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The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Until now, the Bush administration had signaled that it intended to scale back American involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan. It had planned to transfer a large majority of the prisoners to Afghan custody, in an American-financed, high-security prison outside Kabul to be guarded by Afghan soldiers.

But American officials now concede that the new Afghan-run prison cannot absorb all the Afghans now detained by the United States, much less the waves of new prisoners from the escalating fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

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In the days after our hypothetical terror attack, events might play out like this: With the population gripped by fear and anger, authorities undertake unprecedented actions in the name of public safety. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security begin actively scrutinizing people who—for a tremendously broad set of reasons—have been flagged in Main Core as potential domestic threats. Some of these individuals might receive a letter or a phone call, others a request to register with local authorities. Still others might hear a knock on the door and find police or armed soldiers outside. In some instances, the authorities might just ask a few questions. Other suspects might be arrested and escorted to federal holding facilities, where they could be detained without counsel until the state of emergency is no longer in effect.

…

The following information seems to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database. [See: Next Major Security Threat: Disaffected Americans Using the Internet]

Main Core also allegedly draws on four smaller databases that, in turn, cull from federal, state, and local “intelligence” reports; print and broadcast media; financial records; “commercial databases”; and unidentified “private sector entities.” Additional information comes from a database known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, which generates watch lists from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for use by airlines, law enforcement, and border posts. According to the Washington Post, the Terrorist Identities list has quadrupled in size between 2003 and 2007 to include about 435,000 names. The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center border crossing list, which listed 755,000 persons as of fall 2007, grows by 200,000 names a year. A former NSA officer tells Radar that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, using an electronic-funds transfer surveillance program, also contributes data to Main Core, as does a Pentagon program that was created in 2002 to monitor anti-war protestors and environmental activists such as Greenpeace.

If previous FEMA and FBI lists are any indication, the Main Core database includes dissidents and activists of various stripes, political and tax protestors, lawyers and professors, publishers and journalists, gun owners, illegal aliens, foreign nationals, and a great many other harmless, average people.

A veteran CIA intelligence analyst who maintains active high-level clearances and serves as an advisor to the Department of Defense in the field of emerging technology tells Radar that during the 2004 hospital room drama, James Comey expressed concern over how this secret database was being used “to accumulate otherwise private data on non-targeted U.S. citizens for use at a future time.” Though not specifically familiar with the name Main Core, he adds, “What was being requested of Comey for legal approval was exactly what a Main Core story would be.” A source regularly briefed by people inside the intelligence community adds: “Comey had discovered that President Bush had authorized NSA to use a highly classified and compartmentalized Continuity of Government database on Americans in computerized searches of its domestic intercepts. [Comey] had concluded that the use of that ‘Main Core’ database compromised the legality of the overall NSA domestic surveillance project.”

An excavator accidentally pierced the pipeline, creating a lake of petrol that ignited into a huge fireball which engulfed a local school, cars and shoppers in the Lagos suburb of Ijegun around midday on Thursday. The inferno raged through the night.

Some witnesses said about 50 people were killed on the spot by the explosion and the flames were so thick that no one could get close to help survivors.

Red Cross official Sule Mekudi told AFP that about 100 people were believed to have died in all. There was no confirmation of the toll however from police or other authorities and some local residents said it could be lower.

The blast erupted near a school and the area was littered with shoes and bags belonging to pupils.

Chinedu Eze, 19, was writing an exam in the Ijegun Comprehensive Junior High School when the explosion erupted. He told how local residents broke down the wall in front of the school to help pupils escape the fire.

Local people threw sand and water at the giant flames in a bid to help firefighters extinguish the blaze which sent a huge cloud of black smoke into the sky.

Firefighters concentrated their efforts on preventing the fire from reaching a petrol filling station, which was surrounded by a muddy pond of water.

“Operation Terminal Stinger” is scheduled for June 6 and 7 at the facility near Latrobe. The exercise is required by the Federal Aviation Administration and will feature a scenario in which a terrorist cell will down an aircraft with a shoulder-fired missile.

The drill will involve various equipment and about 150 volunteers from more than 40 local, county, state and federal aviation, emergency response and law enforcement agencies. It is being coordinated by the Westmoreland County Department of Public Safety and the Region 13 Task Force.

