The U.N. inspectors suspect an aircraft may have been converted for chemical weapons use. On the BBC world edition.

From CNN--Iraqi newspaers are saying that the U.S. and Britain are using the weapons inspections as a pretext to start war.

Don't miss Maureen Dowd today on Henry Kissinger in He's Ba-a-ack!

Via Atrios, the Washingon Post Sunday has an article on enemy combatants and the lesser treatment accorded them by the Bush Administration:

"The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects -- U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike -- may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say."

"The elements of this new system are already familiar from President Bush's orders and his aides' policy statements and legal briefs: indefinite military detention for those designated "enemy combatants," liberal use of "material witness" warrants, counterintelligence-style wiretaps and searches led by law enforcement officials and, for noncitizens, trial by military commissions or deportation after strictly closed hearings. Only now, however, is it becoming clear how these elements could ultimately interact."

How so? Take this example:

"The administration, with approval of the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, could order a clandestine search of a U.S. citizen's home and, based on the information gathered, secretly declare the citizen an enemy combatant, to be held indefinitely at a U.S. military base. Courts would have very limited authority to second-guess the detention, to the extent that they were aware of it."

Here's two problems with Bush's system: When the Government gets a secret FISA warrant, the subject of the search or wiretap doesn't get a chance to have a federal court review the application for the warrant. And when the Government declares someone an enemy combatant, the Bush plan doesn't allow judicial review of the decision.

We think this is a deplorable stretch of the powers of the Executive branch of Government. In electing Bush as the chief executive, we seem to also have voted to change our name. Why not just reprint the stationary now: The United States of George W. Bush. Our motto has changed as well: By the President, For the President and Against the People.

Who elected this man? Oh, we forgot, no one.

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"Kenyan authorities have released a Western couple who were being questioned in connection with the bombing of a resort hotel in Mombasa. Alicia Kalhammer, an American citizen, and her Spanish husband, Jose Tena, were released on Saturday after nearly two days in police custody. "

Check out the picture of the smiling couple -- they look incredibly good emerging from two days of custodial interrogation in Kenya.

In New York, a NYPD officer was suspended for refusing to arrest a homeless man.

"Amid growing complaints that the New York Police Department is singling out homeless people in anti-crime sweeps, police officials have suspended an officer who refused orders to lock up a homeless man sleeping in a private Manhattan garage. Officer Eduardo Delacruz was taken off the force for 30 days after telling superiors he would not participate in the arrest of Stephen Neil, 44. The man had refused a police request to immediately move on or report to a shelter."

It's Sunday just past dawn in Shanghai. We're off for our morning walk -- today we are starting at the historical Peace Hotel on the Bund , a few blocks from our new and shiny hotel.

"For decades, the Bund has been the center of Shanghai in economy and finance. A number of tall buildings stand alongside the Huangpu River like a multinational architectural show. Among them, Peace Hotel, with its Characteristic of the green pyramid, enjoys a glamorous attraction of the passers-by. The Peace Hotel faces the developing Pudong new area and soaring Orient Pearl TV Tower over the Huangpu River, and next to the Nanjing Road Shopping Area."

From the Shanghai website:

"Shanghai, the largest city in China, attracts people at home and abroad like a magnet. People come here for its culture, its history, its people and all the vigor and vitality it shows in its rush to international metropolis status. Like a pearl set in the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, Shanghai is the showcase of China's fast growth and a bonanza of tourist attractions, business opportunities and cultural activities..."

We'll be back sporadically throughout the day. We'll try to take some photos to upload. Looks like there will be some sun today. By the way, we love visiting at this time of year--the temperature is in the high 50's, cool and breezy but never cold. Light jacket (not sweatshirt or coat) weather.

Check out Bill Keller's op-ed in the New York Times Saturday, Reefer Madness:

"We interrupt our coverage of the war on terrorism to check in with that other permanent conflict against a stateless enemy, the war on drugs. To judge by the glee at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the drug warriors have just accomplished the moral equivalent of routing the Taliban --helping to halt a relentless jihad against the nation's drug laws."

Another lengthy, insightful article by investigative journalist Jim Dywer on the Central Park Jogger case in Sunday's New York Times: New Light on Jogger's Rape Calls Evidence Into Question.

