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Syria is ready to break off its close links with Iran if America gives it financial and military backing, a former Israeli diplomat involved in unofficial peace talks has revealed to The Sunday Telegraph. According to the offical, who has been engaged in low-key "second track" discussions with Syrian representatives for many months, Syria's President Bashar Assad is increasingly open to a deal which would greatly weaken Iranian influence in the region. Alon Liel, a former director of Israel's foreign ministry, said the prospect of a peace agreement with Syria was growing, though it might require a new American president...

A bomb-laden van found on a Brooklyn street by a car thief was wired to detonate by remote control, and had likely been sitting there for more than five months... Investigators believe the homemade explosives found Thursday night in the Ford Econoline belonged to Yung Tang, 39, a Chinese national. He has been behind bars since he was caught Jan. 29 in Wallingford, Conn., with nearly identical bombs in his Mazda MPV minivan. Also found in the MPV were two silencers, four hollow-point bullets and two radio-controlled detonators. Days after that arrest, the NYPD searched his Brooklyn house and found...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1031611/Sharia-law-SHOULD-used-Britain-says-UKs-judge.html Link only. Not sure of posting rules

McCain Should Play 'Pin Obama on the Donkey' Jonah Goldberg Hoping that the third time really is the charm, the McCain campaign has had yet another staff shakeup. As befits a press corps and Republican professional class always eager to gain favor and access to the newest man in charge, the accolades for the latest campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, are nothing short of superlative. The argument that Schmidt is the right man for the job centers on the fact that he's a no-nonsense type who enjoys taking the fight to the enemy. That's good news given how much nonsense has...

John McCain has stepped up his appeal to Christian conservatives, meeting recently with religious leaders in Ohio and making a publicized pilgrimage to see Billy Graham. McCain advisers believe religious-right voters will come around in November. The campaign's internal polls suggest that the Arizona Republican has a 60 percent margin of support among evangelicals over Mr. Obama. But diminished turnout in the group, particularly in close states, could be fatal to Mr. McCain. Mr. Scarborough, who backed Mike Huckabee in the GOP primary, said his primary motivation is not enthusiasm about Mr. McCain but fear of Mr. Obama. "I am...

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the...

Reuters - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appears to be pressing ahead with a civilian nuclear deal with the United States despite threats from his communist allies that they could withdraw their crucial parliamentary support from the government. Here is a timeline of some key developments over the past three years: * July 2005: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W. Bush agree in principle to a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal. The deal reverses 30 years of U.S. policy opposing nuclear cooperation with India because it developed nuclear weapons in contravention of global rules and never signed the...

Israel has successfully tested a new defence system designed to intercept rockets fired from southern Lebanon and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, public radio reported on Sunday. The "Iron Dome" system is expected to be fully operational within a year and will be able to intercept the military-grade Katyusha rockets used by Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and the cruder Qassam rockets favoured by Hamas. Citing Israeli security officials, public radio said the system would also be effective against mortar fire which has a much smaller window of warning. In January Prime Minister Ehud Olmert viewed a prototype of the 200-million-dollar (140-million-euro) system,...

Ethanol Industry in DistressBusiness Adviser: 16 Ethanol Plants Filing Bankruptcy, Many More to Come By Todd Neeley DTN Staff Reporter 06/20/08 4:37:15 PM OMAHA (DTN) -- The U.S. ethanol industry is in trouble and can expect to see a rash of bankruptcies and dismantling of at least some production, according to a specialist who helps companies in distress. Alex Moglia, president of Moglia Advisors based in the Chicago area, said he knows of at least 16 ethanol companies that are filing for bankruptcy, and there will be at least two to three times that number filing within the next year....

DAYTON — The second time Keison Wilkins acted as his own attorney for a felonious assault trial didn't work out so well.Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman sentenced Wilkins to 42 years in prison Monday, June 30. The sentencing capped off a week of Wilkins' antics, which frequently caused Huffman to clear the courtroom. At one point he began yelling about lynchings. On Thursday, he apparently faked a heart attack, collapsing to the floor while uninterested observers watched. After the "attack," during which medical personnel checked him out and found nothing wrong with him, Wilkins sat in a...

