Indian Doctor Charged in British Case

LONDON - An Indian doctor arrested the same day his brother allegedly drove a Jeep into Glasgow's main airport was charged Saturday with a terrorism offense in Britain. A distant cousin in Australia was also charged in the failed attacks in London and Glasgow.

Sabeel Ahmed, of Liverpool, became the third person to face charges in the alleged plot. He was charged with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism, police said in a statement. Ahmed appears in court in London on Monday.

In a sign of the heightened tension across the country, police said Saturday they had closed at least 14 Tesco supermarkets across Britain following a series of threats. However, they said the incidents were not believed to be related to terrorism.

Police in Hertfordshire, where Britain's largest supermarket has its headquarters, said the decision was "a precaution for public safety." Tesco said police were investigating a number of incidents, but declined to comment further.

Ahmed, 26, was arrested June 30 in Liverpool, and is the brother of Kafeel Ahmed, who is believed to have set himself ablaze after crashing into the airport and is in a Scottish hospital with critical burns.

Muhammad Haneef, 27, a distant cousin who once shared a house with the brothers in Britain, was charged Saturday in Brisbane, Australia, with supporting a terrorist group. Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor, was charged last week by British police with conspiring to set off explosions.

Australian police charged Haneef with providing support to the bomb plot by giving his SIM card to Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed when he left Britain for Australia in July 2006. Haneef faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.

Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock told Network Ten that the case would most likely be tried in Australia and that Haneef would not be extradited in the meantime.

Haneef was arrested July 2 while trying to leave the eastern city of Brisbane for India on a one-way ticket. Prosecutor Clive Porritt said Haneef would have known about the Ahmed brothers' alleged links to terrorism.

"These are people who he lived with, may have worked with, and certainly associated with," Porritt told the Brisbane Magistrates Court during a daylong bail hearing.

But defense lawyer Stephen Keim said Haneef only left the SIM card with Sabeel Ahmed so his cousin could take advantage of a special deal on his mobile phone plan.

"For some reason, he should have been aware that something was going to happen when the rest of the world didn't," Keim said. "It is not suggested that he is anything other than a foolish dupe who should have been more suspicious."

Two cars packed with gas cylinders and nails were discovered on June 29 in central London. The next day, the flaming Jeep Cherokee, loaded with gas canisters and gasoline, smashed into security barriers at the main terminal at Glasgow airport.

Eight people have been detained in connection with the incidents. One of the eight, the only woman, was freed by British police on Thursday.

A Jordanian doctor is being held for questioning about the failed car bomb attacks and on Saturday, a British judge gave police until at least July 21 to continue that questioning. In addition to Kafeel Ahmed, the suspect who is hospitalized, two others remain in custody without charge.

Dr. Mohammed Asha, a 26-year-old Jordanian, was detained on a northern England highway on June 30. His wife, Marwa Asha, was arrested on the same date and released Thursday without charge. Under British terrorism laws, police can hold him for a maximum of 28 days without charging him - subject to regular court reviews.

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Associated Press writers Dennis Passa, in Brisbane, Australia, and D'arcy Doran in London contributed to this report.

Singing the early voting blues

I cast my general election ballot this past Monday, along withthe few dozen good people of Florida able to find electronic votingmachines that weren't spitting out the Daily Double results fromHialeah.

The biggest differences I see between me and the Floridians isthat I know how to fill out a ballot and I'm reasonably certain JebBush won't keep my vote from being counted. Plus, I'm rarelytroubled by hurricanes, shark attacks or sightings of KatherineHarris' silhouette against the moon as she takes her broom out for aspin. (With Congress in recess, she's avail-

able for Halloween parties.)

Of all the states giving early voting a try, it makes the mostsense in Florida. Everybody down there already eats dinner at 3:30,so why not give them an early bird voting special, too?

Pundits keep warning that

early voters will be out of luck if late-breaking events changetheir candidate preferences. And it's true. In fact, if a few morestates go for early voting, Republicans will have to start pullingSeptember surprises.

The worst thing about voting early by mail: I mistakenly stayedup all night watching for election returns. On the plus side, aftermaking three easy payments I will be the proud owner of a devicethat promises to cook a perfect pancake every time.

The best fringe benefit of voting early: I no longer have

to pay attention to what Wolf Blitzer's saying about the campaignon CNN, which allows me to become mesmerized by his lustrous beard.

