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The anti-terrorism Rapid Action Battalion said today that it had arrested four people, including a teacher and three caretakers, and was searching for the head of the charity, a British citizen known as Faisal.

The arrests came after a raid yesterday on the Green Crescent madrasa and orphanage on the remote southern island of Bhola, Lieutenant Colonel Munir Haque, an officer involved in the operation, said. The charity’s headquarters is thousands of miles away in the town of Stockport, south of Manchester.

“We found small arms ? about nine or 10 in total ? plus equipment to make small arms, about 3,000 rounds of ammunition, two walkie-talkies, two remote control devices and four sets of army uniforms,” Haque said.

“We also found enough explosives and other equipment to make several hundred grenades. We found some ordinary Islamic books, but others that are in line with extremists like Bin Laden.”

He said that there were about 11 children between the ages of seven and eight at the compound at the time of the raid, but no other adults.

Locals told the officers that the madrasa, or Islamic seminary, was a British charity financed by Faisal, who they said had lived in Britain for 25 years.

Green Crescent’s website showed that it was involved in projects in Bhola, as well as several others around Bangladesh and at least one in Pakistan.

Students in Britain and Bangladesh founded the British-registered charity in 1998, the site says.

KM Mamunur Rashid, another officer involved in the raid, said the charity had plans to build two more madrasas, although there were no details on the charity’s website.

The senior-debt rating for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America was reduced to A2 from A1, according to a statement today by Moody’s. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo had its senior-debt rating cut to A1 from Aa3.

Bank of America, which reported its first loss in 17 years in the three months ended Dec. 31, has accepted capital and guarantees from the Treasury valued at $163 billion, including aid to its units. Wells Fargo, which had its first loss since 2001 in the fourth quarter, received a $25 billion investment from the U.S. Treasury in October and sold $12.6 billion in stock to the public the following month.

“U.S. banks’ access to the equity market is shut or very limited at best,” which “increases the likelihood of a capital initiative by the U.S. government,” Moody’s said.

Bank of America stock has plunged by about two-thirds since the lender raised $10 billion selling shares for $22 each in October. It advanced 48 cents today to $7.70 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Wells Fargo rose 92 cents, or 5.9 percent, to $16.42.

Londoners are being asked to trust their instincts and report suspicious behaviour to help combat terrorist activity.

Just one piece of information could be vital in helping disrupt terrorist planning and, in turn, save lives.

This national publicity campaign across England and Wales raises awareness of the Anti-Terrorist Hotline and gives the public examples of suspicious activity and behaviour. The public are encouraged to trust their instincts and report anything confidentially to the Anti-Terrorist Hotline, where specialist officers will take their call.

This campaign utilises London specific media: radio and press, posters at tube and rail stations.
As part of the national campaign there will also be national press and national commercial radio advertising, large outdoor posters and advertising on the rears of buses. To ensure the campaign reaches minority communities, there will also be advertising in minority media press titles.

Press advertising will appear in national newspapers and on main commercial radio stations. In London, this includes the Evening Standard, Magic, Heart, Total LBC, Smooth and Capital FM.

The press ads seek to raise awareness of some of the items/activities which may be needed by, or be of use to, terrorists. It asks the public to consider whether they have seen any activity connected with them which may have made them suspicious.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, told the European Parliament that President Barack Obama’s massive stimulus package and banking bailout “will undermine the liquidity of the global financial market.”

A day after his government collapsed because of a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, Topolanek took the EU presidency on a collision course with Washington over how to deal with the global economic recession.

The blunt comments pushed other European politicians into damage control mode, with some reproaching the Czech leader for his language and others reaffirming their good diplomatic ties with the U.S.

Most European leaders say the focus should be on tighter financial regulation, while the U.S. is pushing for larger economic stimulus plans — but nobody has so far escalated the rhetoric to such strident levels.

Topolanek’s words are the strongest criticism so far from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from recent U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.

They also pave the way for a stormy summit next week in London between leaders of the Group of 20 industrialized countries.

The host of the summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, praised Obama on Tuesday for his willingness to work with Europe on reforming the global economy in the run-up to the G-20 summit.

The United States plans to spend heavily to try and lift its economy out of recession with a $787 billion economic stimulus plan of tax rebates, health and welfare benefits, as well as extra energy and infrastructure spending.

The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.

It was as if Milton’s Satan had a law degree and was establishing within the borders of the United States the architecture of hell.

I thought this was — and is — certainly one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, making the petty burglary of Watergate — which scandalized the nation — seem like playground antics. It is newsworthy too with the groundswell of support for prosecutions of Bush/Cheney crimes and recent actions such as Canadian attorneys mobilizing to arrest Bush if he visits their country.

