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Kadima party officials told the Likud’s coalition negotiating team that Kadima plans to implement its “convergence plan” to uproot dozens of Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria by 2008. Kadima negotiators said the withdrawals would be made prior to the next U.S. presidential election in November 2008. After the meeting between the two teams which took place in Ramat Gan’s Maccabiah Olympic village, former Education Minister, MK Limor Livnat (Likud) concluded, “the chance that we’ll be joining the coalition is very, very unlikely.” Kadima negotiators also told their Likud counterparts that Kadima would oppose holding a national referendum on carrying...

An offical report, allegedly implicating Olmert in corruption as Minister of Industry and Trade will be issued after the election. Independent journalist Yoav Yitzhak says delay is political. The State Comptroller, charged with investigating allegations of inefficiency and corruption in the government, is investigating charges that Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (Kadima) used his position as Minister of Industry and Trade to make illegal appointments of cronies to top government jobs. The report, which highlights Olmert’s involvement in the illegal appointments, is expected to be published by the comptroller’s office after the March 28 general election. Yoav Yitzhak, an independent...

Before Scandinavia: These could be the first skiers By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BEIJING – Move over Bode. You may have competition you don't know about - among a sturdy skiing clan in northwest China. They are central Asians, Mongols, and Kazaks, living in the remote Altay mountains of Xinjiang province, where some claim skiing was first conceived. Using curved planks whose design dates back 2,000 years, the Altaic peoples are formidable skiers. They might not win a medal on perfectly groomed Olympic trails. But they can break their own paths, track elk for...

Britain 'could be harbouring 20 more Abu Hamzas' By Philip Johnston and George Jones (Filed: 15/02/2006) Britain could be harbouring 20 more foreign radical imams like Abu Hamza, the Government's anti-terrorism watchdog said yesterday. Lord Carlile QC, who carried out an official review of counter-terrorism laws, said radicals such as Hamza had been able to operate because not enough had been done to check the credentials of people arriving from abroad. Hamza was jailed for seven years last week for inciting murder and preaching hatred. Lord Carlile, a Liberal Democrat peer, said he feared that other extremists were continuing to...

New terror attacks 'must be expected' (Filed: 02/02/2006) The Government's anti-terror watchdog has warned there is a "a real and present danger" of new terror attacks in Britain. Lord Carlile said he could not predict targets Lord Carlile, the Government's independent reviewer of counter-terrorism laws, said documents shown to him by the Home Office were "sufficiently alarming" for him to conclude that suicide bombings similar to the July 7 attacks "must be expected". The Liberal Democrat peer said: "The nature of the activities of which I have seen information is sufficiently alarming for me to re-emphasise ... the real and...

SAN FRANCISCO — Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 16, 2006 — This week marks the end of an era in Iraq with the transfer of authority ceremony between the XVIII Airborne Corps and Task Force Victory, 5th Corps. Lt. Gen. John R. Vines and his XVIII Airborne Corps have performed superbly, executing the tactical missions vital in achieving the successes we all benefit from today in Iraq. In the past year, the Corps has moved mountains. They secured the borders, especially those crossings in the Al Anbar province; denied safe havens to the terrorists and foreign fighters in operations such as Operation Sayaid in the...

Source: JAMA and Archives Journals Date: 2006-01-19 Avian Flu Transmission To Humans May Be Higher Than Thought A new study suggests that there is an association between direct contact with dead or sick poultry and flu-like illness in humans and that the transmission is probably more common than expected, according to a new study in the January 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Anna Thorson, M.D., Ph.D., from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues analyzed data from household interviews conducted in FilaBavi, a Vietnamese demographic surveillance site in Bavi district, northwest Vietnam, with...

South Bend, IN - A South Bend police officer, found guilty for drunk driving, learned Wednesday that he's being demoted. Sergeant Ronald Nowicki will be demoted to a corporal. The South Bend Board of Public Safety went above and beyond the police chief's recommendation of a 21-day suspension. Nowicki will also face that 21 day suspension without pay beginning Thursday. In late December, Nowicki pleaded guilty to operating while intoxicated. Nowicki did not attend Wednesday's hearing, but NewsCenter 16 did speak with him about the decision. He says he does plan to appeal the decision.

SALT LAKE CITY (Jan. 10) - Utah's oldest inmate, 99-year-old Bert Jackson, will be paroled and serve the rest of his sentence on home confinement. Jackson has served three years of a sentence of one to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing at least two children. "I don't want you to die in prison," state Board of Pardons and Parole member Keith Hamilton told Jackson during a Jan. 3 parole hearing. The Board of Pardons decided Thursday that Jackson will be paroled Feb. 7 to live with his son and daughter-in-law. The parole hearing lasted longer than usual because...

