60 kids feared buried under Baghdad bomb site

A senior Iraqi official says 60 young children may still be buried under the rubble in Baghdad's most devastating bombing that has left the country mourning the death of 155 people.

"Three days after the deadly blasts, there is no information about 60 children who were in a nursery affiliated with the Ministry of Justice," said the governor of Baghdad, Abdel-Raziq, on Tuesday.

Raziq fears that the children may still be buried under the rubble, DPA reports.

Baghdad witnessed its deadliest bomb attack in two years, after a two-ton van and a minibus exploded simultaneously outside the Justice Ministry and city government offices on Sunday.

While the official statements put the overall death toll at 99, an official in the Ministry of Interior said, on the condition of anonymity, that the number of dead had reached 155. At least 600 others were also wounded in the attack.

However, there were conflicting reports about the death of the children.

According to Hussein Issa, a police official at the Ministry of Justice, only 30 children had been killed; but other officials said that the figure was minimal.

The military, meanwhile, rejected the governor's remarks that 60 children might still be buried.

In a written statement, the military said on Tuesday that "There is no truth in reports that there are bodies under the rubble of the Ministry of Justice in Baghdad."

"All the martyrs and injured have been taken to hospitals," read the statement.

The statement came soon after an al-Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the blasts, describing it "the second phase in the fight against infidels."

The same group claimed responsibility for a coordinated string of attacks that killed more than 100 people and wounded 1,200 others on August 19 in central Baghdad.

Iraqi officials also confirmed that the August and October attacks were carried out in a similar fashion.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=109764§ionid=351020201.

No respite for the hungry poor

LAHORE, 27 October 2009 (IRIN) - Razia, a widow from Lahore, looks after three daughters under 15 on a monthly income of Rs 5,000 (about US$60) earned by washing clothes, and like many others she is finding it increasingly difficult to feed her family.

Last month, during Ramadan, she could buy a subsidized 10kg sack of flour at Rs 175 ($2), but prices have now returned to their pre-Ramadan level of Rs 550 ($6.6) per 20kg bag. Other items sold at subsidized rates for Ramadan are also up, she said.

"I bought sugar at Rs 50 [60 US cents] a kilogram from government utility stores last month. Now I pay Rs 60 or more," Razia told IRIN. Like most families, sugar is an essential item for her household. "We use it for tea, and without sweet tea it is hard to get through the day," she said.

Taking note of the hardship caused by soaring sugar prices, Pakistan’s Supreme Court, has ordered sugar to be sold at Rs 40 [48 US cents] a kilogram pending a decision on the matter by a special commission.

“This is a good move by the court. It may offer some relief. Already, because flour is so expensive, we eat less,” said Nazeer Ahmed, 60, a rickshaw driver, adding: "All of us, including my three children, sometimes go to bed with just a mouthful of bread and pickles."

“Food items are costlier, so people are buying less. For example, a dozen eggs which cost around Rs 35 last year, cost Rs 60 this year,” Manzoor Abbas, a shopkeeper at a Lahore market, told IRIN.

“Alarming”

According to the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, levels of hunger in Pakistan are “alarming”.

A recent incident in Karachi is illustrative of people’s desperation: Twenty women and girls, who had gone with hundreds of others to take advantage of free flour being distributed by a shopkeeper, died in a stampede.

The government’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed prices in July and August were up 10.93 percent on the same period last year. Annual food inflation at the end of August was 10.59 percent, according to the CPI, and perishable items had gone up 17.27 percent.

Corruption?

There is also a debate about how many people benefited from subsidized food schemes during Ramadan. “Hardly 25-30 percent of the targeted population in Sindh Province was able to benefit from the cheap flour scheme, because there was a lot of corruption and mismanagement,” Muhammad Yousuf, chairman of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association in the southern province, told the media in Karachi.

“Measures to provide relief to the poor by supplying food items… free or at concessional rates, are good as responses to unforeseen disasters… [but] they cannot be recommended as a solution to permanent problems such as poverty,” said I. A. Rehman, secretary-general of the autonomous Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. New policies were needed to eradicate poverty, avoid anarchy and offer permanent solutions, he said.

Source: IRIN News.
Link: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=86598.

Shrimps' eyes may lead to new DVD players

BRISTOL, England, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- British scientists say they've found mantis shrimp can see in 12 colors -- humans see in only three -- and can distinguish various forms of polarized light.

University of Bristol researchers said the shrimp -- found on Australia's Great Barrier Reef -- have the most complex vision system known to science and could be the inspiration for the next generation of DVD and CD players.

Special light-sensitive cells in mantis shrimp eyes act as quarter-wave plates that can rotate the plane of the polarization of a light wave as it travels through it, the scientists said. That capability makes it possible for mantis shrimp to convert linearly polarized light to circularly polarized light and vice versa. Man-made quarter-wave plates perform that function in CD and DVD players and in circular polarizing filters for cameras.

However, the scientists noted, such artificial devices only tend to work well for one color of light while the natural mechanism in the mantis shrimp works nearly perfectly across the whole visible spectrum – from near-ultraviolet to infrared.

"Our work reveals for the first time the unique design and mechanism of the quarter-wave plate in the mantis shrimp's eye," said Nicholas Roberts, the lead author of the study. "It really is exceptional -- outperforming anything we humans have so far been able to create."

The research is reported in the journal in Nature Photonics.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/10/27/Shrimps-eyes-may-lead-to-new-DVD-players/UPI-71841256653121/.

Fate of oil-rich Kirkuk stalls Iraq election law

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD – A long-sought political consensus in Iraq over how to conduct crucial upcoming elections fell apart Tuesday over the thorny issue of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi lawmaker said Tuesday.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, told The Associated Press an agreement by the nation's leaders the night before over an emergency proposal to break the deadlock had fallen apart over who will control the fractious northern city split between Arabs and Kurds.

Othman said the vote over the election law would not take place Tuesday.

The proposal was agreed upon last night by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and others as the capital was reeling from the worst bombing incident in two years the day before that killed 155 people.

The bombing galvanized Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to make a push to smooth over differences in the divided government and wrap up the electoral law so that the contests could proceed on time in January.

With Iraq's public already angry over the bombing and the resurgence of violence, the politicians appeared to not want to risk further angering people by delaying the elections with their internal wrangling.

Observers, including the U.S., worry that failure to agree on the guidelines would delay the crucial vote and allow violence to spiral out of control once more in Iraq.

In oil-rich Kirkuk, which is claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkomens, the dispute focuses on whether all the people living there should be allowed to vote in the election.

During the Saddam era, tens of thousands of Kurds were displaced under a forced plan to make Kirkuk predominantly Arab. Since the 2003 invasion, many of these Kurds have returned, and other groups now claim there are more of them than before — which could sway the vote in their favor and bring Kirkuk and its oil fully under Kurdish control.

Proposals to solve the problem have included assigning the province's seats to the three groups ahead of time and dividing it into ethnic constituencies. Kurds have rejected these plans as unconstitutional.

Ahmadinejad: Israel 'threat' to all nations

The Iranian president says nations cannot be deprived of their right to peaceful nuclear energy while Israel possesses nuclear weapons.

“When an illegal regime [Israel] has atomic weapons, one can not deny the right of other nations to acquire peaceful nuclear energy,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a Tuesday meeting with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad described Israel as a 'threat to all nations', saying Tel Aviv would 'annex all the countries in the region if it had the chance'.

"Your clear stance towards the Zionist regime had a positive effect in the world, especially the Islamic world, and all nations were undoubtedly satisfied," he added.

Israel — believed to be the sole possessor of nuclear arms in the Middle East — accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons.

The Iranian president further praised Erdogan's stance on Tehran's nuclear program.

In an interview with The Guardian published on Monday, Erdogan said the West had been treating Iran unfairly over its nuclear program, describing Western allegations that Iran is building nuclear weapons as mere 'gossip'.

"Iran does not accept it is building a weapon. They are working on nuclear power for the purposes of energy only," he said.

In the Tuesday meeting with Ahmadinejad, Erdogan reiterated his support for Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, and said, “Those who claim to seek nuclear disarmament in the world should start with themselves.”

India, Russia, China to expand cooperation against terrorism - Summary

New Delhi - India, Russia and China agreed Tuesday to enhance cooperation in combating terrorism and expressed concern at the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. A joint communique issued after a meeting in Bangalore of the foreign ministers of the three countries said among the topics they discussed were the global financial crisis, climate change, increased cooperation in the energy sector and reform of international bodies, including the United Nations.

Terrorism in the region and the situation in Afghanistan figured prominently in the talks among Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna and his Chinese and Russian counterparts, Yang Jiechi and Sergei Lavrov, the joint communique said.

It was the ninth meeting between the foreign ministers of the three emerging economies, which represent 39 per cent of the global population and, according to analysts, hold the key to the world's economic recovery.

"We discussed trilateral action against terrorism and transnational crime," Krishna said at a joint press briefing after the meeting.

Lavrov stressed the need for enhanced cooperation in combating rising terrorism in Afghanistan and the common stake of the three countries in the restoration of peace and stability in the violence-torn country.

The ministers discussed at length the current global economic crisis and stressed that future global economic governance should ensure that there was due representation of emerging markets and developing economies.

Yang said there was an urgent need to create a more just and equitable international order and called for greater democracy in international relations.

A one-on-one meeting between the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers was scheduled to follow the trilateral discussions.

