Eideard

Israel has been gripped by a guessing game over the identity of a mysterious prisoner being held in such secrecy that even his guards do not know his name.

The elusive “Mr X” is being held for unspecified crimes and confined in total seclusion within a private wing of the maximum-security Ayalon prison.

No one knew of his existence until the shroud of secrecy was briefly lifted after a story appeared on the website of Israel’s leading Hebrew-language newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

Quoting unidentified officials within the Israeli penitentiary service, it disclosed that Mr X was being held in Unit 15, a wing of Ayalon prison that contains a single cell.

He is not though to receive any visitors and his wing is cut off from the rest of the prison by double iron doors. So hermetic are the conditions in which he is held that other prisoners can neither see nor hear him.

“He is simply a person without a name and without an identity who has been placed in total and utter isolation from the outside world,” a prison official was quoted as saying.

Within hours, the story had vanished from the newspaper’s website, allegedly after Israel’s domestic intelligence service won a gagging order banning all media coverage of the case…

But one Israeli security expert said that the secrecy suggested espionage rather than terrorism is likely to lie at the heart of the mystery.

In 1983, Marcus Klingberg, a leading Israeli scientist, was jailed for 20 years for passing secrets about the country’s biological warfare programme to the Soviets. But it was only after he had been in prison for a decade that Israelis heard for the first time about Klingberg’s existence, arrest and conviction.

Always heartwarming to learn of the standards developed by our loyal allies in the War on Terror. Even as our own government is perfectly capable of adopting every aspect of fascist megalomaniac rule.

Fellow freedom-fighters.

The “boss” over at the Big Blog does this kind of post a couple times a month. Coming from a background in journalism, he’s incensed when news sources offer diametrically-opposed headlines about exactly the same story. Here’s todays example of what I’m talking about:

From the New York TIMES, a pretty straight up headline. That’s it up top:

Daylife/Getty Images

The volume of toxic chemicals that were released into the environment or sent for disposal in 2007 dropped 5 percent compared with 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. But concealed within the overall numbers was good and bad news.

For example, the volume of released or disposed “persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals,” substances like lead, dioxin, mercury and PCBs, was up slightly, the agency said. Most of those releases were not to air or water, the agency said, meaning that the material was mostly buried in landfills, injected into deep wells or held in impoundments.

The number given for PCBs was up by 40 percent, but “it’s good news,” said Michael P. Flynn, acting deputy assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Information.

The E.P.A. banned production of PCBs 30 years ago, so pounds counted now, Mr. Flynn said, represent electrical transformers or other equipment being taken out of service and PCBs disposed of in qualified facilities…

Mr. Flynn said that over the last few years, “the overall direction is a decreasing amount of releases.” Pollution prevention, reductions in chemical use, and some industrial companies’ going out of business all contributed, he said.

Now, the dorks at AP headline: EPA reports uptick in some toxic chemicals in 2007

You get the idea. My background is in insurgent politics – so, I expect these clowns to lie and cheat on behalf of the political interests of their publishers every chance they get. They’re owned by reactionary dragons. what do you expect?