- 23 dead 61 injured in a car bomb blast
- 10 dead more wounded in two other bombs
- 9 dead Iraqis found in Tarfaya
- US soldier killed in West Baghdad
- A mosque bombed in Tikrit
Update:
2 British soldiers killed. A total of 75 Iraqi dead.
Expat in Israel.
fraud, breach of trust, election bribery, perjury and false testimony in connection with the political appointments he made during a stint as environment ministerIsraeli politics can be very dirty.
Most of the next generation of medical and science students could well be creationists, according to a biology teacher at a leading London sixth-form college. "The vast majority of my students now believe in creationism," she said, "and these are thinking young people who are able and articulate and not at the dim end at all. They have extensive booklets on creationism which they put in my pigeon-hole ... it's a bit like the southern states of America." Many of them came from Muslim, Pentecostal or Baptist family backgrounds, she said, and were intending to become pharmacists, doctors, geneticists and neuro-scientists
The latest ICM poll of British muslims makes even more disturbing reading than the survey out last week.
· 40% want to see sharia law enforced in the
· 26% said Abu Hamza did not receive a fair trial. Wonder what kind of trial they are thinking of?
· 20% say they have sympathy with the
· 7% are sufficiently extreme to say that western society is decadent and immoral and muslims should bring about its end if necessary by violent means.
The number of potential victims of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court in this situation – 4 to 12 victims of wilful killing and a limited number of victims of inhuman treatment – was of a different order than the number of victims found in other situations under investigation or analysis by the Office. It is worth bearing in mind that the OTP is currently investigating three situations involving long-running conflicts in Northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur. Each of the three situations under investigation involves thousands of wilful killings as well as intentional and large-scale sexual violence and abductions. Collectively, they have resulted in the displacement of more than 5 million people. Other situations under analysis also feature hundreds or thousands of such crimes. Taking into account all the considerations, the situation did not appear to meet the required
threshold of the Statute.

In honour of Harry Whittington’s release from hospital this afternoon, here are some hints and tips on safety from the left pond’s sharp shootin’ veep. Full commentary, accoutrements and how to 'join' here.
1. Always keep your gun loaded.
2. Always keep your gun aimed at stuff.
3. Always keep your finger on the trigger.
4. Always bring doctors so you don't get charged with murder.
Dr. Abed al-Aziz Duaik,said Wednesday that once the new government was formed, Hamas would formulate its own peace plan, with a long-term truce with Israel at its center.
MPs have just voted by a huge margin on a free vote for a total smoking ban in A US military attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would be the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon as well as the United States and Iran, with the possibility of west Gulf states being involved as well. An attack by Israel, although initially on a smaller scale, would almost certainly escalate to involve the United States, and would also mark the start of a protracted conflict.So, 2006 looks to change from interesting to fully scary. Any military action will have to happen before Iran's first major reactor is fuelled. I shall prepare for this as best as I can.
Although an attack by either state could seriously damage Iran’s nuclear development potential, numerous responses would be possible making a protracted and highly unstable conflict virtually certain. Moreover, Iran would be expected to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and engage in a nuclear weapons programme as rapidly as possible. This would lead to further military action against
Iran, establishing a highly dangerous cycle of violence.
What sounded then to the venture's true believers like the scolding of a Cassandra sounds fairly obvious three and a half years later, which is to say that Hagel's words can reasonably be read as prescient: 'How many of us really know and understand Iraq, its country, history, people and role in the Arab world? . . . The American people must be told of the long-term commitment, risk and cost of this undertaking. We should not be seduced by the expectations of dancing in the streets.'
This party that sometimes I don't recognize anymore has presided over the largest growth of government in the history of this country and maybe even the history of man.
Check your elevation everyone.Some scientists have been reluctant to talk about the overall global warming effect of all the greenhouses gases taken together, because there is another consideration - the fact that the "aerosol", or band of dust in the atmosphere from industrial pollution, actually reduces the warming.
As Professor Shine stresses, there is enormous uncertainty about the degree to which this is happening, so making calculation of the overall warming effect problematic. However, as James Lovelock points out - and Professor Shine and other scientists accept - in the event of an industrial downturn, the aerosol could fall out of the atmosphere in a matter of weeks, and then the effect of all the greenhouse gases taken together would suddenly be fully felt.
...sold their souls to the devil and became the successors of the Nazis, the Arab terrorists, and PLO, Hamas, and Jihad activists."Wow. I wish people would stop using the Nazis as a comparison point.
Yes, racism does exist in Israel - directed against Arabs, and also among Jews. Amir Peretz, new leader of the Labour party, is said to be having problems with western-born Ashkenazi voters because he is Moroccan-born and Sephardic. An explanation offered for the police violence in clearing the Amona outpost last week was the antagonism between the protesting young people, who were mainly religious Ashkenazi, and the police, who were a mixture of Moroccan and Russian immigrant stock, Bedouin and Druze.He goes on.
I am also puzzled by the health ministry figures that McGreal has chosen to use about state spending on development of health facilities in Arab areas (the clear implication being that Arabs are starved of health care). Contrary to the picture painted, health is a visible indicator of the differences between apartheid South Africa and Israel. In South Africa, the infant mortality rate (IMR) in 1985 was 78 per 1,000 live births. Among colour groups: whites 12, Asians 20, coloureds 60, blacks 94 to 150. In Israel, in the 1950s, the IMR among Muslims was 60.6 and among Jews 38.8. Major improvements occurred in health care during the 1990s and by 2001 the IMR among Arabs was 7.6 (Muslims 8.2, Christians 2.6, Druze 4.7). Among Jews, 4.1. According to the health ministry, the higher Muslim figure was due mainly to genetic defects as a result of marriages between close relatives; poverty is also a factor. Other countries in 2000: Switzerland, 8.2, and 12.3 for Turks living there; United States, whites 8.5, blacks 21.3.
Last week the Iranian Foreign Ministry invited Tony Blair to Tehran to take part in a planned conference on the Holocaust. Mr Blair said that such a conference was "shocking, ridiculous, stupid". The Prime Minister responded by inviting Mr Ahmadinejad to witness the evidence of the Holocaust in the countries of Europe.
The stunned settlers were subjected for the first time yesterday to the "Bil'in rules" the treatment the Palestinians have received from the IDF and police for the past 40 years.I take no pleasure from this.