“Due to the high visibility of the training exercise, we are asking that the public be informed and aware that any activities or events they may witness on or around the airport on those dates are purely stated dramatizations, not real emergencies,” said Dwayne Pickels, Westmoreland County Airport Authority spokesman.

Pickels also stressed that the airport will remain open and all terminal and flight operations will continue throughout the exercise.

The exercise will begin with a media event to be held at 4 p.m. June 6. Drill exercises will begin at 7:30 a.m. June 7.

On Tuesday, the first vessel – from the southern city of Tarragona – arrived in Barcelona’s port, where firemen discharged the ship’s 20 tanks into a pipeline linked to the city’s water distribution network. The next day, Barcelona residents were drinking Tarragona water from their taps.

The measure is designed to stave off a water crisis that has been building for some time and has reduced Barcelona’s reservoirs to 20 percent of their capacity.

“For the past four years, we’ve had a shortage of rain,” says Narcis Prat, a water expert at the University of Barcelona. “Now we have a shortage of water. Without significant rain, we only have enough to last until December.”

Professor Prat points out that the population of Spain’s second-largest city has grown by more than 1.5 million in the past 15 years, stretching limited resources further. That means the citizens’ “excellent” conservation habits aren’t enough, says Barcelona’s mayor, Jordi Hereu.

“The area of Barcelona is exemplary in its consumption,” he says. “But we’re talking about 5.5 million people…. And all of them have a right to water.”

The water boats are the most immediate solution, which will allow the city to forgo rationing over the summer. Ten ships will bring an estimated 2.6 cubic hectometers of water to the city each month for the next six months. Most of it will be bought from Tarragona and Marseilles, though some will also come from a desalination plant in southern Spain.

The city has entertained other ideas, too. Some have been discarded, such as importing water by train (too expensive) or diverting it from the Rhone (too lengthy a process).

Other measures, such as recycling water, are still in the works, though none offers a perfect solution. Newly dug wells have angered local farmers, who argue that they salinate native aquifers. A desalination plant, slated for completion in 2009, which will convert Barcelona’s seawater to fresh, has provoked the ire of environmentalists and raised concerns about other resources.

“Desalination plants require a lot of energy to run,” says Joan Armengol, professor of ecology at the University of Barcelona. “And just as we have a shortage of water, we have a shortage of energy in Spain.”

No measure has been more controversial than a pipeline to divert water from the Ebro River to Barcelona. In addition to concerns about compromising other areas’ water supplies, it has provoked charges of political favoritism, since the Socialist federal government approved the pipeline for Barcelona, which is also controlled by Socialists, but overturned plans for a similar pipeline to Valencia and Murcia, two thirsty areas run by the opposition Popular Party.

The debate over the pipeline, which should be completed in October, has become so fierce that it’s been dubbed the “water wars.”

But even cooler heads see problems with it. “What we need is something that isn’t just one-way. What we need is a whole network that guarantees supply … so that water can circulate throughout the region,” says Professor Armengol.

Local officials and the regional water authority argue that the multiple efforts will guarantee supplies in both the short and long term.

“We’re exploring all preventive options so that we can guarantee water supplies now and in the future,” says mayor Hereu. “Water is a fundamental right, and the government has to protect it.”

But some critics worry that the government is missing the most effective solution.

“In California, where they have a lot of experience with water shortages, a city like Los Angeles can negotiate for water with a place like the Imperial Valley that has greater supply. They create a water bank,” says Prat. “Here, we don’t have these global solutions.

President Bush, who is meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah during a flying one-day visit, wants the Saudi’s to turn on the oil tap in to help the ailing US economy, where consumers and companies alike are being hampered by the surge in crude.
Oil: crude has hit a record $127 a barrel as President Bush visits Saudi Arabia

In New York, light sweet crude oil for June delivery touched a new record of $127.82 a barrel in early trading, before settling to trade up $3.27 at $127.39. Across the Atlantic in London, Brent crude was $3.29 higher at $125.92 a barrel.

Those determined to be in the country illegally will be taken to detention centers away from the hurricane’s path and later processed for deportation.

“It’s business as usual at the checkpoints,” said Dan Doty, spokesman for CBP’s Rio Grande Valley sector. “We’ll still check everybody.”