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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS countries' satellites. "We currently have two OCS projects underway. The first is the Counter Communication System (CCS), a capability intended to disrupt satellite- based communications used by an enemy for military C3, and scheduled for 2004. The second is the Counter Surveillance Reconnaissance System (CSRS), intended to impair an enemy's ability to obtain targeting, battle damage assessment and information by denying their use of satellite imagery with reversible, non- damaging effects," Mr Teets testified. At a March 12 Air Force press briefing on "military space", the Air Force Director of Space Preparations, Major-General Judd Blaisdell, said: "We are so dominant in space that I pity a country that would come up against us." (Source: Secrecy News, from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, vol. 2003, no. 23, March 18, 2003, http://www. fas.org) CIA paid for his apartment and put him through a brief training course. The agency then helped him get to Cairo. One former US government official, who knew Saddam at the time, said that even then Saddam "was known as having no class; he was a thug, a cut-throat". The agency quickly moved into action. Noting that the Ba'ath Party was hunting down Iraq's Communists, the CIA provid- ed the submachinegun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspect- ed Communists who were then jailed, interrogated and summarily executed. Agency sources told UPI that the mass killings, presided over by Saddam Hussein, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat— literally, the Palace of the End. (Source: by Richard Sale, UPI, April 10, 2003, http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?Story ID=20030410-070214-6557r) Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), which cov- ers regimes dealing with human, animal and plant health. Some of the market access problems faced by EU exporters include: an outright ban on the import of a range of agricultural products such as fruit and vegetables; extremely long and complex risk assess- ment procedures; and extremely restrictive conditions applied to imports, even when access is finally granted. Australia's quarantine system has been challenged in the past. In 1998, following a complaint by Canada and the USA, the WTO ruled that the Australian quarantine system for salmon violated WTO rules. (Source: EU Commission release, March 31, 2003, http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/fniti/ dispute/index_en.htm, via StopWTORound@ yahoogroups.com) EARTH'S FIELDS SOON TO FLIP n recent years, the Earth's magnetic field has been behaving in ways not previously seen in the admittedly short time it has been monitored. The magnetic field not only shields us from harmful cosmic rays but also funnels charged particles shed by the Sun towards the magnetic poles, where they can produce beautiful auroral displays. But it is getting weaker. David Kerridge, of the British Geological Survey, told BBC News Online: "There is strong evidence that the field is decreasing by about five per cent per century.” Some researchers suggest that it could be the start of a geomagnetic reversal, EU CHALLENGES AUSTRALIA'S QUARANTINE RULES lhe European Union has decided to request Australia to enter into WTO formal consultations on its quarantine sys- tem for imports of agricultural products. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said: "Australia has built a quarantine system which is highly efficient at blocking the import of agricultural products into this country. We believe this system flagrantly breaches WTO rules, despite Australia's constant claims to be the only beacon of free agricultural trade." The rules which the EU considers the Australian quarantine system breaches are set out in the Agreement on Sanitary and SADDAM WAS A KEY CIA ASSET FROM THE LATE 1950s hile many have thought that Saddam Hussein first became involved with US intelligence agencies at the start of the September 1980 Iran-Iraq War, his first contacts with US officials date back to 1959 when he was part of a CIA- authorised six-man squad tasked with assassinating the then Iraqi Prime Minister, General Abd al-Karim Qasim. In July 1958, Qasim overthrew the Iraqi monarchy in what one former US diplomat described as "a horrible orgy of blood- shed". In the mid-1950s, Iraq had been quick to join the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact which was to defend the region, and whose members included Turkey, Britain, Iran and Pakistan. But the US paid little atten- tion to Qasim's bloody regime until his sudden decision to withdraw from the pact in 1959. Washington watched in marked dismay as Qasim began to buy arms from the Soviet Union and put his own domestic communists into ministry positions of "real power", according to a former senior US State Department official. The assassination was set for October 7, 1959, but it was completely botched. Qasim escaped death by hiding on the floor of his car, but Saddam, whose calf had been grazed by a fellow would-be assassin, escaped to Tikrit, thanks to CIA and Egyptian intelligence agents. Saddam then crossed into Syria and was transferred by Egyptian agents to Beirut, where the = yl a Thar 's dhe 97" succesful tery ofthe Anni-Gravity machine ft'y also abe 93 promotype we'll never see agate.” JUNE — JULY 2003 NEXUS +7 www.nexusmagazine.com