Iran-Venezuela-Chavez Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stressed on Sunday that his people support their Iranian brothers. President Chavez made the remark in a meeting with Iranian Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Press Affairs, Ali-Reza Malekian held on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Conveying his warm greetings for his Iranian counterpart, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Venezuelan president expressed hope that he would visit the Islamic Republic in the near future. For his part, the Iranian envoy said Tehran supports Venezuela's constructive proposals regarding establishment of NAM TV network and efforts for free exchange...

Clinton talks about saving the worldby Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer Sunday, July 6, 2008 Bill Clinton has an idea about how to solve the world’s most pressing humanitarian problems: It’s the systems, stupid. Addressing a panoply of world issues from climate change and alternative energy to food security and AIDS yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the former president argued that creatively rethinking and reorganizing current global problem-solving methods would vastly improve civilization. Clinton’s sober hour-long conversation with Jane Wales, his former White House aide who is currently vice president of philanthropy and society at the Aspen...

Landrieu among 'Dirty Dozen'Sunday, July 06, 2008 By Bruce Alpert The League of Conservation Voters last week put Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., on its "Dirty Dozen list," saying she has done more to protect "Big Oil" than "the future for the people of Louisiana" from the threat of global warming. According to the environmental advocacy group, Landrieu has a lifetime score of 43 percent on votes in which it took a position, lowest among Senate Democrats running for re-election. "For a senator from Louisiana, which faces severe consequences from global warming, to fail to protect Louisiana is disappointing," said the...

Funny how quickly $4-a-gallon gas can smoke out hypocrites - as last week's Pew Research poll, citing a dramatic spike in the share of Americans demanding more energy sources and less environmental protection, shows. The nation, it seems, now favors developing new sources over "saving the planet" by a hefty 3-2 margin. And get this: The biggest shift came among - yep! - liberals. Seems sanctimonious tree-huggers and caribou-coddlers have their price: $4 gas. The percentage of those on the left who see energy expansion as the bigger priority more than doubled, from 22 to 45 percent, in just the...

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates has cancelled the entire debt owned to it by Iraq, which totals just under $7 billion including interest and arrears payments, a UAE diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday.

Undercover Officers Got Acting Lessons; 'Crocodile Dundee' BOGOTÁ, Colombia -- New details have emerged about an important supporting role for the U.S. in Colombia's daring rescue of 15 hostages held by the country's Marxist guerrillas. One area where the Americans were directly involved: Giving Hollywood-style acting classes to the Colombian undercover military officers who duped the guerrillas into handing over the hostages. Preparation for the rescue mission, which freed three Americans and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, involved mounting a makeshift studio on an army base and drilling the undercover military officers in their acting roles, according to senior...

‘Germ warfare’ fear over African monkeys taken to Iran Daniel Foggo Hundreds of endangered monkeys are being taken from the African bush and sent to a “secretive” laboratory in Iran for scientific experiments. An undercover inquiry by The Sunday Times has revealed that wild monkeys, which are banned from experiments in Britain, are being freely supplied in large numbers to laboratories in other parts of the world. All will undergo invasive and maybe painful experiments leading ultimately to their death. One Tanzanian dealer, Nazir Manji, who runs African Primates, an animal-supplying company based in Dar es Salaam, said that in...

Republican John McCain, who has made support for President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, is getting from help from a veterans group that's launching a national TV ad campaign next week. Vets for Freedom is spending $1.5 million on ads that will run on national cable television and in five states in July _ the first set of ads in a multimillion dollar campaign in coming months touting the troop buildup, Pete Hegseth, the 25,000-member group's chairman, said in a telephone interview Saturday. Aimed at "informing the American people about the truth regarding progress...

In case Iran’s interests in the region are jeopardized, it will shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz and will not allow the others to use it, Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Hassan Firuzabadi warned here on Saturday. “The Strait of Hormuz being open is of considerable importance for us but if our interests are ignored, it is all clear that we will close the strait” Firuzabadi stressed. Addressing the U.S. troops in the region, he said “The U.S. army belongs to its government and should not be abused by such warlike and extremists as George Bush...