Beirut school campus closed over swine flu

Beirut - The middle school at a privately-run international school in Lebanon was closed on Tuesday, a week after 19 confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus, known also as swine flu. "To date we have had 32 cases of this influenza in the Beirut Middle School, 13 of whom have already recovered and returned to school," the US International College (IC) said in a statement.

The middle school would remain closed until November 1, the IC said.

On Monday, Lebanon confirmed its first swine-flu death - a 30- year-old pregnant woman who died on Saturday.

The government has stopped issuing swine flu statistics but estimates in the summer put the number of reported cases at more than 1,000.

Shutdown in Kashmir valley to protest army landing

Tuesday 27th October, 2009 (IANS)

Srinagar/Life across the Kashmir valley was affected Tuesday in a separatist-sponsored strike to protest the day in 1947 when Indian troops landed in Kashmir after the state's accession to the Indian union.

The Indian Army units organized several commemorative functions across Jammu and Kashmir to salute their soldiers and officers who had died while fighting the Pakistani raiders.

In the Kashmir Valley, shops and businesses were closed and offices reported thin attendance in observance of the strike called by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani.

In Srinagar, public transport was off the roads and only a few private vehicles could be seen as police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers patrolled the streets.

Few people reported for work at state government offices, educational institutions and banks. The situation in other towns of the valley was similar with normal life coming to a virtual standstill.

The Indian Army celebrated the day as 'Save Jammu and Kashmir Day' - to mark the landing of its troops in this Himalayan state to push back a Pakistan-backed tribal invasion.

It was on this day in 1947 that independent India's army undertook its first military operation in Jammu and Kashmir. The first battalion of the Sikh regiment was the first to land in Srinagar airport, at a time when the Pakistani raiders had reached Shalteng, on the outskirts of Srinagar.

The Indian Army had landed after Maharaja Hari Singh, the last Dogra king of Jammu and Kashmir, signed the instrument of accession to join the state with the Indian union. He had sought the help of India in repulsing the Pakistan-backed tribal attack.

Northern Command chief Lt. Gen. B.S. Jaswal led the units of the army Tuesday in marking the day.

While paying homage to the martyrs at a function in Udhampur, headquarters of the Northern Command, 66 km north of Jammu, Gen. Jaswal reiterated the army's 'commitment to end the ongoing proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir'.

Functions were also held by the army in Jammu, Rajouri and Poonch.

Solution of Kashmir dispute critical for better Pakistan-India ties: Qureshi

Muzaffarabad, Oct 27 : Pakistan Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, has said that a solution to the Kashmir dispute is critical for better ties between Pakistan and India.

He also emphasized that there was a dire need to resolve the issue in accordance with the aspirations of Kashmiris.

Qureshi further said that the Pakistan Government had invited Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the resumption of composite dialogue, which was necessary for ensuring peace in the region.

The Foreign Minister has regularly raised his voice for a solution to the Kashmir dispute. In the recent past he had also held inter-ministerial meetings and taken Kashmiri representatives from both sides of the border into confidence.

He had also discussed the issue during his meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna last month.

RMNLU to support Kashmir Univ's academic development

Lucknow, Oct 27 (PTI) Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University (RMLNLU) has decided to support University of Kashmir in academic development.

"We will be outsourcing faculty members of RMNLU to Kashmir University for better interaction between the two institutions and academic development", RMLNLU Vice-Chancellor Prof Balraj Chauhan, who returned from a visit to Kashmir University, told reporters here today.

The RMLNLU will also support Kashmir government for executing reforms in police and prison sectors, he said.

New antibody to save severely-injured patients

Tue Oct 27, 2009

An antibody that can minimize the major internal bleeding frequently reported following traumas has been recently discovered, a new study says.

According to the study published in Nature Medicine, a protein known as histone is responsible for the major internal bleeding seen after traumas such as battlefield injuries, bullet wounds and car crashes.

The newly-discovered monoclonal antibody can block the action of histones and therefore be used to treat diseases and serious injuries.

"When a patient is suffering from severe bleeds, these antibodies could prevent multi-organ failure," said lead researcher Charles Esmon.

Under normal circumstances, the histone protein is normally located in the nucleus, aiming to keep DNA tightly coiled and packed and subsequently form the characteristic double helix.

When the cell is damaged through injury, infection or disease, the histone is released into the blood system, leading to uncontrolled bleeding by killing the lining of blood vessels.

The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) team is optimistic that its findings will help develop new treatments to save those suffering from life threatening injuries, severe infectious diseases and diabetes.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109749.html.

Czech court opens EU treaty session

The Czech Republic's top court has opened a hearing to assess whether the EU's Lisbon Treaty will comply with the country's constitution.

The 15-member Czech Constitutional Court convened on Tuesday in the city of Brno to consider a case by 17 euroskeptic senators who fear the treaty will give too much power to Brussels and infringes Czech sovereignty.

The complaint is considered as one of the last hurdles to the treaty, which aims to streamline EU decision-making and must be approved by all 27 member states to take effect.

The Czech Republic is the only country, which has not signed the treaty yet.

Euroskeptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus has repeatedly said he will wait for the court verdict before he signs the treaty.

The Czech parliament approved the treaty earlier this year.

Prime Minister Jan Fischer said on Monday that the court was unlikely to make an immediate ruling, adding that a subsequent hearing would probably reach a verdict.

Klaus has demanded an opt-out from the treaty designed to make sure the treaty will not allow ethnic Germans forced out of former Czechoslovakia for alleged World War II collaboration with the Nazis to claim back their property.

List of Israeli war criminals compiled for legal action

European human rights lawyers have compiled a list of Israeli military officials that have played leading roles in the war crimes committed during the Gaza war.

Human rights lawyers and pro-Palestinian activists in Britain, Spain, Belgium and a number of other European countries said on Tuesday that the list enables authorities to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials if they enter those countries.

The lawyers say they have based their claims on testimonies of Palestinian witnesses and other evidence gathered from Gaza since January, when Israel launched an all-out military offensive against the coastal territory.

The list includes military officers holding ranks of battalion commander and higher who were in command during various stages of Operation 'Cast Lead,' the right-wing Israeli daily, the Haaretz reported, adding that the number of officers and their identities were not released.

The human rights lawyers also praised Richard Goldstone's report that charges Israel with war crimes during the three-week war, saying the group's findings had a lot in common with the report. Attorney Daniel Makover, who is coordinating the efforts in Britain, said the report helps efforts to bring criminal charges against the Israeli officials.

The Israeli army has urged those officers that have participated in the Gaza war to consult with legal experts at the Foreign Ministry and receive special instructions before traveling to certain countries.

Japanese warship hits Korean vessel

A Japanese navy destroyer has reportedly collided with a South Korean container ship south of Japan starting a fire and injuring one crewmember.

On Tuesday, the destroyer Kurama hit the commercial vessel, Carina Star, hundreds of kilometers southwest of Tokyo in the Strait of Kanmon, the Associated Press quoted a defense official as saying.

The incident near the southern main island of Kyushu set fire to both vessels and injured one of the Japanese warship's crewmembers.

Widower testifies at German 'veil martyr' trial

Egypt's Okaz gives wrenching testimony in same courthouse where Islamophobe killed his wife.

DRESDEN, Germany - An Egyptian man told a German court Monday how his pregnant wife was murdered before his eyes in a frenzied anti-Islamic attack, in a case that has inflamed tempers in the Muslim world.

On the first day of the trial of Russian-born German defendant Alex Wiens in the eastern city of Dresden amid tight security, the victim's husband Elwy Okaz gave wrenching testimony in the same courthouse where his wife was killed.

Some 200 police officers were on hand and the accused appeared in court behind bulletproof glass.

Okaz said Wiens plunged an 18-centimetre (seven-inch) kitchen knife repeatedly into the veiled Marwa al-Sherbini, 31, who was three months pregnant at the time with their second child.

When Okaz tried to come to his wife's aid, he too was stabbed several times.

Sherbini had just testified against Wiens at a defamation trial for calling her a "terrorist", an "Islamist" and a "whore" in a playground dispute. She bled to death at the scene in front of her son Mustafa, then three and a half.

Describing the events of July 1, Okaz said neither he or his wife had any sense they were in danger.

"The perpetrator suddenly attacked my wife -- he hit her several times and when I tried to help he hit me too. It was only then that I noticed he had a knife and that he had stabbed her," Okaz, a 32-year-old geneticist, told the hushed courtroom. "Then he began stabbing me too."

Prosecutor Frank Heinrich said the attack was driven by racism and Islamophobia.

"He stabbed them out of pure hatred of non-Europeans and Muslims. He wanted to annihilate them," he told the court, where many, including Okaz, were wearing pins with a picture of Sherbini's beaming face.

Wiens, 28, followed the testimony with his head in his hands and covered by a hood, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses despite a 50-euro (75-dollar) fine imposed by presiding judge Birgit Wiegand when he refused to remove them. He declined to address the court.

The attack, and a slow reaction by the German media and political class, sparked accusations of neglectful handling of hate crimes against Muslims.

Prosecutors say Wiens had smuggled the knife into the courtroom and stabbed Sherbini at least 16 times within three minutes in the chest, back and arm, and Okaz roughly the same number of times.

Okaz was then shot in the leg by a confused guard who apparently took him for the attacker.

He entered the courtroom Monday on crutches and said doctors are unsure if he will ever walk normally again. Their son now lives in Egypt with Okaz's family.

"He misses his mother," Okaz said. "He is suffering too."

Sherbini and Wiens met in August 2008, when she asked him to clear a playground swing where he sat smoking a cigarette so Mustafa could use it. He refused and launched into an anti-Islamic tirade.

