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BEIJING (AP) -- China will cut income taxes on companies and import duties on energy and raw materials as part of efforts to spur domestic consumption and reduce reliance on exports and investment, the finance minister said Tuesday. Communist authorities will also reduce value-added tax charged on vegetables and other taxes on land use and trading in agricultural products.

* Interior Minister-immigrants could impose halal in schools * Labels revealing slaughter method could hurt kosher market PARIS, March 5 (Reuters)- France's prime minister urged Muslims and Jews to consider scrapping their halal and kosher slaughter laws on Monday as President Nicolas Sarkozy and his allies stepped up their efforts to woo far-right voters. Prime Minister Francois Fillon made the suggestion after Sarkozy called at the weekend for butchers to clearly label meat slaughtered according to religious laws and his allies warned immigrants might impose halal meat on French schoolchildren. Fillon and other conservative leaders linked this tough stand on...

<p>The body of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not buried at sea, according to leaked emails of intelligence firm Stratfor, as revealed by WikiLeaks. Stratfor’s vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, believes the body was “bound for Dover, [Delaware] on [a] CIA plane” and then “onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda [Maryland],” an email says. The official version is that the body of Al-Qaeda’s top man, who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, was buried at an undisclosed location at sea in a proper Muslim ceremony. "If body dumped at sea, which I doubt, the touch is very Adolph Eichman like. The Tribe did the same thing with the Nazi's ashes," Burton commented in another email. Eichman was one of the masterminds of the Holocaust by Nazi Germany. He was captured by Mossad agents in Argentina and, tried in Israel, found guilty and executed in 1962. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea over the Mediterranean.</p>

WASHINGTON — The White House abruptly announced Monday that it had scuttled plans to hold the upcoming G-8 economic summit in Chicago, and would instead host world leaders at the presidential retreat at Camp David in Maryland. ....snip..... The White House said the G-8 summit would take place May 18-19. The White House announced plans last summer to hold both summits back-to-back in Chicago, giving the president a high-profile opportunity to tout his foreign policy and diplomatic credentials on his home turf in an election year. The idea of moving the G-8 to Camp David was raised to the president...

Words, words, words. Stonewall Jackson famously told soldiers to “make short speeches, and when you draw the sword throw away the scabbard.” Barack Obama is obsessed with words, and he never learned to make a short speech, and he’s certainly no Stonewall Jackson. The Israelis understand that, however well-meaning he may be. The president may even believe most of the stuff he hears himself say. Mr. Obama made another pretty speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, on Sunday that was thrilling only to those who gorge on the romance of rhetoric. Mr. Obama and his teleprompter...

India has denied as "factually incorrect" a report that US special forces were stationed in the country as part of counter-terrorism cooperation. Media reports quoted top Pentagon commander Admiral Robert Willard as telling a Congressional hearing on Thursday that US special forces teams were stationed in five South Asian countries, including India and Sri Lanka. "The report is factually incorrect in so far as the reference to India is concerned," Indian defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said in a statement late on Friday. "US special forces teams have never been stationed in India in the past, nor are such teams...

Air Force leadership laid out Friday afternoon what units will lose missions and which ones will get new ones with the Air National Guard bearing the brunt of the drawdown. The Air Force will retire or reclassify aircraft in seven squadrons with four being Air National Guard units. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley announced the service will retire 286 aircraft over the next five years with 227 leaving the fleet in 2013. Read the exact details of what aircraft are going where and what squadrons will receive new missions over the next five years in the white paper issued by...

Authorities say a convicted killer who gained notoriety for having a murder scene tattooed on his chest received unemployment benefits while he was in jail. Sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker said Saturday that Anthony Garcia, nicknamed "Chopper," received more than $30,000 in fraudulent unemployment while in Los Angeles County jail from 2008 to 2010. Parker says Garcia's father and two girlfriends would get the checks then cash them and deposit the money in the inmate accounts of Garcia and fellow gang members. Garcia's father 47-year-old Juan Garcia, and girlfriends 45-year-old Sandra Jaimez and 25-year-old Cynthia Limas, were arrested Thursday on charges...

Officials in the Prime Ministers office have relayed to journalists that it is the intention of the Prime Minister to raise with the President, the issue of Jonathan Pollard’s release. As will be remembered, 14 months ago Prime Minister Netanyahu made an unprecedented official request for Pollard’s release. His request has not received the courtesy of a response to date. At this time hopes are mounting that during the upcoming meeting between the PM and the President, a positive response to Netanyahu’s request will be forthcoming. Even more so, in light of the dozens of appeals by high-ranking senior officials...