Voting two weeks before Election Day also gave me time to reflecton how easy we have it in Washington. The biggest problem we facedwas picking single-party ballots in the primaries. But check outthese voting roadblocks thrown up by political hacks in otherstates:

That lamest of lame ducks, outgoing Palm Beach County, Fla.,elections supervisor Theresa LePore, followed up 2000's infamousbutterfly ballot with a "broken arrow" design this year. It requiresabsentee voters to select candidates by drawing a line between twohalves of, yes, a broken arrow. I guess filling in a bubble next toa candidate's name didn't seem avant-garde enough.

In Ohio, the secretary of state recently ordered counties to tossvoter registrations on paper lighter than 80-pound card stock. Hebacked away from the edict after public outcry, but not beforethousands of would-be voters had their registrations mulched. "Therecould be chaos on Election Day, and at the very least there is goingto be inconsistencies," Scott Britton, executive director of theLeague of Women Voters of Ohio, told the Columbus Dispatch. Whichleads me to offer Scott two tips: brush up on your subject-verbagreement rules, and consider how odd it is that you're a duderunning a League of Women Voters chapter.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, Broward County mailed absenteeballots that require 83 cents postage to return. But they went outwith envelopes calling for only 60 cents worth of stamps. Why didofficials do such an idiotic thing? "We already had the envelopes,so we decided to use them," a deputy elections supervisor told theMiami Herald. As the Herald's Dave Barry would say, I'm not makingthat up.

That last story included a Postal Service official's assurancethat all absentee ballots will be delivered in every stateregardless of the postage affixed. So I didn't even have to put astamp on my envelope? If only I hadn't voted so early...

Sennett's weekly take on the nation's alternative press airs onSpokane Public Radio. Hard 7 covers the culture of local politicsand the politics of local culture. Contact Frank at (509) 459-5288or altsourceradio@yahoo.com.

Singing the early voting blues

I cast my general election ballot this past Monday, along withthe few dozen good people of Florida able to find electronic votingmachines that weren't spitting out the Daily Double results fromHialeah.

The biggest differences I see between me and the Floridians isthat I know how to fill out a ballot and I'm reasonably certain JebBush won't keep my vote from being counted. Plus, I'm rarelytroubled by hurricanes, shark attacks or sightings of KatherineHarris' silhouette against the moon as she takes her broom out for aspin. (With Congress in recess, she's avail-

able for Halloween parties.)

Of all the states giving early voting a try, it makes the mostsense in Florida. Everybody down there already eats dinner at 3:30,so why not give them an early bird voting special, too?

Pundits keep warning that

early voters will be out of luck if late-breaking events changetheir candidate preferences. And it's true. In fact, if a few morestates go for early voting, Republicans will have to start pullingSeptember surprises.

The worst thing about voting early by mail: I mistakenly stayedup all night watching for election returns. On the plus side, aftermaking three easy payments I will be the proud owner of a devicethat promises to cook a perfect pancake every time.

The best fringe benefit of voting early: I no longer have

to pay attention to what Wolf Blitzer's saying about the campaignon CNN, which allows me to become mesmerized by his lustrous beard.

Voting two weeks before Election Day also gave me time to reflecton how easy we have it in Washington. The biggest problem we facedwas picking single-party ballots in the primaries. But check outthese voting roadblocks thrown up by political hacks in otherstates:

That lamest of lame ducks, outgoing Palm Beach County, Fla.,elections supervisor Theresa LePore, followed up 2000's infamousbutterfly ballot with a "broken arrow" design this year. It requiresabsentee voters to select candidates by drawing a line between twohalves of, yes, a broken arrow. I guess filling in a bubble next toa candidate's name didn't seem avant-garde enough.

In Ohio, the secretary of state recently ordered counties to tossvoter registrations on paper lighter than 80-pound card stock. Hebacked away from the edict after public outcry, but not beforethousands of would-be voters had their registrations mulched. "Therecould be chaos on Election Day, and at the very least there is goingto be inconsistencies," Scott Britton, executive director of theLeague of Women Voters of Ohio, told the Columbus Dispatch. Whichleads me to offer Scott two tips: brush up on your subject-verbagreement rules, and consider how odd it is that you're a duderunning a League of Women Voters chapter.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, Broward County mailed absenteeballots that require 83 cents postage to return. But they went outwith envelopes calling for only 60 cents worth of stamps. Why didofficials do such an idiotic thing? "We already had the envelopes,so we decided to use them," a deputy elections supervisor told theMiami Herald. As the Herald's Dave Barry would say, I'm not makingthat up.

That last story included a Postal Service official's assurancethat all absentee ballots will be delivered in every stateregardless of the postage affixed. So I didn't even have to put astamp on my envelope? If only I hadn't voted so early...

