Sources: Would-be assassin linked Iran military unit to drug trade

The Texas suspect charged in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States claimed in recorded conversations that his Iranian handlers were actively involved in the drug trade and could arrange for large shipments of opium to be delivered to a Mexican drug cartel, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the probe.

Reuters

Manssor Arbabsiar, in a 1996 Nueces County, Texas, Sheriff's Office photograph.

The criminal complaint against Manssor Arbabsiar, released by Justice Department officials this week, makes no mention of alleged drug smuggling by the Iranian Qods Force,?an?elite covert arm of the Iranian military whose top officials allegedly coordinated and funded the plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, according to U.S. officials.

But two U.S. law enforcement sources told NBC News that Arbabsiar, in recorded conversations with an undercover drug informant, said in coded language that the same individuals who were orchestrating the bombing plot against the ambassador were involved in drug dealing. He told the informant that his?Iranian handlers could arrange to provide Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel, with ?multi-ton? shipments of opium, the sources said.

The major drug deal never materialized, however, and the allegations about Qods Force drug smuggling were not pursued because U.S. officials wanted to focus on the attempt to assassinate al-Jubeir on U.S. soil, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The officials said Drug Enforcement Administration director Michele Leonhart was even asked not?to appear at the press conference announcing the assassination plot charges -- a noticeable absence given that one of her agency?s informants uncovered the alleged plot. (President Barack Obama, however, later called and thanked Leonhart, said a law enforcement official.)

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Arbabsiar?s assertions about? Qods Force?drug dealing? inject another puzzling dimension into a case that has triggered a crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations. While accusing the Qods Force of? arming terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and orchestrating? attacks against American? troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials have never publicly accused the organization of involvement in international narcotics smuggling.

If these allegations are true, ?They would be a game changer,? said Douglas Farah, a national security analyst who has closely studied Qods Force activities in Latin American and frequently testified before Congress on the issue.

The Qods Force has built up a significant presence in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, where it has forged close ties with the government of anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, said Farah. The organization has also long had extremely close ties with,? and directly funded, Hezbollah -- a Mideast terror group that has long been linked to the drug trade and money laundering. But there has been no clear evidence linking the Qods Force directly to narcotics smuggling or to dealing with the Mexican cartels, said Farah.?

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in 'The Isikoff Files'

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment about the alleged drug discussions, saying the department was not prepared to discuss any aspect of the case that was not in the criminal complaint?released this week. ?This is not a drug case,? the spokesman said.?

The man behind the alleged plot, Arbabsiar, was an Iranian-American used car salesman with a long history of financial?troubles and brushes with the law, including criminal charges for? resisting arrest in 1987 and a 2001 arrest for driving without a proper license, according to a Texas law enforcement official. But he had never been accused of any narcotics charges, said the official.?

According to?the?criminal complaint released Tuesday, Arbabsiar first met in Mexico on May 24 of this year with a DEA informant who he believed was an operative of Los Zetas, one of Mexico?s most-violent drug cartels. The informant had previously been convicted of state-level drug charges, but avoided jail time and got the charges dismissed by agreeing to serve as a paid undercover informant for the DEA?s Houston field division, according to?U.S. officials.?

A U.S. law enforcement official said Arbabsiar came to meet the informant by pure happenstance: While living in Corpus Christi, he had developed a friendship with the informant?s aunt, the official said. .

According to the complaint, Arbabsiar asked the informant the first time he met him if he was knowledgeable about explosives, explaining that he was interested in attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia. The informant replied that he was familiar with C-4, a type of plastic explosives, it said.

Within a week, Arbabsiar flew overseas and returned to the U.S. in late June, holding additional meetings with the informant that were secretly tape-recorded on behalf of the government.?In one of these conversations, on July 14, the informant told Arbabsiar that he could arrange to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, but that it would take four men and cost $1.5 million. Arbabsiar agreed, leading U.S. officials to describe the scheme this week as a ?$1.5 million? plot.?(A key part of the criminal charges against Arbabsiar relates to two later wire transfers totaling $100,000 to?a New York bank.)?

It is not clear precisely when the discussions about Qods Force drug smuggling took place.? But one analyst said that such claims by Arbabsiar could fuel skepticism about some aspects of the U.S. charges.?

