrorist.

Failure to secure alternative long-term sources of rare earth elements (REEs) would affect the manufacturing and development of low-carbon technology, which relies on the unique properties of the 17 metals to mass-produce eco-friendly innovations such as wind turbines and low-energy lightbulbs.

The company, Beef Products Inc., had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil. The trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella.

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products.

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

…

Carl S. Custer, a former U.S.D.A. microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk. Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef “pink slime” in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

One of the toughest hurdles for Beef Products was the Agricultural Marketing Service, the U.S.D.A. division that buys food for school lunches. Officials cited complaints about the odor, and wrote in a 2002 memorandum that they had “to determine if the addition of ammonia to the product is in the best interest to A.M.S. from a quality standpoint.”

“It is our contention,” the memo added, “that product should be labeled accordingly.”

Represented by Dennis R. Johnson, a top lawyer and lobbyist for the meat industry, Beef Products prevailed on the question of whether ammonia should be listed as an ingredient, arguing that the government had just decided against requiring another company to list a chemical used in treating poultry.

• To comply with 21 CFR 1250.30(a), all places where food is prepared, served, or stored must be constructed and maintained as to be clean and free from flies and other vermin. However, our investigators observed numerous live roaches, dead roaches, and other insects, as well as food, and other debris, in various locations, including the following:

• Cart wash area – Live and dead roach-like insects too numerous to count (TNTC)
• Silverware station – At least 40 live roaches as well as other insects
• The hot kitchen – At least eight dead and one live roach insects were observed in and around the walls of the hot kitchen
• Repack area – Live roaches (TNTC), as well as ants
• Pots and pans warewashing room – At least four live and dead roaches, flies
• Dish machine wash area – At least 13 dead roaches inside the machine loading area and 31 or more dead nearby the machine
• Wash area – At least four live roaches on walls and floors

• To comply with 21 CFR 1250.32(a), all food-handling operations must be accomplished so as to minimize the possibility of contaminating food, drink, or utensils. However, our investigators observed the following:

• Employees handling food with bare hands or with unwashed gloved hands

“The situation is they are losing gobs of money, up to $400 billion in mortgages,” Wallison said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Treasury Department recognized last week that losses will be more than $400 billion when it raised its limit on federal support for the two government-sponsored enterprises, he said.

The U.S. seized the two mortgage financiers in 2008 as the government struggled to prevent a meltdown of the financial system. The debt of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks grew an average of $184 billion annually from 1998 to 2008, helping fuel a bubble that drove home prices up by 107 percent between 2000 and mid-2006, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller home-price index.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the five men had committed a “serious crime” in the September 2007 shooting in Baghdad, which strained U.S.-Iraqi relations and became a symbol for many Iraqis of foreign disregard for local life.

Dabbagh said Iraq may sue the private security company, now known as Xe Services.

“The Iraqi government regrets and is disappointed by the U.S. court’s decision … We have our own investigations and they showed that Blackwater committed a serious crime in the killing of 17 Iraqi citizens,” Dabbagh said.

“The Iraqi government is considering other legal means through which it can sue the Blackwater company,” he added.

After the 2003 invasion, private guards protecting U.S. personnel enjoyed immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, but that ended with a bilateral pact that took effect in 2009.

The five guards were charged in a U.S. federal court a year ago with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count.