She pressed charges for defamation and he was fined 780 euros (1,165 dollars). An appeal of the conviction brought them together again in July, when she was killed.

Sherbini worked as a pharmacist while her husband was pursuing his doctorate in Dresden. He had moved to Germany in 2004 and was followed by his wife a year later.

The unemployed Wiens arrived in Germany from Perm in the Urals in 2003.

Algeria, Britain sign defense accord

2009-10-27

Deal paves way for more Algerian military officers’ training in Britain, joint military exercises.

ALGIERS - More Algerian military officers could be trained in Britain under a new defense agreement, the British Embassy said on Tuesday.

The outline accord, signed by British Defense Minister Bob Ainsworth on a visit to Algiers, also paves the way for more joint military exercises between the two countries.

The embassy refused to comment on Algerian media reports that Britain had a long-term goal of selling military hardware to the North African country.

"This outline agreement aims to regularize cooperation between the two countries in defense matters, particularly the training of Algerian officers in Great Britain," said an embassy spokeswoman.

Some Algerian officers are already trained in Britain, the embassy said, but this agreement allows the scheme to be extended.

"It also allows cooperation in other respects, such as joint military exercises and annual meetings between the two countries," the spokeswoman added.

Discussions with Algerian Defense Minister Abdelmaleck Guenaizia's representative also covered the struggle against terrorism, according to the embassy.

Ainsworth is due to leave Algeria on Tuesday after meeting the country's Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35284.

Nuke Gaza: A World Gone Mad

Israeli extremism continues unabated even as Tel Aviv insists that its neighbors accept it as a 'Jewish state'. As Israel’s protector and apologist, the US bears the brunt of the anger as Israeli extremism continues to enrage Muslims and radicalize the Islamic body politic, notes Jeff Gates.

Israeli officials are right to worry. Gazans too. Yet Americans should worry even more.

Israel’s “legitimacy” will not last. Of course, that assumes its legitimacy was deserved. That issue also is now called into question in light of the consistency of Israeli behavior over the past six decades. The emerging issues are these: When and how will the recognition of Israel’s nation-state status be withdrawn? How will Tel Aviv behave in the interim?

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman may have tipped his Masada hand when he reportedly told Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan that Israel may use nuclear weapons against Gaza. The threat to Israel is not the 1.5 million Gazans who reside in the world’s largest open-air prison. The threat is the fast-growing global outrage at the abuse inflicted on Palestinians, commencing with the ethnic cleansing of 400-plus villages six decades ago.

Not since 1948 has this enclave of extremists mounted such a public relations offensive. Christian Zionist President Harry Truman trusted Jewish Zionist lobbyists when he solicited assurances that they would not become what they immediately became: a racist theocratic state with an expansionist agenda destined to create serial crises in the region.

The merciless global agenda pursued by Colonial Zionists is the single greatest threat to world peace, as confirmed yet again by Lieberman’s warning. As the primary remaining ally of these Jewish nationalists, the risks to the US increase with each passing day as Tel Aviv works behind the scenes to catalyze yet another conflict.

This entangled alliance was destined to provoke resentments that would eventually endanger their super power ally and foremost arms provider. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the mass murder of 9-11, conceded that the motivation for that attack was to focus “the American people…on the atrocities that America is committing by supporting Israel against the Palestinian people and America’s self-serving foreign policy that corrupts Arab governments and leads to further exploitation of the Arab Muslim people.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Truman 61 years ago that this militant enclave meant to establish Jewish military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East. Familiar with the duplicity for which Israel has since become infamous, the Pentagon chiefs warned: “All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders.”

Nuclear-Armed Fanatics

With each passing year, Tel Aviv adds a new chapter to the agent provocateur handbook on How To Succeed as a Victim. Israel’s strategic success traces directly to its capacity to radicalize and enrage—as those residing in the Occupied Territories endure a third generation of deprivation, degradation and periodic starvation. Thus the in-depth planning that preceded Israel’s brutal “defensive” assault on Gaza between Christmas 2008 and the inauguration of Barack Obama—who said nothing about the attack throughout its 28-day duration.

That silence continues even now after Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist, issued a report describing dozens of Israeli war crimes and evidence of crimes against humanity. In the lead-up to the report’s release, a US president gave Tel Aviv a rhetorical gift when, in a UN speech, the nation’s first Black president used the code phrase “Jewish state” as an implied endorsement of the apartheid policies of this racist enclave. Even Truman did not go that far. But then his administration was not as thoroughly staffed with Zionists and pro-Israelis.

In addition to killing some 1400 Palestinians, one-third of them women and children, Israel destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza including farmlands, factories and schools as well as its water supply and sanitation works. The facts in the Goldstone Report were further confirmed by “Breaking the Silence”—the personal testimony by thirty members of the Israel Defense Forces who described a murderous policy meant to teach the people of Gaza a lesson for their support of Hamas—which came to power in 2006 elections that were universally appraised as free and fair.

As Israel’s protector and apologist, the US bears the brunt of the anger as Israeli extremism continues to enrage Muslims and radicalize the Islamic body politic. A systematic assassination campaign ensured that Tel Aviv had “no one to talk to” except known collaborators with the occupation authorities in Tel Aviv and their arms suppliers in Washington. Meanwhile, the steady expansion of Israeli settlements made a Palestinian state impossible—unless indigenous Arabs are happy to reside in an archipelago of isolated ghettos ringed by Israeli checkpoints.

To suggest that the US is culpable only states the obvious. Yet Israeli extremism continues unabated even as Tel Aviv insists that its neighbors accept it as a “Jewish state” before its borders are fixed and resolution of the occupied territories is known. After six decades of nonstop deceit, Arab states are understandably reluctant to further appease this “state.” For Americans endangered by the behavior of Jewish fanatics, the lesson is uncomfortable but inescapable: we enabled this.

By our continued appeasement, Barack Obama is inviting another violent reaction to Israel’s serial provocations. By failing to endorse the Goldstone Report, our commander-in-chief is putting US forces at risk. By implying that Israel is above the law, he only emboldens Tel Aviv. By suggesting that Israeli conduct is consistent with the values of a “Jewish state,” he endangers the broader Jewish community. That includes those moderate Jews who anticipated this extremist behavior when in May 1948 Truman overruled the strategic objections of Secretary of State George C. Marshall and enabled this fanaticism by extending nation-state recognition.

Small in numbers but large in ambition, this extremist enclave had no choice but to wage war by way of deception. The most insidious deceit was targeted, from within, at its purported ally to induce the US military to lead an invasion of Iraq for its Greater Israel strategy. Absent an Israeli strategy able to sustain serial crises, a long-deceived public will awaken to the common source of the fixed intelligence that led us into the last war—and now seeks to induce the next.

As Americans awaken to how this duplicity proceeds in plain sight, they will see for themselves who and why. That knowledge is the threat that Tel Aviv most fears. As the facts become known, Israeli legitimacy will no longer be an issue. The only issue will be how best to dis-arm these extremists and how to hold accountable those lawmakers who enable this ongoing treason.

Hamas Threatened by Muslims Preaching Violence in Gaza Campaign

By Daniel Williams

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- On the streets of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, clusters of men wear long tunics over baggy trousers, a costume common in Pakistan but virtually unknown among Palestinians -- until recently.

It is an emblem of the Salafi, a branch of Islam that advocates restoring a Muslim empire across the Middle East and into Spain. Some preach violence, even killing Muslims deemed not pious enough. While historically a fringe group in the southeastern Mediterranean, they have sought inroads in Lebanon and Jordan and are battling Hamas in Gaza.

While al-Qaeda, which shares the Salafis’ conservative religious views and promotion of holy war, hasn’t gained a foothold in the region, Salafis may be the wave of the future. In Algeria and Morocco, similar movements have expanded in the past two decades to create havoc through civilian bombings and attacks on police.

“This is the challenge we face in the world,” said Bilal Saab, a researcher in Middle East security at the University of Maryland in College Park. “We are getting better at dealing with insurgencies, though Afghanistan is proving to be an exception. It is much more difficult to combat the constant threat of underground urban terrorism.”

Armed Salafis are challenging the authority of Hamas, the Islamic party that rules the Gaza Strip and has fought Israel for two decades. Gaza Salafis say Hamas surrendered its credentials as an Islamic resistance group when it declared a unilateral cease-fire after a 22-day war with the Jewish state that ended Jan. 18. Hamas’s Health Ministry said 1,450 Palestinians were killed in the conflict. The Israeli Army put the toll at 1,166 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

‘Given Up’

“They believe Hamas has been neutralized and has given up the fight,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

Hamas, on the U.S. State Department list of terror organizations, is holding dozens of Salafis in jail, trying to persuade them to end their opposition, said Hamas police spokesman Rafik Abu Hani. “They want to implement their own ideas through weapons, and we can’t allow that.”

Arrests began after an Aug. 14 Hamas raid on a mosque in Rafah where armed Salafis belonging to a group called Warriors of God had gathered. Its leader, Abdel-Latif Musa, proclaimed an Islamic emirate in Gaza directly challenging Hamas rule, according to a transcript published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-based translation and analysis organization. Musa and 21 other people, including six civilians, died in the battle.

‘Crossing a Line’

“The emirate idea was crossing a line of Hamas tolerance,” Abusada said. “Hamas basically said, ‘Don’t mess with us.’” Since the crackdown, Salafis have been responsible for two bombings that didn’t cause any casualties, he added.