?This raises additional question marks about this case,? said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council and the author of an upcoming book on U.S.-Iranian relations. ?The Qods Force is associated with some other really nasty things, but not this. This doesn?t fit.?

But a senior U.S. law enforcement official disputed that analysis, saying that U.S. officials have received intelligence reports for some time indicating that Qods Forces officers have been working with Venezuelans -- including some officials in that country's?government -- who have been involved in shipping cocaine to West Africa. But so far, the official said, there has not been enough evidence to bring any criminal charges against Iranians who have been implicated.?

Source: http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/13/8308097-sources-would-be-assassin-linked-elite-iran-military-unit-to-drug-trade

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Doctors Believe Cancer Likely Killed Steve Jobs ? CBS San Francisco

Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivers the keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference June 23, 2003 in San Francisco. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

CUPERTINO (CBS / AP) ? Apple Inc. and the family of Steve Jobs were not saying Wednesday night what caused the death of the company?s founder at age 56. However, medical experts indicated that the liver transplant he underwent two years ago was probably a sign that his cancer had returned.

Jobs managed to live more than seven years with a rare form of pancreatic cancer that grows more slowly than the common kind. But his need for the liver transplant was a bad sign that his troubles with the disease probably were not over.

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The Apple founder long kept information on his illness behind a firewall, and no new details emerged immediately after his death.

However, medical experts unconnected with his care said Jobs most likely needed the transplant because his cancer came back or spread. They said his death could have been from cancer, the new liver not working, or complications from immune-suppressing medicines to prevent organ rejection.

A liver transplant can cure Jobs? type of cancer, but ?if it were to come back, it?s usually in one to two years,? said Dr. Michael Pishvaian, a gastrointestinal cancer specialist at Georgetown University?s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C.

Jobs declared he was cured after surgery in 2004 for an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, a much more treatable form of pancreatic cancer than the more common form of the disease that killed actor Patrick Swayze two years ago.

But the Apple chief never revealed whether the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes or liver, or how extensive his surgery was. Many doctors speculated he had a Whipple procedure, in which part of the pancreas, part of the small intestine and in some cases part of the stomach are removed and the digestive system is reconstructed.

?It?s a big operation? and patients can have digestive difficulties long afterward, said Dr. Steven Libutti, director of the Montefiore-Einstein Center for Cancer Care in the Bronx, New York.

Several years later, Jobs was dramatically thinner and gaunt. In January 2009, he attributed those problems to a hormone imbalance and said there was a simple treatment for it. A few weeks later, he went on a medical leave and then had a liver transplant that was kept secret for two months.

Even then, Jobs would not say why the transplant was needed, though doctors said spread of his cancer to the liver was the likely explanation.

Usually transplants aren?t done for people with cancer, but ?there is some support for the idea that a liver transplant can be curative? for a neuroendocrine tumor as long as the cancer has not spread beyond the liver, Pishvaian said.

Average survival for people with neuroendocrine tumors that have spread is seven to eight years, and some patients have survived 20 to 30 years, said Dr. Martin Heslin, cancer surgery chief at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

It was not to be for Jobs.

In January, he announced his third and final leave of absence, and resigned in August.

(Copyright 2011 CBS San Francisco. All rights reserved.)

Source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/10/05/doctors-believe-cancer-likely-killed-steve-jobs/

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Archbishop of Canterbury to visit Zimbabwe Sunday (AP)

HARARE, Zimbabwe ? Zimbabwe's top Anglican bishop says the head of the worldwide Anglican church is set to arrive Sunday as "a show of solidarity."

The visit comes amid a bitter dispute led by a breakaway Zimbabwean bishop that has split the church in the southern African nation.

Bishop Chad Gandiya, leader of the mainstream Anglican group, said Friday the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is visiting Harare to "share our pain."

The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe has been divided since breakaway Bishop Nolbert Kunonga was excommunicated for inciting violence in sermons supporting Zimbabwe's longtime President Robert Mugabe. Kunonga has taken over the main cathedral, schools and the church's bank accounts.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111007/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_anglican_church

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Take Advantage of Banner Advertising to Encourage One's ...