Sen. John McCain is making surprising headway with religious conservatives - that part of the Republican electoral coalition he was expected to find the most resistant. For a campaign that Republican critics have called ill-managed, disorganized and message-challenged, the Arizona senator's organization has, from all outward appearances, been doing things right in its appeals to evangelicals and other religious conservatives. In the past week, Mr. McCain won over a major group of social conservatives, thanks to personal appeals, and the campaign has made personnel moves appealing to religious voters. In Denver last week, a meeting of nearly 100 religious conservative...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's foreign ministry insisted on Saturday that its nuclear proliferation case was closed, a day after the disgraced architect of its atomic program claimed the army under President Pervez Musharraf helped spread the technology. Abdul Qadeer Khan said on Friday that Pakistan's army supervised a 2000 shipment of used P-1 centrifuges to North Korea. It must have been sent with the approval of Musharraf, the then-army chief who took power in a 1999 coup, Khan alleged. "It was a North Korean plane, and the army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment," Khan said. "It must have gone...

KARACHI: President Pervez Musharraf insisted on Friday that Pakistan's powerful army still supports him, but he said he would step down if he thought it would solve all of the country's problems. Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, blasted "hypocrites" for saying that the nuclear-armed Islamic republic's 500,000-strong military had turned against him since he stepped down as army chief last November. "The army will never leave me alone," Musharraf told a meeting of business leaders in the southern port city of Karachi. "Those who said the armed forces are not with me are the worst hypocrites and...

BAGHDAD, July 5 (VOI), The Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki's upcoming visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) comes to reinforce the Iraqi – Arab relations, al-Maliki's adviser said on Saturday. He added that Iraq does not need neighboring countries' "approval" to sign the long term security agreement with the U.S. "This visit is part of Iraq's intentions to reinforce its relations with Arab and regional countries, after the recent political and security developments in Iraq," Sadeq al-Riqabi told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI). "Since the change in 2003, Iraq expressed its intention to establish relations, relying on...

FRANKFURT — When Roger Kusch helped Bettina Schardt kill herself at home on Saturday, the grim, carefully choreographed ritual was like that in many cases of assisted suicide, with one exception. Ms. Schardt, 79, a retired X-ray technician from the Bavarian city of Würzburg, was neither sick nor dying. She simply did not want to move into a nursing home, and rather than face that prospect, she asked Mr. Kusch, a prominent German campaigner for assisted suicide, for a way out. Her last words, after swallowing a deadly cocktail of the antimalaria drug chloroquine and the sedative diazepam, were “auf...

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's military chiefs warned on Saturday that the Islamic republic would shut down the Strait of Hormuz vital for oil exports and use "blitzkrieg tactics" in the Gulf if it came under attack.

ST. LOUIS, July 5 -- Sen. Barack Obama ended a week's focus on values by giving a conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church a highly personal account of his spiritual journey and a promise that he will make "faith-based" social service "a moral center of my administration." The address, to one of the oldest and largest African American denominations, brought the senator from Illinois back to friendlier ground after a week's tour through Appalachian Ohio, conservative Missouri, the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs, North Dakota and hardscrabble Montana. But in its religious tones, the address had a far wider...

What's wrong with Pennsylvania?Have they no shame? How do they keep voting for this antiwar, anti-military detestable gasbag?(Here's some advice to wcbstv-- Murtha is not a "strong defense advocate." He is a selfish man who has made it a habit of slandering the US troops at war!) Democrat John Murtha does it again...Murtha admits the surge is working but only because the terrorists "are worn out" and American troops aren't just beating down doors and killing innocents!Un-freaking-believable! Here's the video: A WilleyBCoyote Video.Here is what Murtha says: Murtha: I think they have 17 or so guidelines and they've solved...

JERUSALEM, July 5 (UPI) -- Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the military to begin demolishing the homes of two men who killed Israelis, officials said. Barak signed the demolition orders Friday for homes belonging to Ala Abu Dhaim, who was shot to death after he gunned down eight seminarians in March, and for the home of Husam Taysir Dwayat, who was killed after he took the lives of three Israelis in a rampage with a bulldozer Wednesday, The Jerusalem Post reported Saturday.