The Warriors of God group is among at least four armed Salafi organizations in Gaza, along with the Army of Islam, Victory of Islam and Lions Den of Supporters, Abu Hani said. Members total no more than 400 to 500, he estimated. Abusada said there are many more: between 4,000 and 5,000, including defectors from Hamas.

The next step would be for these groups to unify and organize, attract more newcomers dissatisfied with Hamas and try to forge ties with al-Qaeda, Samir Ghattas, a Palestinian analyst at Gaza’s Maqdis Center for Political Studies, told a Sept. 30 terror conference.

Refugee Camps

In 2007, a Salafi group in Lebanon called Fatah Al-Islam held off a three-and-a-half month siege by the country’s army on the Nahr Al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. The combat left about 400 militants and 168 soldiers dead, according to Lebanese press reports.

Salafi remnants have probably taken refuge in other Palestinian camps in Lebanon, Saab wrote in the September issue of CTC Sentinel, a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Security forces have also foiled Salafi attacks in Jordan, he wrote.

The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat has spearheaded several years of civil war in Algeria. After pledging allegiance to Osama bin Laden in 2006, the group changed its name to al- Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It has bedeviled Algeria with bombings and ambushed security forces, even though membership is only in the hundreds, according to U.S. State Department statistics.

Radical Groups

While there’s no indication of any direct relationship between militant Salafis and al-Qaeda, they have become a reference point for radical groups from Morocco to Central Asia. One Salafi in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis who called himself Abu Iyad said he doesn’t belong to any armed organizations but understands people who do.

Hamas adherents “say they resist Israel, but they stopped fighting,” he said. “Why did all the people die? Hamas is acting just like Fatah,” the movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who favors peace talks with Israel.

“What the Salafis don’t understand is we need to give the people a break; we need to rebuild and prepare for the next battle,” said Younis Astal, a Hamas member of the disbanded Palestinian parliament. “We can’t have perpetual war. That would be inhuman. Anyway, they want to make Gaza like an al- Qaeda base, and we don’t want that.”

Jordan, Syria cancel border levies

AMMAN (JT) - Jordan and Syria on Monday agreed to reciprocally exempt their citizens traveling between the two countries via land from any departure taxes paid at borders, effective January 1, 2010.

Border authorities currently collect JD8 from every individual who passes to Syria, while the Syrian counterparts collect an equivalent sum from passengers leaving their territory by land, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said.

The two sides also agreed under a momorandum of understanding signed in Amman yesterday to reciprocally exempt all private and public vehicles, including trucks and buses from departure fees and "diesel support fees" levied on these vehicles by both sides.

They also agreed to reduce transit fees on trucks by 25 per cent, and to give Jordanian trucks a preferential treatment at Syrian ports and to include Jordanian transport companies in the incentive packages offered under the investment promotion laws in Syria.

The agreement was signed by Finance Minister Bassem Salem and his Syrian counterpart Mohammad Hussein.

The two sides said the deal is meant to facilitate the flow of passengers and goods between the two neighbors.

Regarding pharmaceutical product registration, the two sides agreed to deal with the issue on a reciprocal basis, and set six months as a deadline for authorities to wrap up the testing process as a prelude to allow entry of medicines made in Jordan and Syria into each other's markets.

Experts: Tigers fast dying out despite campaigns

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA, Associated Press Writer

KATMANDU, Nepal – The world's tiger population is declining fast despite efforts to save them, and new strategies are urgently needed to keep the species from dying out, international wildlife experts said Tuesday.

"We are assembled here to save tigers that are at the verge of extinction," Nepal's secretary of forest and soil conservation, Yuvaraj Bhusal, told a conference of tiger experts from 20 countries, including the 13 where wild tigers are still found.

An estimated 3,500 to 4,000 tigers now roam the world's forests, down from the more than 100,000 estimated at the beginning of the 20th century. All the remaining tigers are in Asia.

Participants at the conference, which also includes the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund and other groups, plan to discuss strategies for tiger conservation, as well as challenges such as poaching, the trade of tiger parts and conflicts between tigers and local populations.

"Despite our efforts in the last three decades, tigers still face threats of survival. The primary threat is from poaching and habitat loss," Nepal's prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told the conference.

He said extreme poverty has also challenged efforts.

"Global and regional solidarity and corrective measures are more necessary now than ever to face these challenges," the prime minister said.

Bhusal, the forest secretary, said participants hope to make high-level policy makers in their countries more aware of the animal's possible extinction.

The 13 countries where wild tigers are still found include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The conference continues through Friday.

Jordan opens independent power plant

King Abdullah II of Jordan on Monday opened the country's first independent power provider, a joint American-Japanese investment worth $300 million.

The plant, which is constructed over 200 dunums, or 187,860 sq m, in Al Manakher area, some 30 kilometers to the east of the Jordanian capital of Amman, has a total generation capacity of 370 megawatts (MW).

The project is implemented for a period of 25 years by AES Jordan PSC, which is a company owned by the US-based AES Oasis Ltd and Japanese company Mitsui and Co Ltd.

Fares Hammad, an engineer at the plant called the Amman East Power Project, said the facility runs on natural gas imported from Egypt and it can run on diesel.

In 2003, Egypt and Jordan opened a gas pipeline under which the latter receives about one billion cubic meters of Egyptian natural gas at preferential prices for the generation of power.

According to Jordan's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, 80 of the country's electricity is generated by using natural gas.

Jordan's Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Khaldoun Quteisaht said the plant's capacity constitutes about 18 percent of Jordan's need of electricity, adding that the project will help address Jordan's surging demand of power.

Demand on electricity in Jordan increases by about 7.5 percent in average annually, according to the ministry.

China dismisses concerns on military growth

Beijing has defended its rapid military modernization and the development of advanced weapons in the Pacific as meeting its minimum defense requirements.

Ahead of his Tuesday meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, Gen. Xu Caihou, assured that Beijing had no expansionist ambitions and wants cooperative international relations.

"We will never seek hegemony, military expansion or an arms race," he told foreign policy experts on Monday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Xu is the highest level Chinese military official to visit the US amid concerns in Washington over China's emergence as a potential high tech military rival.

Xu dismissed 'unfounded' concerns over China's development of cruise and ballistic missiles capable of striking US warships in the Pacific.

"It is a limited capability, and limited weapons and equipment for the minimum requirement of its national security," he said.

Xu said his country's annual increases in defense spending was 'quite low' both in real terms and as a percentage of its gross domestic product, recalling US defense spending amounts to 4.8 percent of GDP, compared with China's 1.4 percent.

The general acknowledged western concern over Beijing's growing military prowess, but insisted army's primary focus was on protecting China's economic development and defending against rising separatist and extremist challenges.

Xu said China wanted to boost military-to-military relations with the United States, but warned that Beijing regarded recent incursions into its 200-mile economic zone by US naval vessels as an infringement of its sovereignty.

Xu's week-long visit is seen as the latest effort to improve US-Chinese military ties, temporarily severed last year over a proposed multi-billion-dollar US arms package to Taiwan.

Ahmadinejad to Erdogan: Unity foils enemy plots

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stressed the importance of strengthening unity among regional countries to thwart plots hatched by the enemy.

"Presence and interference of foreign powers have caused many economical and security problems for regional countries," Ahmadinejad said in a meeting with the visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran on Tuesday.

"Iran and Turkey have common interests and are faced with similar threats. If they reinforce their unity, they will overcome serious threats and make use of opportunities in favor of their own nations," he added.

Ahmadinejad hailed Turkey's stance on Israel and said, "The Zionist regime is a threat to all nations…It cannot tolerate the existence of any strong country in the region."

Heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, Erdogan arrived in the Iranian capital Tehran on Monday night and was officially welcomed by Iran's Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi.

The Turkish premier plans to meet with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei during his two-day stay in Tehran.

Bishop fined €12,000 for denying Holocaust

British Bishop and Holocaust-denier Richard Williamson has been fined over remarks on Swedish television that fewer than 300,000 Jews died in Nazi death camps.

A German court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg on Monday commanded Williamson to pay €12,000.

Williamson said he believes that no more than 300,000 Jews died in Germany's Nazi concentration camps rather than the 6 million.

His German lawyer Matthias Lossmann said his client had been told to pay €100 a day for 120 days and that he was likely to appeal. If an appeal is lodged, there will be a trial in Regensburg, which Williamson will not be forced to attend.

Holocaust denial is classed as a hate crime in Germany and because the interview took place in Regensburg, German prosecutors were allowed to investigate, The Guardian reported.

In several other countries, including France and Austria, "Holocaust denial" is against the law, and "deniers" have been punished with prison sentences.

For no other historical massacre does such a law exist.

Subway endangers historic sites in Isfahan

Claims that subway excavation in Iran's ancient city of Isfahan poses a threat to historic sites of the region have lead to a temporary halt to construction.

Cultural heritage experts maintain that subway excavations under Chahar-Bagh Street could cause irreparable damage to the Chahar-Bagh School, which displays some of the unique architectural styles of the Safavid period.

Isfahan's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization filed an official complaint against the city's metropolitan railway authority in order to avoid any possible collapse of historic sites of the city.

Following the organization's complaint, Isfahan's municipality stopped construction of the city's subway system allowing cultural heritage experts to study and estimate any potential damage.

Vibration from the subway movement and its construction process will be the first factors examined by the expert panel.

Isfahan's Hasht Behesht Palace and other historical monuments are also endangered if the subway project continues.