Iran's supreme court on Monday dismissed an execution sentence passed by a revolutionary court against an Iranian-American national accused of spying for the CIA, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. "The supreme court nullified the execution sentence against Amir Mirza Hekmati and sent it to an affiliate court," said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei without giving further details. Hekmati, a 28-year-old of Iranian descent born in the state of Arizona, was arrested in December and Iran's Intelligence Ministry accused him of receiving training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sources inform Breitbart.com today that Pam Dickler, director of the 1998 production of The Love Song of Saul Alinsky in Chicago that included a panel discussion featuring then-State Sen. Barack Obama, has a video tape of the play. And she won’t release it. “There is only one archive tape of the play and I have it,” Dickler informed our source. “It is not in Chicago.” Dickler told our source that she doesn’t believe she’s ever watched the tape, and she doesn’t know if it “can be viewed.” But she added: “No one is going to see the tape.”

US Air Force operational testers will start receiving their first Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters at Edwards AFB in California in late June, a service official says. According to the official, the 31st Test and Evaluation Sqn will initially receive four aircraft, with more to follow later. If flight operations at Eglin AFB, Florida - scheduled to start on 6 March - ramp-up quickly to begin pilot training, the official says he is optimistic the operational testers can start flying by the end of June. The unit will initially start with local area flight operations designed to familiarise pilots...

Rota base: Spain readies to participate in US ‘anti-missile shield’ Spain is negotiating the inclusion and participation of its navy F-100 frigates in the US anti ballistic-missile defence system commonly known as the ‘anti-missile shield,’ that is designed to protect Allied and NATO territory. The agreement between Madrid and Washington envisages use of the Rota military base as home port for the deployment of the shield by four US Arleigh Burke class destroyers between 2013- 2015. Defence analysts have stated that Spain would be playing a key role in the naval component of the defence shield, and repositioning its foreign...

Northern Fleet Gets Modernized Anti-Submarine Plane The Russian Navy's Northern Fleet has accepted into service a modernized Ilyushin Il-38N anti-submarine warfare aircraft, which will also carry out electronic intelligence (ELINT) duties, the Northern Fleet's press spokesman Captain Vadim Serga said on Monday. "A modernized Il-38N was accepted into service at a Northern Fleet air base" he said. "It has a wider range of combat capabilities. These aircraft can be used for mapping the magnetic and gravitational fields of the Northern Ice sea, and also for conducting scientific oceanographic research and underwater and air reconnaissance," he added. He did not specify...

Norway's No. 2 defense official said he was more upbeat about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program than in a long time after visiting a test site in California last week and meeting with the eight other partners on the program. Defense State Secretary Roger Ingebrigsten said on Monday that Norway was finalizing its plans to buy "approximately 50 fighters," but did not expect any significant cost increases to its order. Lockheed Martin Corp is developing three variants of the radar-evading, supersonic fighter jet for the United States and eight partner countries - Canada, Britain, Australia, Turkey, Denmark, Norway, Italy...

The U.S. Air Force's second X-37B space plane marked one year in orbit Monday, continuing its clandestine mission more than 200 miles above Earth. The robotic spacecraft's purpose is secret, but Air Force officials acknowledge the vehicle is performing well one year after it blasted off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on March 5, 2011. "We are very pleased with the results of the on-going X-37B experiments," said Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, X-37B program director in the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office. "The X-37B program is setting the standard for a reusable space plane and, on this...

The next time you drive to the gas station, only to find prices are still sky high compared to just a few years ago, take notice of the rows of foreclosed houses you'll pass along the way. They may seem like two parts of a spell of economic bad luck, but high gas prices and home foreclosures are actually very much interrelated. Before most people were even aware there was an economic crisis, investment managers abandoned failing mortgage-backed securities and looked for other lucrative investments. What they settled on was oil futures. An oil future is simply a contract between...

Bibi will be on with the Live Speech broadcast LIVE on Hannity to a major Jewish Group in the US.

More than half of Americans support President Barack Obama's apology for U.S. troops burning copies of the Koran, an incident that triggered a spate of bloody protests and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday, 56 percent of those surveyed backed Obama, who has been criticized by U.S. Republican presidential candidates for apologizing to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Twenty-three percent disagreed. While the spasm of violence that erupted following the incident on a NATO base in Afghanistan does not appear to have significantly altered Americans' perspective on the war, 66 percent of those polled...

U.S. officials said they believed pressure has eased on Israel to attack Iran, after meetings Monday between American and Israeli leaders and tougher talk from the U.S. that moved it closer to Israel's approach. . Israeli officials, meanwhile, said that President Barack Obama's public and private acknowledgment of the Jewish state's sovereign right to defend itself was a crucial gain as the two countries seek to deter Tehran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also praised Mr. Obama's stated willingness in recent days to use U.S. military might to counter Iran. "We managed to convince the international community that we are...