OTTAWA - Air India warned the RCMP on June 3, 1985, that Sikh extremists planned to target the airline with suitcase bombs or suicide squads.
The warning came three weeks before Air India Flight 182 was blown out of the sky off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 aboard.
Shocking Telexes and letters about the terrorist threats were entered as exhibits yesterday at the judicial inquiry into the Air India bombing and investigation.
"Assessment of threat received from intelligence agencies reveal the likelihood of sabotage attempts being undertaken by Sikh extremists by placing time delay devices in the aircraft or registered baggage," the Air India Telex says.
"It is also learnt that Sikh extremists are planning to set up suicide squads who may attempt to blow up an aircraft by smuggling in of explosives in the registered or [carry-on] baggage or any other means."
...and what the hell is the fallout from this 20 years on? (queue cricket sounds...)
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The UK's Independent is hilarious...here's some of its reporting on the French election:
"It is a question of deciding whether Sarkozy is so dangerous that you must vote TSS - Tous Sauf Sarkozy (anyone but Sarkozy) to keep him out. Or whether you should register your milder feeling of repulsion for Mme Royal by abstaining or, better still, voting 'blank'." That is why tonight's televised debate between the remaining candidates will be pivotal - more so than similar debates in the past.
M. Sarkozy, 52, holds a lead of four to five points over Mme Royal, 53, in the opinion polls, but it is shrinking slowly. Many younger viewers, such as Thom-as and Jean-François, will be watching the debate not to judge between "Sarko" and "Sego". They will be giving Mme Royal a final chance to impress them.
Reading this stuff, you are convinced that Sarko is evil and that he will lose against the underdog Segolene. Really, though, Segolene is a part of the rich, French elite, and her knowledge of the wider world entirely suspect. She ran an amateurish campaign and is simply the candidate of the status quo.
It's true that Sarko is a bit of a nutter, for sure. But if he doesn't spit the truth in the campaign, France will take to the streets when he tries to reform everything, and it looks like this is the end of the road for the bloated state and youth parking lots they call university. Sarko was the better candidate and the candidate of change. The people of France need to bite down on the bit and take some of the "reform" medicine they have tried to force down Turkey's throat. What come around go around, kids.
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While the Canucks were miserable and lost tonight, the big red machine that is Rage Against The Machine never tastes defeat. Here they are at Coachella on Sunday night:
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