Another great approach that one should take in as a first option is through banner advertising, it is a way worth considering especially in endorsing businesses online and attracting potential customers to visit the website.One of the most well-liked and accepted web advertising solutions today is search engine advertising, search engine advertising is also known as ?pay per click advertising? wherein the company will only get paid if the viewer or user of the computer would click the site that they are promoting.On the other hand, an alternative option to think about is to endorse your website by making the most of internet banner advertising. First of all, it is easier, cost effective and much cheaper than you think.

A banner advertisement can be described as a simple graphic that is rectangular in shape, usually about 468 pixels by 60 pixels or 468?60. For the longest time that online businesses have been around, banner advertisements have been in use.They are effective that is why they are still here.For your business online, banner advertising is one of the most successful ways to advertise.A banner ad online can easy be found and securely purchased anytime in the internet.You can easily email them the banner along with your payment for the advertising after you shop your banner ad around to various websites that are available and you are done!

You see, advertisers who are making use of the ?pay per click? method of advertising or search engine advertising will merely incur cost as soon as the potential client clicks onto the web advertisement and really actually goes to the website.With internet banner advertising it works in precisely the same way.Depending on your industry or industry and the goods or services you aspire to promote, it may essentially be cheaper for you to opt for this type of campaign over the more traditional search engine advertising option.But keep in mind that you will still have to take in regard the costs for the banner design for your online banner advertisement, also remember that the advantages that you can get from improved brand awareness would tend to outweigh the costs.

It would really be advantageous if one makes use of a mixture of various sizes of banners for ones advertising campaign.

There are a lot of sizes of banners that a company can choose from if one way or another, the company chooses this style of advertising method.One has the luxury to choose to avail smallest sizes such as leader boards, or to the extreme sizes like sky scrapers.In addition to that, another amazing feature of this banner advertising is that the amount of text and characters that the company can display within the banner is limitless, meaning the company can put as much text as they want, unlike advertising ?pay per click? style, your words are limited to a certain number.Therefore, you are contained with only the things that you are allowed to apply, which is promote a reduced number of products or services and limits your advertising capabilities.

Using banner advertising will surely make your website look alive plus with effervescent colors and enthusiastic advertisements.Attracting new customers and building a rock-solid database of existing customers is extremely significant.

You can successfully reach your advertising potential by drawing in thousands of customers to your website, as long as you take advantage of this technique of advertising.Before saying no to what could be the turning point in your life, think about the benefits that internet advertising can provide for your business. You may be saving your time and effort once you do.It is really an intelligent move for any website owner to develop an online business with the use of banner advertising.

Robert Smith has in excess of 5 years knowledge and skills in search engine optimization and internet banner advertising, he is also the proprietor of Get On Fast, an expert internet marketing agency which is based in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.

Curious to know about ad server? If so better go through buy ads right now.

Source: http://thesignguyblog.com/take-advantage-of-banner-advertising-to-encourage-ones-business-in-the-internet/

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Three killed in Maoist attack on Philippine nickel mine (Reuters)

MANILA (Reuters) ? Hundreds of Maoist guerrillas killed three men, took hostages and torched equipment and facilities in an attack on a major nickel mine in the southern Philippines on Monday, security officials said.

Three members of the private security agency guarding the Taganito Mining Corporation (TMC) in Surigao del Norte province on the southern island of Mindanao were killed when they tried to stop the rebels, Colonel Rodrigo Diapana told reporters.

"We got reports that four people were also taken captive," he said, adding extra troops and two helicopters were sent to track down the rebel group. Later, two of the hostages were reported to have been freed.

Taganito is a unit of Nickel Asia Corp, which is partly owned by Japan's Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd.

Reynaldo Rafal, regional police chief, said there were dozens of Japanese nationals who were working in nearby mines when about 200-300 rebels, some in army uniforms, stormed the nickel project site in Claver town.

"They are all safe, they were not harmed," Rafal told reporters. The Japanese embassy in Manila later confirmed the workers were accounted for and safe.

Another group of rebels attacked the nearby Platinum Metals Group Corp also in Claver town, Surigao del Norte. Three hours later, another mine site operated by another Taganito company, Taganito HPAL Corporation, was also attacked by rebels.

Maoists have been fighting to overthrow successive governments for more than 40 years. Peace talks resumed with the current government in February after a break of six years, but further planned talks have since repeatedly been delayed.

