France okays firing at Israeli Air Force over LebanonFrench soldiers in Lebanon who feel threatened by aggressive Israeli overflights are permitted to shoot at IAF fighter jets, a high-ranking French military officer told The Jerusalem Post.
Wednesday, several days after meeting with an IDF general in Paris to discuss what he said was a "blatant violation of the cease-fire."
Last weekend, Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan, head of the IDF Planning Directorate, traveled to Paris and met with military officials to explain why th... (more)
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Putin's new secret weaponPresident Vladimir Putin came to the conclusion three years ago that Russia was sitting on a secret weapon more powerful than all its military might.
Ownership of 30% of the world's gas supply and being the second-biggest oil producer has given him a new and powerful economic bargaining counter.
And the former KGB officer has shown that he intends to use these resources to restore pride in Russia, which suffered in the years after the downfall of communism.
<... (more)
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Russian Spies Protect Canadian Troops — Russian OfficialRussian Canada spying case is postponed while Russia says Moscow’s agents were handing over secret intelligence to help protect Canadian troops in Afghanistan, the Reuters news agency reported Thursday.
Last week, Montreal police arrested a man who Ottawa says is an elite Russian spy who had been living under a false Canadian identity for more than 10 years. Canada says the alleged Russian spy who went by the false name Paul William Hampel worked for Rus... (more)
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US and Colombia sign trade deal The Bush administration has signed a multi-billion dollar free trade agreement with Colombia.
The pact comes despite warnings from Congress - which is now controlled by the opposition Democratic Party - that it has deep reservations over the deal.
Colombia's finance minister said the move would benefit Colombia's economy and its efforts to improve security.
The deal is America's biggest in the Western Hemisphere since 1994's ... (more)
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Israeli forces move into two Gaza townsIsraeli troops, tanks and armoured vehicles today moved into two towns in northern Gaza, but the Israeli security cabinet decided against a larger offensive.
A gunman from the Hamas group had been killed and three teenage Palestinian girls wounded by Israeli fire outside a school, Palestinian hospital officials said.
The Israeli army said one soldier was wounded after an anti-tank rocket hit him in what Palestinians described as a ferocious gun battle.
... (more)
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Iraqis Overwhelmingly Demand U.S. Troops Withdraw Within One Year In a September 19 speech to the United Nations, President Bush had a message for the Iraqi people:
To the people of Iraq: Nearly 12 million of you braved the car bombers and assassins last December to vote in free elections. The world saw you hold up purple ink-stained fingers, and your courage filled us with admiration. You’ve stood firm in the face of horrendous acts of terror and sectarian violence — and we will not abandon you in your str... (more)
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West Bank Settlements Often Use Private Palestinian Land, Study SaysJERUSALEM, Nov. 21 -- An Israeli advocacy group has found that 39 percent of the land used by Jewish settlements in the West Bank is private Palestinian property, which the organization contends is a violation of international and Israeli law guaranteeing property rights in the occupied territories.
In a report released here Tuesday, the Settlement Watch project of Peace Now also disclosed that much of the land that Israeli officials have said would remain part of the Jewish state... (more)
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Gay rights law 'being forced through' Controversial new gay rights laws are being bulldozed through parliament despite protests from Churches and other groups.
The Sexual Orientation Regulations, which the Government appeared to have dropped a few weeks ago, are being fast-tracked in Northern Ireland, using direct rule powers.
They have even be toughened up in what critics believe is a dry run for a similar move in the rest of Britain next spring.
The legislation woul... (more)
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Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in HebronA 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks.
Tov... (more)
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Blair calls for Afghanistan reinforcementsTony Blair on Monday stepped up pressure on the UK’s Nato allies to send more troops and bolster support for Afghanistan ahead of a key summit in Riga, Latvia, at the end of this month.
Speaking in Kabul after meeting President Hamid Karzai, the UK prime minister compared the current situation facing the alliance in Afghanistan with the hesitancy shown by some Nato countries at the beginning of the Balkan crisis in the 1990s.
Failure to act in co-ordinated fas... (more)
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Israelis 'using Kurds to build power base'Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilise the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.