A Contra Costa County water supplier has laid eight miles of pipe across rural grasslands to prevent California red-legged frogs from drying out and dying in the blistering summer heat. The $163,000 project delivers water to 16 artificial ponds, breaking new ground in helping the threatened frog species celebrated in Mark Twain's story ``The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.''

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2005 – American servicemembers are doing a superb job in Iraq, and the only place the war can be lost is in the United States, where people don't have a clear understanding of what's happening on the ground and can lose patience, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Dec. 19. "The work that they're doing overseas is so professional and so able, and we're so fortunate to have them there that I would have to say that the only place this could be lost is if we lost our will here in the United States," Rumsfeld...

Moderate drinking 'may not be good for you' By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent (Filed: 02/12/2005) Drinking in moderation may not be good for you after all, scientists said yesterday. Previous research has suggested that light to moderate alcohol consumption protects the heart. One study suggested drinking the equivalent of up to two pints of ordinary strength beer or three glasses of wine can reduce heart attack risk by a quarter. However, writing in today's issue of The Lancet, Dr Rod Jackson and colleagues from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, suggest the apparent protective effect of alcohol may be...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2005 — On Dec. 22, 1941, 4,600 American soldiers marched off transport ships docked in Brisbane, their deployment to The Philippines having been diverted days earlier by rapid Japanese advances in the Pacific. Pearl Harbor had just been attacked. Darwin would be bombed three months later. Those servicemen disembarking in Brisbane were the first of some one million US troops who would pass through Australia over the next four years during World War II. As one woman wrote: "Suddenly the Yanks were here ... They all seemed to have big mouths and square teeth, and came from...

Now it is another Vietnam. Again, a nonmilitary branch of the government is sticking their nose where it doesn't belong and demanding withdrawal before victory. America must not abandon another just cause. America must not betray another nation of people who are hoping for freedom and representation. It is the ideal of relativism that says freedom and democracy are not superior to tyranny and terror. Liberals who adhere to this philosophy may need to experience the latter before changing their mind about the superiority of America's way of life. Yet, a proper study of history would make that unnecessary. America's...

(IsraelNN.com) A secondary school teacher in Saudi Arabia was charged with "dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer," according to the Saudi newspaper Al-Madina. The teacher, Mohammed Al-Harbi, was sentenced to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes for his "crimes". He was denounced by colleagues and students at his school. The Saudi authorities and Arab newspapers are presenting it as a case of the teacher "mocking religion" and receiving the appropriate penalty.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed Friday that four Iraqis, including a husband and wife, carried out the suicide bombings against three Amman hotels, and police arrested 120 Jordanians and Iraqis in the hunt for anyone who might have aided them. If their involvement is confirmed, the husband and wife would be the first married couple yet known to take part in a suicide bombing, a top Israeli counterterrorism expert said. Thousands of Jordanians protested in Amman for a second straight day, condemning the attacks that killed 57 people, excluding the bombers, and denouncing al-Qaida in Iraq's leader,...

Wilma May Be Mexico's Costliest Disaster Friday October 28, 2005 4:31 AM By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press Writer ISLA MUJERES, Mexico (AP) - Mexico's Caribbean coastline took a beating from Hurricane Wilma, but the resort area's islands - famous for their diving and snorkeling - bore the brunt of the storm, with extensive damage to reefs and white-sand beaches. Mexican insurance companies said Thursday that Wilma was likely to be the country's most costly disaster ever, with payments topping the $1.2 billion the industry dished out for 1988's Hurricane Gilbert. A U.S. cruise ship was sent Thursday to the island...

Poor children may be bused to school in wealthy areas By Liz Lightfoot, Education Correspondent (Filed: 18/10/2005) Free bus travel for children from council estates will be announced next week as part of the Government's effort to end the middle class stranglehold on popular schools. "Choice advisers" will tell parents about schools outside their areas to which they can apply and help them through the admissions process. Groups of schools will be allowed to test children and put them into ability bands, sharing out the most and least able so that their intakes reflect the profile of the local authority...

Italian river 'full of cocaine' Scientists have found large quantities of cocaine residue in a river in northern Italy - suggesting consumption is much higher than previously thought. They say they found the equivalent of 40,000 doses a day in the Po valley, home to about five million people. The study, published by the UK's Environmental Health magazine, tests sewage and rivers for levels of a by-product of cocaine metabolism. The team say the test has to be refined before being applied on a vast scale. The chemical found in the urine of cocaine users is called benzoylecgonine, or BE....