The rebels extort money from businesses in areas they control, calling it 'revolutionary taxation', and are a major impediment to investment outside urban areas.

"These acts were a form of punishment because mine owners did not give in to the extortion demands," said Major Eugene Osias, an army spokesman, adding they expected more attacks because the rebels were desperate for funds.

INDEFINITE SUSPENSION

Nickel Asia, the Philippines' largest nickel producer, suspended operations at the mine indefinitely.

"We understand that certain equipment of TMC, as well as our affiliate, Taganito HPAL Corporation, were burned," the company told the stock exchange.

Security officials said the rebels seized three Taganito Mining Corporation officials at roadblocks and used them to get into the mining sites.

After disarming private security guards at the site, the rebels herded all the people in an open area and set fire to equipment and facilities, Rafal said.

The rebels burned trucks, digging equipment, and the TMC guesthouse. They also seized several guns from private security guards and smashed computers in the site offices.

In December 2010, Maoists threatened to step up attacks on mines in the Philippines saying they destroyed the environment, displaced indigenous people and took mineral wealth from poor Filipinos.

In June, Nickel Asia said its sales volumes were likely to increase about 20 percent this year, with most material going to China. It aimed to sell about 10 million tons of ore this year, topping 8.3 million tons last year.

(Reporting by Erik dela Cruz and Manny Mogato; Editing by John Mair and Daniel Magnowski)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111003/wl_nm/us_nickelasia_philippines

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You'll Always Have A Rewarding Career In Early Childhood Education

Finding a job you love is often more important than making a lot of money. If working with children is your calling, you have probably considered a degree in early childhood education. With a degree, there are many options available to graduates who wish to make a difference in the lives of children. As society comes to value early learning as one of the most important stages in a person?s education, educators enjoy more job opportunities and better incomes. Planning for the future should include research into how colleges online can get you closer to your goal.

Early education is defined as the formative years between birth and the age of eight. In the United States, it is usually taken to mean the years before and including kindergarten. Experts know that the growing brains of very young children require a different kind of nurturing than those of older children. In the early stages of life, children learn through play, exploration, and watching others.

Experts recognize that early education may be the most critical stage of an individual?s education. During these formative years, children learn to walk, talk, behave in social situations, and form opinions about themselves and the world. They develop motor skills and self-awareness. Often, a person?s self-esteem in later life is linked to his or her early childhood experiences.

If you are interested in majoring in this field, you are probably wondering what careers are available to you. Many degree recipients become educators, working in preschools and kindergartens, but a degree in early education does not limit graduates to classroom teaching. With further education, you could work in an administrative position as a daycare director or principle. You could also go on to become a school counselor or therapist, working with children who may have special needs, developmental disorders, or emotional problems.

There are also opportunities in developmental studies, if you are more interested in the research area of the field. Early childhood development research is a growing field, as we come to realize how little we know about the growth and functions of a child?s brain. Searching for online degrees shouldn?t require much time or energy, and it could prove to be worth the effort.

As parents and educators realize that early learning is beneficial, even crucial, to a child?s later success, this educational field is experiencing extreme growth. In addition, both parents work outside of the home in most families, increasing the need for reputable childcare. Most daycare facilities today have educational curriculum and are in need of qualified educators.

For most careers in this field, you will need a Bachelor?s degree at the least. Most educators go on to receive a Master?s degree. To work in education administration, counseling, or child psychology, you will need a Master?s or a Doctorate. Do some research in your career of interest to learn about the educational requirements.

Most people who work in early childhood education love their jobs. Teachers are some of the most important people a child will encounter in the course of his or her life, and serving the role of educator can be immensely fulfilling. If you love children and want to make a difference, look into a degree program in this field and check out eLearners.com for some advice on getting a head start.

Source: http://articlesprofessionals.com/reference-education/college/youll-always-have-a-rewarding-career-in-early-childhood-education

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Wedding Crashers

thestar.com.my:

THE looming Big Fat Indian Wedding season may lose much of its sheen thanks to gold prices touching an astronomical US$540 (RM1,620) per 10g last month in India, up by nearly double as compared to 2009.

Read the whole story: thestar.com.my

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/02/wedding-crashers_n_991486.html

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