The group will report their observations to Isfahan's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization for final decision making over the fate of the construction project.

Isfahan's subway officials started the project under Chahar-Bagh Street three years ago and digging of the tunnel is in the final stages.

2 Tibetans executed in China over riots last year

By HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – Two people have been put to death for their roles in deadly protests last year in the Chinese-controlled region of Tibet, the first known executions for the violence, an overseas monitoring group said Tuesday.

China confirmed the executions but gave no details.

Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak, who goes by one name, were sentenced to death in April on charges relating to "starting fatal fires," according to the International Campaign for Tibet, a Washington-based advocacy group.

The group said the Tibetans were executed in the regional capital of Lhasa but did not say when. Other Tibetan rights groups have said the executions were carried out last Tuesday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu confirmed the two executions when asked about them by reporters, but he refused to give details. The International Campaign for Tibet said its information came from the British Foreign Office, which was notified by the Chinese Embassy in London.

Tibetans attacked Chinese migrants and shops in Lhasa in anti-government riots in March 2008 and torched parts of the city's commercial district.

Chinese officials say 22 people died, but Tibetans say many times that number were killed.

The violence in Lhasa and protests in Tibetan communities across western China were the most sustained unrest in the region since the late 1980s.

Tibetan resentment against Chinese rule has been fueled by religious restrictions and competition for resources with migrants from the Han Chinese majority. Similar grievances fed ethnic rioting this year in the neighboring heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang that left nearly 200 dead.

In comparison with the slower pace of prosecutions in Tibet, Chinese authorities in Xinjiang have already sentenced 21 people, with nine sentenced to death. The official China Daily newspaper said Tuesday three of those sentenced to death will not appeal the rulings.

In Tibet, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch, authorities have made thousands of arbitrary arrests, and more than 100 trials have gone through the judicial system over the unrest.

Lobsang Gyaltsen was sentenced to death for setting fire to two garment shops in downtown Lhasa on March 14 last year, killing a shop owner, according to a spokesman for the Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People's Court, cited by the official Xinhua News Agency in April.

Loyak received the death penalty for setting fire to a motorcycle dealership in Dechen township in Lhasa's Dagze county on March 15 last year, which led to the deaths of five people, Xinhua said. Many Tibetans only go by one name.

The court spokesman, who was not named, told Xinhua that only the two defendants' executions can appease the public's anger.

Xinhua gave few details on the two, but U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia's Tibetan service said Lobsang Gyaltsen was 28 and was from a poor family in Lubuk township in Lhasa. Loyak was 30.

Lobsang Gyaltsen was allowed a visit by his mother before he was executed, it said.

"I have nothing to say, except please take good care of my child and send him to school," he was quoted as telling her.

China says Tibet has historically been part of its territory since the mid-13th century, and the Communist Party has governed the Himalayan region since 1951. Many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of their history.

More than 950 people were detained and 76 were sentenced following last year's riots, according to state media, but the government has never given a complete accounting, and details of punishments continue to trickle out.

Officials at Lhasa's public security bureau and People's Court have repeatedly said they have no information on the executions.

British Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis condemned the executions in a statement Friday.

"We respect China's right to bring those responsible for the violence in Tibet last year to justice. But the U.K. opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, and we have consistently raised our concerns about lack of due process in these cases in particular," he said.

Lewis also called on China to urgently review the cases of others sentenced to death.

Iranian 12-year-old's animation in India festival

A short animation by 12-year-old Iranian filmmaker, Pouria Aqili, about saving the environment is slated to be screened in India's Golden Elephant Children Film Festival.

Pouria Aqili's I Feel Pity for Ozone Layer is a 3-minute animation that revisits children's concern over the ecosystem and future of their planet.

I Feel Pity for Ozone Layer will be screened in International Competition Section and Asian Panorama Section of the festival.

Golden Elephant film festival is among the important biannual children's festivals highlighting the world of children in the film industry.

The 16th edition of India's Golden Elephant Children Film Festival will take place in Hyderabad, during November 14 - 20, 2009.

The 27th edition of Carrousel International du film de Rimouski, held from September 26 to October 4 in Qebec, also screened the animation by the 12-year-old Iranian filmmaker. The 3-minute animation had its world premier in the competition section of the festival.

Erdogan officially welcomed by Iran's VP

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been officially welcomed by Iran's Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi.

During the official ceremony on Tuesday, the national anthems of the countries were played and then the two officials reviewed a guard of honor.

Heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, Erdogan arrived in the Iranian capital Tehran on Monday night and was welcomed by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at Tehran's Mehrabad international airport.

Erdogan who arrived in Iran after a visit to Pakistan will meet with Iranian high-ranking officials including President Ahmadinejad to exchange views on different regional and international issues.

His visit to Iran comes just a few hours after he accused the West of treating Iran unfairly over its nuclear work.

Erdogan told The Guardian that Europe and the US have been treating Tehran unfairly over its enrichment program because "although Iran doesn't have a weapon, those who say Iran shouldn't have them are those countries which do [have nuclear weapons].”

"Iran does not accept it is building a weapon. They are working on nuclear power for the purposes of energy only," he added.

He said that it was 'unfair and unjust' to pressure Iran over its nuclear program when other countries have nuclear weapons.

The visit aims to boost ties between the two countries in different arenas including commercial and economic.

Erdogan will head to the United States after his two-day visit to Iran.

UN General Assembly debates Israel war crimes

The UN General Assembly sets a date for debating Israeli war crimes in Gaza, paving the way for a possible Security Council inquiry into the issue.

An Arab League diplomat said on Monday that Richard Goldstone's UN report on the conflict in Gaza would be discussed at the Assembly on November 4th with the aim of passing a resolution approving the report and then requesting a formal debate at the Security Council, which has the power to open a war crimes prosecution against senior Israeli officials at the International Criminal Court.

The US --Israel's staunchest ally-- however, is expected to veto any call for ICC action against Israeli officials. Washington has vetoed several anti-Israeli revolutions.

The UN General Assembly's decision to debate Israeli war crimes during Gaza war came after the UN Human Rights Council endorsed the report, which accuses the Israeli army of deliberately killing Palestinian civilians and using disproportionate force during the three-week Gaza war, despite efforts by Israeli officials to block the motion.

The report calls for the prosecution of senior Israeli officials in the International Criminal Court at The Hague if Tel Aviv fails to launch its own investigations into the Gaza war under international scrutiny within six months.

Tel Aviv has condemned the report, claiming it was one-sided and biased against Israel.

According to UN figures, more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed and many others wounded during Israel's "Operation Cast Lead" in which internationally banned white phosphorous bombs were used by Israeli forces.

Turkey invests $4b in South Pars gas field

Turkey is to invest around $3.5 to $4 billion in Iran's South Pars gas field, an Iranian Oil Ministry official has said.

"The investment (by Turkey) will be made in phases 6 and 7 of South Pars gas field," Ibrahim Radafzoun deputy Oil Minister for planning told Fars news agency on Monday.

He added that Iran and Turkey, during the visit of Turkish Prime Minister to Iran, are to discuss Turkey's investment in the two phases of South Pars gas field as well as other mutual issues.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his high-ranking delegation arrived in Tehran on Monday night.

Erdogan's talks with Iranian officials will focus on, regional issues, ways to enhance bilateral ties and negotiations on economic and trade transactions.

South Pars gas field is estimated to hold about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of total world reserves.

Israel denying Palestinians access to clean water

As a result of Israel's 'discriminatory' policies, Palestinians' access to water supply is far below the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization.

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of preventing Palestinians from receiving adequate clean and safe water while allowing the "unlawful Jewish settlers" of the occupied West Bank almost unlimited supplies.

According to the report, Israelis consume four times as much water as West Bank Palestinians whose water consumption at best reaches 70 liters per capita a day. The report also says that in some areas of the West Bank, Palestinians are surviving on as little as 20 liters of water per capita a day, which is below humanitarian disaster response levels recommended to avoid epidemics.

In contrast, water consumption by Israeli settlers in the West Bank is 300 liters per capita a day.

"Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality, subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford", said Amnesty's Donatella Rovera.

The 112-page report says while West Bank Palestinians are not allowed to dig wells to fulfill their need, Israeli settlers of the region are enjoying swimming pools and green gardens. There are also reports suggesting that Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian's cisterns and impound their water tankers.

"Swimming pools, well-watered lawns and large irrigated farms in Israeli settlements in the OPT (occupied Palestinian territory) stand in stark contrast next to Palestinian villages whose inhabitants struggle even to meet their domestic water needs", the report added.

The human rights group has also accused Israel of causing a "water crisis" in the Gaza Strip by continuing its crippling blockade on the territory, adding that 90-95 per cent of the region's water supply is now unfit for human consumption because of Israel's three-week offensive against the coastal territory, which damaged water reservoirs, wells, sewage networks and pumping stations.

16 Georgian arrested in South Ossetia

Authorities in the former Georgian region of South Ossetia say they have arrested sixteen Georgian people over illegal entry into their territory.

South Ossetian officials said on Monday that the men had been detained by Russian guards for crossing and "carrying out illegal deforestation" on the territory.

"The detained Georgian citizens have been handed over to regional prosecutors," Merab Chigoyev, an aide to South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity, said in an online statement.

Georgian Interior Ministry condemned the move, saying the men were collecting firewood when they were 'kidnapped' by Russian forces.

The European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia expressed concern over the incident, which could re-ignite old tensions between Georgia and Russia regarding the two independence-seeking regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"EUMM urges all parties to discuss and settle the matter," the mission, which has about 225 monitors in Georgia, urged in a statement.