The memos are a confession. The memos could not be clearer: This was the legal groundwork of an attempted coup. I expected massive front page headlines from the revelation that these memos exited. Almost nothing. I was shocked.

As a non-lawyer, was I completely off base in my reading of what this meant, I wondered? Was I hallucinating?

Astonished, I sought a reality check — and a formal legal read — from one of the nation’s top constitutional scholars (and most steadfast patriots), Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been at the forefront of defending the detainees and our own liberties.

Here is our conversation:

Naomi Wolf: Michael, can you explain to a layperson what the Yoo memos actually mean?’

Michael Ratner: What they mean is that your book looks moderate in respect to those issues now. This — what is in the memos — is law by fiat.

I call it “Fuhrer’s law.” What those memos lay out means the end of the system of checks and balances in this country. It means the end of the system in which the courts, legislature and executive each had a function and they could check each other.

What the memos set out is a system in which the president’s word is law, and Yoo is very clear about that: the president’s word is not only law according to these memos, but no law or constitutional right or treaty can restrict the president’s authority.

What Yoo says is that the president’s authority as commander in chief in the so-called war on terror is not bound by any law passed by Congress, any treaty, or the protections of free speech, due process and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The First, Fourth and Fifth amendments — gone.

What this actually means is that the president can order the military to operate in the U.S. and to operate without constitutional restrictions. They — the military — can pick you or me up in the U.S. for any reason and without any legal process. They would not have any restrictions on entering your house to search it, or to seize you. They can put you into a brig without any due process or going to court. (That’s the Fourth and Fifth amendments.)

Agents are checking to see if William Bennett has any enemies from his CIA days, sources said.

Deputies found Bennett’s body in a grassy area next to Riverside Parkway early on March 22. His wife, Cynthia Bennett, was found injured nearby. She was airlifted to an area hospital, where she remains in critical condition.

The couple may have been attacked by three people seen driving suspiciously in the area in a white-panel van, investigators said. The Bennetts were wearing jogging outfits.

Investigators still do not know the motive for the attack or whether it was gang-related or random. They also don’t know if the attack took place were the couple was found or if the bodies were moved to that location.

What they do know is that William Bennett was a CIA contractor until 2000.

He was involved in a mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 during the conflict with Kosovo, according to intelligence sources. Three people were killed and 20 injured in that bombing.

The CIA later took responsibility.

Early Sunday morning, deputies found William Bennett’s body in a grassy area next to Riverside Parkway in the Lansdowne area. His wife, Cynthia Bennett, was found injured nearby. She was airlifted to an area hospital in critical condition.

The couple apparently was attacked by three people in a white van, investigators said. Both were wearing jogging outfits.

Investigators still do not know the motive for the attack or whether it was gang-related or random.

“If this does turn out to be strictly random, that’s probably our worst nightmare and for people who live in this community,” Loudoun County Sheriff Stephen Simpson said.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office got a call at around 5 a.m. Sunday. When deputies arrived, they found William Bennett’s body. He had suffered severe head trauma.

Cynthia Bennett wasn’t discovered until the sun started to rise. She was in a grassy area across the street, over a fence.

“We found the blood on the fence and then we found the female laying over the fence as though she may have been injured and crawled over the fence and was out of sight of the suspects,” Simpson said.

Robert, 43, followed the device’s instructions as he headed for a friend’s house – even when it began taking him up a steep, rocky footpath.

He finally realised something was seriously wrong when his BMW hit a fence just inches from a 100ft drop.

Robert said: “I just trusted the satnav.

“It kept insisting that the path was a road even as it was getting narrower and steeper.

The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions.

“Our finding is very significant,” said analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of the US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California.

“To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device,” added the study’s co-author in a statement.

The study’s results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The city is also the site of an infamous presentation on cold fusion 20 years ago by Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons that sent shockwaves across the world.

Despite their claim to cold fusion discovery, the Fleishmann-Pons study soon fell into discredit after other researchers were unable to reproduce the results.

Scientists have been working for years to produce cold fusion reactions, a potentially cheap, limitless and environmentally-clean source of energy.

Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss’s published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.

“It fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons,” he told the Houston Chronicle.

“The whole point of fusion is, you?re bringing things of like charge together. As we all know, like things repel, and you have to overcome that repulsion somehow.”

But Steven Krivit, editor of the New Energy Times, said the study was “big” and could open a new scientific field.

The neutrons produced in the experiments “may not be caused by fusion but perhaps some new, unknown nuclear process,” added Krivit, who has monitored cold fusion studies for the past 20 years.

Investors bid for 1.63 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) of the 40-year securities, less than the 1.75 billion pounds of 4.25 percent notes slated for sale, the U.K. Debt Management Office said today in a statement from London.