Sennett's weekly take on the nation's alternative press airs onSpokane Public Radio. Hard 7 covers the culture of local politicsand the politics of local culture. Contact Frank at (509) 459-5288or altsourceradio@yahoo.com.

Egyptians rally, demand trials for police shooters

CAIRO (AP) — Thousands of Egyptians, increasingly impatient with their interim military rulers, rallied Friday in the nation's two largest cities, ringing a security building with chants of "Oh police, you are thugs" and demanding trials for police officers suspected of killing of hundreds of activists in the uprising that brought down Hosni Mubarak.

The protests in the capital of Cairo and the port city of Alexandria were billed as the "Friday of Last Warning" to the military council that took over from Mubarak and is to lead Egypt to democracy. Large crowds streamed into Cairo's Tahrir Square as the sun set, bringing relief from the day's soaring temperatures.

The Muslim …

Davis irked over $50 mil Osama reward

Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-7th) Sunday said he is perturbed over House members voting 414-0 to double the reward to $50 million for the capture of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who took credit for the 9-11 attacks. The bill is headed toward the Senate.

"I didn't vote for that..," Davis said, admitting "that's a lot of money.

"I think that efforts to capture Osama bin Laden are being intensified and the closer we get to election the more intense I believe they will become.

"There's a sense of urgency..." to capture bin Laden, he said.

Asked about some Black leaders believing that the Bush administration, including the CIA, allegedly know the location of bin Laden and are awaiting the right political time to bring him in, Davis said: "That's heavy thinking.

"I would hope that every agency of government would have the full faith and sense of integrity that the people of this country have entrusted them with," he told the Chicago Defender.

"I know there are sometimes renegades in law enforcement activity, but, I wouldn't want to believe that it would be the agency's [CIA] policy to do anything like that," he said.

"I do hope that we will find Osama and find him as quickly as possible."

Told that will help Bush's political ratings, Davis admitted that might be true, adding, "I don't think all of the president's ratings are based on peoples' perception of how he has handled the Iraqi situation.

"A great deal of it has to do with the bleak economic picture that is painted...."

Asked what if that too improves before the election, Davis said: "If it goes up, it would bode well for the president.

"But, I don't think anything will pull this president out...," he said, referring to the anti-war protesters' distrust of this administration just in Chicago alone.

"People want our troops out of Iraq and they want President Bush out of the White House."

Article copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.

Premium compost from cotton gin burr

A search for a premium compost several years ago led George Bush (not that George Bush) to develop a composting system in southern Texas using cotton gin waste (burr) as its principal feedstock. "When I became involved in composting cotton gin waste, I was actively looking for a premium product to use in my own mixes," explains Bush, owner of Bush's Best Compost. "I wasn't satisfied with rice hulls (no nutrient value), mushroom compost (highly inconsistent), and bark mulches (same as rice hulls). I learned early on from farmers that gin waste was very rich in nutrients. They all used it in their gardens."

Having been in the soils business for 16 years, in addition to owning a …

2011 NIV Bible Update Released In Digital Format For Christmas.

Zondervan, the world's leading Bible publisher, today launched the first product featuring the updated New International Version of the Bible (NIV) - a digital eBook of the bestselling NIV Bible (www.TheNIVBible.com). The digital release marks the first time that a new Bible translation has launched in a digital format prior to publication in a print format. Print products featuring the updated NIV - the world's most read modern English Bible with more than 400 million copies in print - are scheduled for release in March 2011.

"With the updated NIV complete and consumers enthusiastically awaiting its arrival, we wanted to make it available as soon as possible," said Moe Girkins, president and CEO of Zondervan. …

Sport's core is here, in gorse, bunkers, sea.(Sports)

Byline: BILL PLASCHKE

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland - The road back to our sporting soul begins on, well, a road.

A regular road, one lane, paved, black and straight, filled with footsteps and tire squeals and life.

The road was once used to haul boats between the North Sea and this tiny medieval town. It is currently used by families walking to the beach, children kicking soccer balls to school, motorists taking the scenic route.

It's called Granny Clark's Wynd, and there's nothing too special about it, with one exception.

It cuts directly across the first and 18th fairways of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

"The road is in play," explains Alan Duncan, a wrinkled and tobacco-stained caddie. "The ball hits a car, it's in play. The ball hits a person, it's in play. The ball stops on the blacktop, pull out an iron, it's in play."

And thus this week, a most splendid bit of sports history is in play, the British Open returning to golf's crooked cradle, delivering a midsummer postcard about how sport began.

Wish you were here, indeed. …