The article was written by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib. It is sourced primarily to unnamed former and current intelligence officials in Israel, the Unit... (more)
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Olmert Hugs Bush, Praises Iraq WarIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert raised eyebrows this week when he praised America’s war in Iraq as a “great operation” that brought stability to the Middle East.
Olmert made his remarks Monday during a White House press conference with President Bush, before heading to Los Angeles to speak at a major gathering of thousands of Jewish communal activists.
“We are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability which the great o... (more)
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Interpreters used by British Army 'hunted down' by Iraqi death squadsIraqi interpreters working with the British Army in Basra are being systematically hunted down and killed.
At least 21 have been kidnapped and shot in head over the past three weeks, their bodies dumped in different parts of the city. Another three are still missing. In a single mass killing, 17 interpreters were killed.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but militia groups fighting for control of the province - and opposed to the presence of foreign ... (more)
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Israelis mourn Gaza deathsThe readers of Haaretz daily newspaper in the past days were in for a surprise after three Israeli citizens published obituaries in the back pages of the newspaper which expressed their grief for the death of civilians in Beit Hanoun last week. The last obituary was purchased by Edna Kovarski of Herzliya, who paid approximately NIS 2,800 (USD 650).
Kovarski wrote in the obituary that she "bows her head in shame and deep grief for your heavy loss. The sane Israeli public is invite... (more)
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US plans last big push in IraqA farewell ceremony for US troops deployed to Iraq. Instead of a troop withdrawal next year, Bush is thinking of increasing the numbers. Photograph: Peter Turnley/Corbis
President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal delibe... (more)
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Chavez: Bush should get death penaltyCARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez slammed the Saddam Hussein death penalty and said it is U.S. President George W. Bush who should be sentenced to death.
"If sentencing is to be done," said Chavez earlier this week, "the first one to be given the most severe sentence this planet has to offer should be the president of the United States, if we're talking about genocidal presidents," the Miami Herald reported Thursday.
The leftis... (more)
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Russian Parliament Says Saddam Execution Will Bring More Violence to IraqRussia’s parliament has warned that carrying out the death sentence imposed on former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein could provoke a new wave of violence in Iraq, the Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday.
The lower house of the Russian parliament, controlled by a pro-Kremlin party that supports President Vladimir Putin, said in a statement that the use of foreign force in Iraq had failed for the people of Iraq.
A U.S.-backed Iraqi court... (more)
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Iraq ministry hostages 'tortured' Iraq's higher education minister has said he fears some ministry workers kidnapped by gunmen on Tuesday have been tortured and killed.
Abd Dhiab said some of the 70 or so captives who have since been released were badly beaten.
They were among scores of workers taken hostage when the gunmen raided an education ministry building in Baghdad.
In continuing violence meanwhile, gunmen killed nine people in an ambush on a bakery ... (more)
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Blair 'faces new rebellion over anti-terror legislation'Tony Blair has been warned that he faces renewed dissent over planned anti-terror laws as research showed the Government faced record levels of rebellion from its backbenchers last year.
Labour MPs defied the whip in more than a quarter of votes during the last session of Parliament, academics at Nottingham University said.
More than half of the rebellions, and the four defeats inflicted, were over Home Office Bills, leading to warnings that the Government could fac... (more)
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Germany tries 'Holocaust denier' A German man deported from the US has gone on trial in the Germany city of Mannheim for alleged Holocaust denial.
Germar Rudolf published a study saying the Nazis did not use gas to kill Jews at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The prosecution says he "represented the Holocaust as invention" and used the internet to spread his documents.
If found guilty, Mr Rudolf will face up to five years in prison. He has already been... (more)
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Gunmen seize 100 at Iraq ministry Gunmen in military-style uniforms have kidnapped more than 100 men from a research institute belonging to Iraq's higher education ministry.
A ministry spokeswoman said the gunmen arrived in new pick-up vehicles and stormed the ministry's Research Directorate in central Baghdad.
They ordered women into one room and seized the men, including employees, guards and visitors to the building.
Academics and researchers have been f... (more)
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