WASHINGTON, July 5 (UPI) -- Barack Obama got a few boos Saturday when he told the National Education Association convention in Washington he supports merit pay. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee spoke by video link from Butte, Mont., where he spent the Fourth of July. The response to his speech was generally enthusiastic from a union that has already endorsed him, USA Today reported. "I'm tired of hearing teachers blamed for our problems," Obama said. "I want to lead a new era of mutual responsibility in education." But the NEA delegates were less enthusiastic when Obama listed problems such as...

Under pressure from the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in two decades, employers across the country are fighting back in state legislatures, the federal courts and city halls. Business groups have resisted measures that would revoke the licenses of employers of illegal immigrants. They are proposing alternatives that would revise federal rules for verifying the identity documents of new hires and would expand programs to bring legal immigrant laborers. Though the pushback is coming from both Democrats and Republicans, in many places it is reopening the rift over immigration that troubled the Republican Party last year. Businesses, generally Republican stalwarts,...

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The growing fear of knife crime in Britain is forcing hospital trusts and local authorities to supply body armour to frontline workers, including A&E staff, hospital porters, teachers, benefits officers and traffic wardens. Stab and bullet-proof vests are being ordered in their tens of thousands to protect employees from increased levels of aggression, a move described as 'a shameful indictment of violence in Britain today'. The Local Government Association said councils had started responding urgently to staff who 'need a greater level of protection'. Already more than 20,000 sets of Home Office-approved body armour have been issued to local government...

          COLIN POWELL'S TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN G.I. Time Magazine prepared a list of the 10 most influential people of the century in each field to mark the end of the century. The 10 most influential scientists, politicians, entertainers, sports figures, musicians, artists, and industrialists. This month they published the 10 most influential people (overall) of the century. They named "the American GI" the most influential person of the century. It is the only one that is not a single individual. General Powell wrote the introduction to the award: As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs...

Feds not yet ready to call probe finished - The long-running undercover FBI investigation known as Tennessee Waltz resulted in trials that took up much of the last few years. While the last convicted official recently began serving time, others already have been released or finished their probation. Former state senator John Ford, who has the longest sentence, is not expected to be released until 2013. Spawned from a 2002 low-level scandal in the Shelby County Juvenile Court Clerk's office, the case snowballed into a statewide public corruption probe that eventually led to criminal charges filed against a dozen elected...

ABC News’ Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Barack Obama told reporters he was “puzzled” by the press coverage he received on Thursday when he held two separate press conferences to explain his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. On Thursday in Fargo, N.D,, Obama told reporters in a morning press conference that he will “continue to refine” his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq in 16 months. Reporters immediately jumped on the comments that showed that Obama’s expressed openness to adjust his long-held 16-month withdrawal plans was at odds with the stance that he took during the...

. The Coke Zero 400 Saturday 8:00 pm Eastern on TNT SPEED Pre-race at 4:30pm, TNT Pre-race 6:30pm Green flag 8:19 from Daytona International Speedway Please visit the FR Canteen - Supporting our troops, veterans, and their families: The FR Canteen This thread is dedicated to the memory of Darlene Brennan,also known around these parts as SheLion. Rest in peace, our FRiend.

The moon was mistaken for a "bright, stationary" UFO which had been loitering for at least half an hour, by a confused local in South Wales who made a 999 call to the police. Today officers released a transcript in order to highlight the time wasted by unnecessary 999 calls. The bizzare conversation ran as follows: Control: "South Wales Police, what's your emergency?" Caller: "It's not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there's a bright stationary object." Control: "Right." Caller: "If you've got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is?...

Among them, he violated bail terms and had a net worth of $53 million Convicted political fixer Tony Rezko had a hard time following rules -- even simple ones, like when a federal judge told him: Stay home. Twice, Rezko violated the home-confinement terms of his bail, formerly sealed court files show, by making "social calls" -- including last September to the home of former top Cook County official Orlando Jones after Jones committed suicide. "FBI agents responding to information regarding the suicide of Rezko's associate Orlando Jones were surprised to find Rezko at the Jones home after Jones' suicide....

ST. LOUIS Sen. Barack Obama declared Saturday to a roaring crowd of religious African-Americans at the America's Center that they should have no doubt of his commitment to his Christian faith, his nation or his political principles. In an address filled with religious and patriotic imagery, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president told delegates attending a national conference here of the African Methodist Episcopal Church that his career and his life revolved around his belief that "I won't be fulfilling the Lord's Will unless I'm doing the Lord's work.'' That commitment would continue to influence his performance and his politics...