The new evidence, of course, refers to new DNA testing excluding the five convicted youths, the confession by Reyes and a new review of the taped confessions.

One interesting facet of this article is that it goes throught the confessions and actions of each of the youths individually, for example, whose parents were there, whose weren't, and whether the parents were there for part or all of the interrogations. It also reviews the youths' lawyers attempts to have evidence of low IQ's introduced at trial.

Towards the end:

"Over the last decade, DNA testing has cleared 27 people nationwide who were convicted of crimes based on some form of confession, according to records kept by the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School. In another category, Prof. Steven Drizzen at Northwestern University School of Law, and Prof. Richard Leo, at the University of California at Irvine have identified 130 people who falsely confessed but were cleared before trial."

"Many people close to the case feel that the legal verdict is bound to be overturned in the coming days. If Mr. Reyes's statements and the recent DNA tests do not exonerate the original five defendants, they qualify as "newly discovered evidence" for which verdicts may be vacated under the New York State penal code."

We wonder how much clout former DA Linda Fairstein, widely reported to want the job for DA when Morgantheu retires, still has. If it's a lot, it's unlikely there will be a lot of fault directed at her for (what we believe is) mishandling the investigation. See our prior posts on this here.

"French human rights groups yesterday condemned the decision on Wednesday by Germany and France to hand over to the US evidence for the trial of alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, arguing that it could be used to support his execution."

"Mr Moussaoui's French lawyer, Francois Roux, also rejected the two governments' official argument that the evidence provided to the US would not be used to help condemn Mr Moussaoui to death. "France has just reintroduced the death penalty by proxy," he told a news conference in Montpellier, southern France. "This time it won't be the guillotine but the electric chair."

Here are some of the top stories in Asia. You can read them at the South China Morning Post, but since a premium subscription is necessary, we will highlight for you:

The Aids epidemic sweeping through China will drag 20 million people into absolute poverty and cost the country 770 billion yuan (HK$726 billion) by 2010, mainland experts have warned. "Unless China faces and tackles the problem seriously, the disease will resuly in an economic and medical disaster."

Thousands of patients are missing from Hong Kong's public hospital wards. Nine have been found dead. The Government assumes most simply walked away and didn't say anything.

A woman barbecued her arm and had to have it amputated. She brought a portable barbecue into her bedroom for heat, and fell asleep with her arm draped over it. Authorites suspected she was drunk or drugged, since she claimed not to feel anything until she woke up in the morning. She denied it.

Relationship problems? The latest sign of social turmoil in China is the increase in the number of people who use rat poison to kill their loved ones or business partners. Sociologists attribute the increase to "the abscence of strong social values, rendering people more likely to act on selfish desires." Lacing food with rat poison to resolve personal conflicts "reflects a serious social problem related to a society in transition."

There has been a lot of coverage of the Kenya hotel attacks. Also, there is a lot of attention paid to an alleged regional terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiah. Planned attacks by the group, "forced the closure of the Canadian, Australian and European Union embassies in the Philippines. "

On CNN television, the news much of the day included a feature about America. It was a story about Angola prison in Lousiana, where it is cowboy and rodeo day. 10,000 people came out to view the festivities. The inmates here are mostly doing time for murder. The tradition has been ongoing for 38 years and not once has an inmate tried to escape on Rodeo day.

From Working for Change ActForChange : Act Now

"Send an email to President Bush and ask him to renounce and take all action necessary to terminate the new Defense Department "Total Information Awareness" program that would provide government officials with the ability to snoop into all aspects of our private lives without a search warrant or proof of criminal wrongdoing."

The site sends the e-mail for you and through the ACLU, explains the danger the plan poses to civil liberties.

Ted Rall on the TIA (Total Information Awareness Program - TOTALLY IDIOTIC AMERICANS:

"Since most of the data the TIA analyzes relates to loyal American citizens, Total Information Awareness creates the potential for abuse of governmental power on an unprecedented scale. Because it won't track the most likely future terrorists--people who live in, for example, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia--it's a waste of money that furthers the illusion that our government is protecting us. Since Sept. 11, George W. Bush has asked us to trade our precious freedoms for a little security. The TIA forces Americans to sacrifice privacy for nothing. "