In August 2008, Russia resorted to a military action to parry a massive Georgian offensive after Tbilisi attacked South Ossetia in a bid to retake its former province, which declared independence in the early 1990s. Russian forces advanced deep into the Georgian soil before they withdrew under a European-brokered peace deal.

Later, an EU-commissioned report found Georgia responsible for inciting the last year's war with Russia over the independence-seeking South Ossetia.

Thousands of Russian troops are stationed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to help local security forces protect the regions against Georgian aggression.

Russia has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

First US official resigns in protest at Afghan war

Tue Oct 27, 2009

The US-led war in Afghanistan has forced the first American official to resign his post, questioning the reason behind Washington's military presence in the country.

The senior State Department official in Afghanistan's Zabul province Matthew Hoh had stepped down in September, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," Hoh wrote in his resignation letter to the State Department's personnel chief.

"I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end," he added.

The former Marine Corps captain was offered a senior staff-level job at the US embassy in Kabul, which he also turned down.

Hoh, who had also served in uniform at the Pentagon and as a civilian in Iraq, said he decided to speak out to influence public opinion.

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," he said after his resignation became final on Wednesday.

"I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.'"

Since the 2001 US-led invasion of the country, Afghanistan has been suffering from the devastating war. A high number of civilians have been killed both by indiscriminate US air strikes and by violent acts including suicide bombings and blasts carried out by militants against the occupying forces. Many other Afghans have also been forced to displace due to the conflict.

According to the latest UN report, more than 1,500 civilians have been killed and many others wounded only in the first six months of this year, which shows a 24 percent increase compared to the same period in 2008.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109718.html.

Abbas threatens to resign over peace talks impasse

Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to resign because he expects no concrete outcome in the peace process with hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

During a telephone conversation last week, Abbas told US President Barack Obama that he sees no chance of "capitulation" by the Tel Aviv administration to halt the illegal settlement constructions in the West Bank, Israel's Channel 10 television reported on Monday.

Obama set Middle East peace as a top priority at the start of his presidency in January, in contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush, who was criticized internationally for neglecting the long-running conflict. But so far, the new administration has little to show for its efforts.

Netanyahu, whose right-leaning coalition includes pro-settler parties, has resisted Obama's calls for a total freeze on settlements in the occupied West Bank.

According to the 2002 Roadmap for Peace plan brokered by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, Israel has to 'dismantle settlement outposts erected since 2001 and also freeze all settlement activities.'

It is estimated that there are almost 200,000 illegal Jewish settlers in Jerusalem (al-Quds). There are also about 300,000 more illegal Jewish settlers living in settlements across the occupied West Bank.

All Jewish settlements are illegal under international law because they are erected on occupied lands that the Palestinians claim for their future state.

Turkish PM arrives in Tehran

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Tehran for a two-day visit.

Erdogan and his high-ranking delegation were welcomed on arrival by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at Tehran's Mehrabad international airport on Monday night.

The Turkish prime minister is scheduled to meet with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani during his stay in Iran.

Erdogan's talks with Iranian officials will focus on ways to enhance bilateral ties and exchanges of views on issues of common concern.

Ahead of his arrival in Tehran, Erdogan said the West had treated Iran unfairly over its nuclear program.

He said that it was "unfair and unjust" to pressure Iran over its nuclear program when other countries have nuclear weapons.

India condemns Iran's terrorist attack as 'savage'

Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna has condemned the terrorist attack, which killed at least 41 people in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

In a letter to his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki, the Indian official condemned the attack in the strongest terms, calling it 'savage', IRNA reported on Monday.

"We strongly condemn this savage act, which once again shows that a form of collective action from all countries is required to counter terrorism," the letter said.

The Indian Foreign Minister then extended his condolences to the Iranian government and nation.

On October 18, at least 41 people including top commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed in an explosion during a unity conference between Sunni and Shia tribal leaders in the borderline city of Pishin.

The Pakistan-based Jundallah terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the bomb blast.

This is not the first time that the group has conducted a deadly attack in the country.

In late May, the group led by Abdolmalek Rigi took responsibility for a bombing in a mosque in the Sistan-Balouchestan province, which left at least 25 prayer goers killed and several others injured.

Iran has called on Pakistan to help the country in tracking down and bringing to justice the terrorists behind the attack.

Iran has also vowed a 'crushing response' to the terrorists, asserting that the criminals behind the deadly attack would be soon punished.

Angola justifies expulsion of Congolese

Mon Oct 26, 2009

Angolan Foreign Minister Assuncao dos Anjos says his country has the right to expel undocumented workers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, especially those who come to take part in the diamond trade.

Dos Anjos said on Monday that the two countries have reached an agreement over tit-for-tat expulsions that ended this month.

However, Radio Nacional de Angola also quoted him as saying, "It's obvious that Angola will never give up the right to deport citizens whose actions are not beneficial to our country."

Tens of thousands of people have been expelled from both countries, some with nothing but their clothes.

Over the past few years, Angola has expelled hundreds of thousands of impoverished Congolese immigrants who have poured across its long porous border to search for diamonds in the crocodile-infested rivers of the Lunda provinces.

Angola is the world's fifth biggest diamond exporter and is one of Africa's two biggest oil producers, with Nigeria its only serious rival.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109700.html.

Militants target Pakistan's brigadiers

Tue Oct 27, 2009

Gunmen target an army official's car in the Pakistani capital as tensions rage between pro-Taliban militants and government troops across the violence-ridden country.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle sprayed bullets on the car of Brigadier Waqar Ahmed Tuesday morning in a busy neighborhood in Islamabad, which left no injuries.

The attack comes a few days after Thursday's assassination of a brigadier on leave from a UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, along with his driver in Islamabad.

The military has been plagued by repeated insurgent attacks, including the one earlier this month on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) militants.

Pakistani officials said six militants were killed earlier on Tuesday in clashes triggered by a pre-dawn attack, which killed two soldiers at a checkpoint in Baizai area of Mohmand agency.

This happened after, armed insurgents killed four Pakistani forces on Monday at a security post in Mattak in the northwestern Bajaur agency, according to government sources. Nine militants died in the army's backfire and clashes later in the day.

Pakistani fighter jets on Monday pounded suspected militants' hideouts in Mamnozai and Shakar Tangi areas in Orkzai agency, and Bajaur's Lee Sam and Khar.

Army officials said dozens of militants were killed in the air strikes and at least 40 others were arrested by security forces in Mohmand and Orakzai agencies.

Security forces also managed to arrest notorious militant Ali Shah Khan, a close aide to Tehrik-e-Taliban's Swat chief Maulana Fazlullah, local officials in North Frontier Province reported.

Pakistan says it has been involved in a massive anti-militant campaign in the lawless northwestern tribal belt along the Afghan border, pressing an 11-day ground and air offensive against the TTP hiding in South Waziristan, blamed for 80 percent of terrorist attacks in the country.

The insurgents have killed over 200 people across Pakistan in October, threatening fresh strikes, as long as the army proceeds with its offensive near the Afghan border.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109731.html.

Iran launches oil bourse

Iran has launched an oil bourse on Kish Island in the Persian Gulf for trade in crude and petrochemical products.

The new international exchange hall will offer 40 kinds of oil products.

"The inauguration of the hall will enhance Iran's strategic position in the region," Bourse Organization Chairman Ali Salehabadi said on Monday.

Salehabadi, who is also the chairman of the Tehran Stock Exchange, stated that Iran produces over 25 percent of the total output of petrochemical products in the Middle East.

At least 30 domestic companies and 20 foreign firms are active in the oil and petrochemical industries on Kish Island.

The first phase of the bourse kicked off in 2008.

Iran, which possesses the world's second-largest gas reserves and third-largest oil reserves, is making efforts to play a more active role in oil and petrochemical transactions in international markets.

The Islamic Republic also wants to encourage local investors to participate in the oil market as it tries to reduce the state's role in the country's energy industry.

Lebanon's Maronite patriarch calls for national unity

Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir believes the fact that there is no national unity cabinet in Lebanon is the source of all the country's problems.

Thus, he has called on the authorities to speed up their efforts to establish a national unity government.

"The government lineup should be quickly handed over to the president in a bid to preserve Lebanon and national unity," Sfeir said on Monday.

Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad Hariri abandoned his first attempt to form a national unity cabinet last month after the Hezbollah-led opposition rejected a team he proposed.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the line-up would only further confuse the situation in Lebanon.

Demo for Al-Aqsa Mosque held in Istanbul

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Istanbul to protest against Israeli security forces' recent attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (al-Quds).

The demonstrators marched toward the heavily guarded Israeli consulate and burned an Israeli flag. They shouted slogans like "We will protect Al-Aqsa Mosque", "Close the Zionist embassy" and "Greetings to Hamas, continue to resist" during the anti-Israeli rally.

Israeli security forces attacked the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday morning, firing rubber-coated bullets and tear gas canisters.

The clashes erupted earlier Sunday when Israeli troops using stun grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets broke into the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, beating Palestinian worshipers with the butts of guns and clubs.

At least 30 Palestinians were wounded and up to 20 others arrested during the fierce confrontations between Palestinian activists using stones, shoes, and bare fists and armed Israeli troops in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry released a statement in which it expressed deep concern over the tension around Al-Aqsa Mosque, saying Turkey expected the people who were arrested during Sunday's incidents to be released as soon as possible.