<p>Barack Obama was yesterday fending off charges from right and left that he had abandoned the core premise of his candidacy - the withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office - in an attempt to attract voters from the political centre.</p>

He's not president yet, but Barack Obama has already given some thought to White House decor. Asked at a town hall-style meeting in Fargo, N.D., about any decorating plans for the Lincoln Bedroom, Obama described a visit to the White House after he became a U.S. senator. "You have all these mementos of Abraham Lincoln, but you have this flat-screen TV in there," Obama told the crowd at the outdoor event.

An Austin woman credits her handgun and her own quick thinking with saving her life after she shot a man who was trying to attack her. Leonie Burgos said the man scaled a fence outside her apartment near Barton Skyway and South Lamar. When Burgos saw the man jump the fence, she ran inside and grabbed her .38 caliber pistol. She went back outside to see if the man had left. She said that's when he attacked her by tackling her to the ground from behind. Bergos said she shot the man only after trying to scare him with the...

U.S. military planners are working on how to deal with another round of major cutbacks, in terms of budgets and manpower. This is because one of the major candidates for Commander-in-Chief (president of the United States), Barak Obama, has a video in circulation, of a short speech he gave earlier this year, about how he planned on handling the Department of Defense. His major points were; "I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as president, I will end it. "Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut...

Police sniffer dogs will have to wear bootees when searching the homes of Muslims so as not to cause offence. Guidelines being drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) urge awareness of religious sensitivities when using dogs to search for drugs and explosives. The guidelines, to be published this year, were designed to cover mosques but have been extended to include other buildings. Where Muslims object, officers will be obliged to use sniffer dogs only in exceptional cases. Where dogs are used, they will have to wear bootees with rubber soles. “We are trying to ensure that...

A Palm Beach man found a new purpose in life after losing his family on one of the hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.David McCourt believed his life was over after he lost his wife and 5-year-old daughter on 9/11. But a move to Palm Beach and the comforting memories of his family have helped McCourt give life a second chance. ''I think subconsciously I wanted a place that would anesthetize me to the pain, and Palm Beach seduced me with its beautiful tropical landscapes and ocean views,'' he said. McCourt's wife, Ruth, 45, and his daughter...

Libertarian voters make up 4% of the nation’s likely voters and they favor Barack Obama over John McCain by a 53% to 38% margin. Three percent (3%) would vote for some other candidate and 5% are not sure.

The United States will pledge $400 million in aid to Kosovo next week at a donors conference expected to raise more than $1 billion for the newly independent state, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday..... The Bush administration requested the bulk of its pledge from the U.S. Congress more than a year ago, well before Kosovo declared independence, out of a certainty that the region would need financial help whenever it declared independence.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A man tore the head from a controversial waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler on the opening day of Berlin's Madame Tussauds museum on Saturday, police said. Just minutes after the museum opened, the 41-year-old German man pushed aside two security men guarding the exhibit. "Then he went over to the figure and ripped off the head," a police spokesman said. The man tore off the head in protest at the exhibit, the spokesman added. The police were alerted and arrested the man, who did not resist. He was being investigated for assault and damaging property. The waxwork...

SANTA ANA A 22-year-old man is in custody after police said he and another man unwittingly tried to carjack an unmarked police car with two uniformed officers inside. At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, the officers were investigating illegal fireworks activity in the 2200 block of Eastwood Avenue when a sports utility vehicle pulled up in front of their unmarked police sedan, said Santa Ana Police Department Comm. Steve Colon. The two men got out of the SUV and took "an aggressive approach toward the officers," Colon said. The driver acted as if he had a weapon in his waistband, police said....

LOOP | Weis says Taste safety 'undisputed' after man slain, but source notes gang presence at food fest -- 3rd burst of gun violence in 4 yrs. Hours later, three people were shot, one fatally, as hundreds of thousands of people streamed out of Grant Park after the fireworks and the Taste of Chicago. Police are investigating reports of a fourth person shot, said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Chicago police department, on Saturday morning. This is the third time in the last four years that gun violence has erupted at or near the Taste. With the world's eyes on...