Many Muslims believe the frequent Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound are part of a Judaization campaign that targets the holy city of Al-Quds.

New Delhi concerned over attacks on Indians in Australia

An Indian official has expressed serious concern about yet another attack on an Indian citizen in Australia, calling it a "very serious matter."

"Certainly, this matter of attacks on people of Indian origin in Australia is a very serious matter and the government of India is very concerned over this matter," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash told reporters on Monday in Bangalore, the capital of the southern state of Karnataka.

A 22-year-old Sikh was punched in the head by a group of Australians who also removed his turban while he was sleeping at a bus stop in Melbourne on Sunday.

"The matter has been taken up at the highest level with the Australian side," Prakash said, adding that measures have to be taken to put an end to these racist incidents.

He went on to say that Australia had assured India twice that it will follow the "policy of zero tolerance" - first after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier this year spoken to his Australian counterpart and then when Indian External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna visited the country in August.

But although Australia has taken a number of steps to ensure the safety of foreigners, the attacks against Indians continue.

Over 250,000 people of Indian origin live in Australia and 90,000 Indian students are studying in the country.

3 Iranian schools closed to contain swine flu

At least thee Iranian schools have been closed as a precaution against the spread of the A/H1N1 flu among students.

Seyyed Ali Yazdikhah, the director of the Education Organization of Tehran Province, told the ILNA news agency on Monday that the schools were closed in line with a circular issued by the Education Ministry to prevent the spread of swine flu in schools.

The circular says if 15 percent of students of a school have been infected with the A/H1N1 flu, the educational institution should be closed.

Earlier, the director of the Health Ministry's Center for Disease Control, Mohammad-Mehdi Gouya, urged parents to keep any child with flu-like symptoms, such as a fever, cough, or sore throat, at home until the symptoms are gone.

Iran's health officials have stressed that adopting simple precautionary measures such as frequently washing hands, using a tissue to cover the mouth when coughing and sneezing, and avoiding kissing can help contain the virus from spreading.

The Health Ministry's latest reports indicate that swine flu has claimed the lives of 16 people across the country as the national tally of infections has risen to 1194.

Internet regulator emphasizes 'world' in World Wide Web - Feature

Seoul - A simpler World Wide Web for non-English speakers is on the horizon, according to the world's "internet regulator," which is hosting its 36th International Public Meeting this week in South Korea's capital Seoul. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, brings together some 1,000 Web gurus, including its board members and stakeholders, to review policies. That includes one that could pave the way for web addresses written completely in, say, Korean characters - or Chinese or Arabic, for that matter.

"This would be the biggest change technically to the internet since it was invented 40 years ago," ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said at a opening press conference on Monday.

"We'd take multiple different scripts and safely and consistently convert them into Web addresses."

Such Web addresses, which use characters outside the usual range of A to Z, 0 to 9 and hyphens, are referred to as Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

The kinds of IDNs currently available require use of at least some Roman text, such as ".com" or ".org."

Using the conference, which runs until Friday, ICANN's board of directors plans to review measures that could enable Web users to type internet domain names entirely in non-Roman script by the end of the year.

"This change is very much necessary for not only more than half the internet users today but more than half of all future users," said ICANN president and chief executive officer Rod Beckstrom.

Of the approximately 1.6 billion Web users today, 60 per cent are non-English speakers - nearly 35 million of them in Korea alone - according to Internet World Stats.

"Since we started with English domain names in Korea, some people feel like the internet is kind of an Anglo-Saxon community," said Kwon Hyun Joon, secretary general of the Korea Internet & Security Agency's web address dispute resolution committee.

"The internet should be provided to all people around the globe equally, regardless of their languages."

As for how the Western world would access non-Roman web addresses, Beckstrom suggested search engines would play a large role in surfing such sites. Thrush added, "People will be developing new technologies to deal with this new situation."

Other topics up for discussion include improved internet security, more global accountability for ICANN - which, until September 30, reported its progress only to the US government - and a broader range of suffixes available for use in web addresses, known as generic top-level domains.

"Roughly 15 billion times a day, human beings type a domain name into a web browser," Beckstrom said.

"Six keystrokes - .co.kr - if those are no longer necessary that adds up to a lot of (saved) human keystrokes."

Instead, the endings of web addresses could take a variety of different forms, like .berlin, to use Thrush's example. Such domains would not only be more convenient for users, but also enhance consumer confidence, he argued.

ICANN is a nonprofit, public-benefit corporation that coordinates Web addresses and names around the world. Formed in 1998 and headquartered in Marina Del Ray, California, it holds international conferences three times per year in different regions of the globe.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/291775,internet-regulator-emphasizes-world-in-world-wide-web--feature.html.

Philippines imposes oil price freeze in wake of devastating storms

Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered an oil price freeze to avoid major increases in the wake of devastation from two previous storms, a top aide said Monday. Executive secretary Eduardo Ermita said Arroyo signed the order Friday directing industry players to maintain the prices of petroleum products to the levels prevailing on October 15.

The prize freeze was issued "to prevent unreasonable increase in the prices of petroleum products during a state of calamity," the order said.

It added that the move was necessary "at this time when the Filipino people are reeling from the effects of the catastrophic devastation caused by successive calamities."

The order said the price freeze would be in effect while the northern region of Luzon is under a state of emergency, which Arroyo declared following storm Ketsana and typhoon Parma's onslaught.

Ermita said Arroyo directed a joint task force of the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Justice to monitor the order's implementation and file complaints against violators.

The Philippines deregulated the oil industry in 1998.

But the order noted that the liberalization law authorized the DOE "to temporarily take over or direct operations of any person or entity engaged in the industry in time of national emergency."

Nearly 1,000 people were killed and more than 8 million affected by the worst flood in over 40 years caused by Ketsana on September 26 and landslides triggered by Parma one week later.

The two cyclones also caused damages to agriculture and infrastructure worth more than 652 million dollars.

Israel sets up team to collate findings from Gaza fighting probes

Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to form a team of legal experts and Foreign Ministry officials to collate all material gathered by the military in its investigations of the Israel offensive in the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year. Israel Radio reported Monday that Israel will present these findings as a probe which it is conducting into the offensive, instead of an investigative committee, as demanded by a United Nations Human Rights Council Commission which looked into the fighting.

The Goldstone Commission report found that both Israel and the Islamic Hamas movement, which administers the Gaza Strip, may have committed war crimes during the December 27 - January 18 fighting.

It said both sides must set up credible investigations into the charges within six months.

According to the Jerusalem Post daily, the Israeli team will make use of existing material, and present its findings as an internal investigation refuting the accusations contained in the Goldstone report.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday night that no Israeli military officer or soldier would be investigated, a point Netanyahu has also made.

Israel refused to cooperate with the Goldstone commission, charging that its original mandate was biased, since it called for an investigation only into Israel's actions, and not those of Hamas as well.

Human rights groups say up to 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the fighting.

Tunisian president elected in landslide to fifth term - Summary

Tunis/Paris (Earth Times - dpa) - Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was elected to a fifth term with almost 90 per cent of the vote, the Tunisian Interior Ministry announced Monday. With all the votes counted from Sunday's election, the 73-year-old Ben Ali was credited with 89.62 per cent of the vote, the first time he has received less than 90 per cent in an election.

In 2004, Ben Ali had garnered 94.48 per cent, after receiving more than 99 per cent in the previous poll.

Two candidates viewed as friendly to the regime, Popular Unity Party (PUP) head Mohamed Bouchiha and Ahmed Inoubli of the Unionist Democratic Union (UDU), drew 5.01 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively.

Ahmed Brahim, the only candidate considered to represent a real opposition to the president, came in last with only 1.57 per cent of the vote.

Ben Ali has ruled Tunisia for 22 years, and there was never any doubt about the outcome of the vote, especially after the major opposition Progressive Democratic Party announced a poll boycott, charging that the election process was being manipulated.

The party had been blocked from competing in 17 districts after authorities ruled its applications ineligible.

In addition, another key opposition figure withdrew his candidacy just weeks before the election in protest against the conditions surrounding the election.

Unless Ben Ali amends the Constitution, as he has done once before, this will be his final term, as no one over the age of 75 is allowed to run for the office of president.

Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally Party (RDC) also did well in parliamentary elections, receiving more than 80 per cent of the votes in many electoral districts, according to the Tunisia Online News.

The RDC ended up winning 161 of the 214 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, with the remaining 53 seats to be allotted proportionally among the remaining parties.

During the campaign, Ben Ali had promised to fight unemployment and raise per-capita income by 40 per cent.

Tunisia is considered the most stable country in the Arab world. It has economic growth of about 3 per cent and, in contrast to neighboring Algeria, has not been troubled much by Islamist extremists.

Critics, however, complain of repression and human rights abuses, particularly in regard to the political opposition.

Spanish king's faithful adviser Fernandez Campo dies at age 91

Madrid - Spanish political leaders on Monday paid tribute to Sabino Fernandez Campo, a close collaborator of King Juan Carlos who died overnight at the age of 91 years. The former general secretary of the royal palace, who helped the king thwart a coup attempt in 1981, died of complications caused by stomach problems at a Madrid clinic.

Fernandez Campo served the Spanish royal family for two decades, helping to consolidate the monarchy in democratic conditions after the death of 1939-75 dictator Francisco Franco.

A former army general, Fernandez Campo served as a government official under Franco and in the years following his death.

In 1977, the law graduate became general secretary of the royal palace at a time when many Spaniards still felt distrust towards the monarchy.

Franco had picked Juan Carlos as his successor as head of state, and many Spaniards saw the king as the dictator's puppet until he gained widespread popularity by foiling a coup attempt in 1981.

Fernandez Campo played a key role in advising Juan Carlos, who gave a television address in uniform, condemning the coup and ordering the insurgent soldiers and paramilitary Civil Guard officers to go back to their barracks.

Fernandez Campo also helped to plan the education of Crown Prince Felipe, who was born in 1968 and is due to succeed his 71-year-old father.

In 1990, Fernandez Campo became palace protocol chief, a post he held until 1993, when the king made him his private adviser.

In 1992, the king gave Fernandez Campo the title of Count of Latores as an expression of his gratitude.

"Our monarchy is more modern than the English one and has adapted to the current times," Fernandez Campo once said.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist Party described Fernandez Campo as a "great servant of the state" while opposition conservative spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria stressed his "intelligence" and "discretion."

A funerary chapel was being opened in Madrid for the royal adviser, who was due to be buried in his native Oviedo in the north on Tuesday.

Spanish carrier Iberia cancels 200 flights due to strike

Madrid - Spain's biggest airline Iberia on Monday canceled 200 of its planned 1,000 flights because of a strike by cabin crew seeking salary hikes. The work stoppage affected especially Madrid airport, Iberia sources said.

Flights were canceled to or from Lisbon, Paris, London, Brussels, Frankfurt as well as national destinations.

Another 200 flights were expected to be canceled on Tuesday. Two other work stoppages are planned for November 10 and 11.

European agency says Kosovo television 'media arm' of ruler

Geneva- The European Broadcasting Union on Monday slammed Hashim Thaci, the prime minister of Kosovo, accusing him of turning the public service broadcaster into a "media arm of the ruling party."In a letter to Thaci, Jean Reveillon, head of the EBU, said that since the territory declared itself an independent state in 2008, the broadcaster RTK has been forced under "a relentless process of political and economic interference."

"Pressure from your government transformed RTK from being a balanced supplier of news into a media arm of the ruling party and of yourself as prime minister. Critical or alternative voices have been suppressed," Reveillon wrote, noting European financial aid which helped form the channel a decade ago.

"What we are now seeing is pressure from the Kosovo government to turn RTK into an uncritical state broadcaster," the letter said.

The situation has worsened in the last five months, the EBU said, citing European Union reports, and one by the organization Reporters without Borders which found "freedom of media in Kosovo considerably deteriorated" and the territory fell from 58th place last year to 75th this year in the rankings chart.

Saying that the moves to exert control over RTK "will be beneficial neither to the citizens of Kosovo nor to your ambitions for more international recognition of your country," Reveillon urged the premier to enact "urgent measures" to restore autonomy to the broadcaster.

International reaction to Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence has been mixed. Only a minority of United Nations member states, mostly Western countries, have recognized Kosovo as independent.

Italy's largest opposition party picks new chief

Rome- Voting results released Monday clinched a win for former minister Pier Luigi Bersani as head of Italy's opposition Democratic Party. The vote count showed that, with 73 per cent of the votes counted, Bersani had won 53.3 per cent. The next closest vote-getter was incumbent leader Dario Franceschini, with 34.4 per cent.

Nearly 3 million voters cast ballots, nearly as many as in a 2007 vote that installed Walter Veltroni as the PD's first leader. The high turnout was unexpected after party strife following losses in 2008 parliamentary elections.

Bersani, 58, a former federal economic development minister is expected to try to pull Italy to the left, but is also seen as having the economic credentials to serve as a threat to the conservative government of incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose rule has been plagued by scandals recently.

The party will face its first electoral challenge at regional elections set for March.

Jewish treasures go on display in one of Europe's oldest synagogues

Erfurt, Germany - The old synagogue in the eastern German city of Erfurt, founded around the year 1100, was officially opened as a museum housing Jewish treasure and artefacts on Monday. The Jewish house of worship, constructed near the town hall in the city centre from 1094, fell into disuse after a pogrom in the year 1349 claimed the lives of around 900 Jews.

The building went through a series of uses as a warehouse, a dance hall, a pub and a bowling alley, before a multi-million euro facelift returned it to its Jewish roots.

The museum now displays items that include precious gold and silver items, and a rare large Hebrew parchment Bible.

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said the exhibition played an important role in understanding historical events.

"I hope that Erfurt's rich Jewish inheritance contributes to a better understanding between Jews and non-Jews, but also helps the Jewish community grow together," Knobloch said, referring in part to immigrants from the former Soviet Union who now form the majority of Germany's Jewish community.

"Mazel tov," meaning "good luck," is inscribed on a gold wedding ring, which forms the highlight of a collection of gold- and silverware buried under a doorstep by a Jewish merchant during the pogrom in 1349.

Knobloch used the occasion to speak of the fate of 6 million Jews killed in Nazi Germany, adding that lessons of the distant past hadn't been learned by 1933.

"Mazel tov" presumably hadn't helped the bearer of the wedding ring, Knobloch mused.

After the ravages of Nazi Germany and subsequent years of East German rule, all that remained was a vague suspicion that there had once been a synagogue in the centre of Erfurt.

Initial investigations in the late 1980s identified the building, which had retained a few original features such as an ornate rosette window. The site was bought and restored with funding from the state of Thuringia, the federal government and the EU.

The museum's curator, Ines Beese, said she hoped the collection would highlight Erfurt's role as a centre of Jewish life in the Middle Ages.

"The historical monument is our number one exhibit. With this, Erfurt can really score points when it comes to historical and political culture," Beese said.

Other features recalling the city's Jewish past include a historic graveyard and traditional Jewish baths, or mikwah, recently uncovered by the Kraemer bridge in the old city centre.

Erfurt is hoping its Jewish memorial sites will qualify the city as a World Heritage Site.

Egyptian woman killed out of 'pure hatred,'court hears - Summary

Dresden, Germany - A court heard details Monday of the murder of a pregnant Egyptian woman by a man said to be motivated by "pure hatred of non-Europeans and Muslims."Alex W, 28, a German of Russian origin, is accused of stabbing to death Marwa al-Shirbani at an appeal hearing against a fine he had been ordered to pay for verbally abusing her in 2008.

The July 1 killing, in the same building in Dresden where the trial is being held, provoked angry reactions in Egypt and a death threat against the defendant.

Alex W was brought into the courtroom shackled by his hands and feet, and shrouded by a hood, a face mask and sunglasses. He refused to communicate with the court, as he sat with his back to the room.

Senior prosecutor Frank Heinrich told the court that Alex W attacked al-Shirbini, 31, and her husband, "in order to kill them," and had stabbed the couple "with great vehemence."

The courtroom setting made it even harder for the couple to escape the unexpected attack, the prosecutor added.

"(Alex W) knowingly exploited the circumstances to extinguish the lives of the couple out of pure hatred towards non-Europeans and Muslims, whom he doesn't grant the right to live," Heinrich said.

The unemployed 28-year-old has been charged with murder, attempted murder and causing aggravated bodily harm. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.

Al-Shirbini's husband, Elwi Ali Okaz, described events clearly, addressing the court in Arabic on the first afternoon of the trial. The 32-year-old was badly injured in the frenzied attack.

The couple had been about to leave the courtroom with their 3- year-old son when Alex W attacked them, Okaz said. At first his wife was hit and pushed, he said, adding that he was also hit when he tried to protect her.

Okaz said he only noticed the knife after the defendant had stabbed his wife several times. "When he attacked me, I saw that he was holding something sharp," the widower said.

At that moment, Okaz said, people stormed the room and shots were fired. Shortly after, he lost consciousness.

It turned out that a policeman had accidentally shot Okaz in the leg, having mistaken him for the assailant.

The couple's son, who witnessed the ordeal, had been present in the courtroom since he had been too ill to attend nursery that day. The boy was now living with relatives in Egypt, the father said.

"He misses his mother very much, he is suffering," Okaz said of his son.

Al-Shirbini and her husband had lived in Dresden for several years. Okaz had been writing a doctorate in molecular cell biology and genetics at the Max Planck Institute. His wife worked at a pharmacy.

"I surely don't have a good feeling about staying in Dresden, after all that has happened," Okaz said.

The hearing in July came after Alex W appealed a 330-euro (480- dollar) fine he was ordered to pay for verbally abusing al-Shirbini at a children's playground in August 2008.

He had called al-Shirbini a "terrorist" after she asked him to stop sitting on a child's swing so her son could use it, witnesses told police. Al-Shirbini was wearing a headscarf at the time.

Al-Shirbini's widower told the court that his wife had not initiated the proceedings against Alex W. She had called the police after the playground incident, it is likely that this triggered the investigation.

Egypt's ambassador to Germany, Ramzy Ezzeldin, said he expected a fair trial as he arrived to witness proceedings at the Dresden court.

"I have great trust in German justice," the diplomat said just before the case got underway.

Maria Boehmer, a top aide to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, called for a calm and considerate approach to the trial, adding that it was being closely followed by people around the world.

"This makes it all the more important to trust and respect the independence of German justice," said Boehmer, who is Germany's commissioner for minority affairs.

The Central Council of Muslims had called earlier for a clear political signal.

"Germany's reputation has suffered badly. Politics is ignoring Islamophobia and the consequences of such occurrences," said the Council's president, Ayyub Axel Koehler.

The trial, expected to last 11 days, is to continue Tuesday with a statement by the judge who was present at the July 1 hearing.