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"I want to leave this country," nuclear whistleblower says. Mordechai Vanunu, the man who spent 18 years in jail after being convicted of treason and espionage was released from Ayalon Prison in Ramle Sunday after serving a further three months. Upon his release, Vanunu stated that he held no nuclear secrets and maintained that the Israeli government should leave him alone. "I am not a scientist...my knowledge is not of nuclear weapons," said Vanunu. "I want to be free and leave this country," he added. Vanunu was returned to jail in May after being found guilty of violating restrictions imposed...

<p>OSLO, Norway (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has received 150 nominations for the 2003 award, with a majority of nominations coming from North America, committee secretary Geir Lundestad said Tuesday.</p> <p>Nominations, which had to be postmarked by Feb. 1, are made by past laureates, committee members, university professors and select organizations. They're kept secret for 50 years, although those making them often announce their choice.</p>

Dear Sir, I would like to protest against your use of the pronoun "we" in reference to the coalition forces fighting to liberate Iraq.... Zionists are not part of the "we" of the freedom-loving English-speaking world. They are a curse on it, who bribe and morally blackmail our politicians and media. The vicarious glee at the defeat of the Arabs in The Jerusalem Post reads like medieval bigotry. Please move into the twenty-first century, and start advocating democracy and self determination for all. It behooves Israel, from its position of strength, to magnanimously offer a generous peace, as the Americans...

Reported on Swedish Radio News 5.45 PM (GMT+1): After a two day search among the countless graves outside the Abu Greb prison 75 km west of Baghdad the headless body of the former Iraqi airforce general Ali Hussein Habib was found in a shallow grave. The body was identified by Habib's widow and brother in-law, Abu Haldoun. Habib was a retired air-force general who had been one of the persons in charge of the Iraqi chemical weapons program. General Habib was one of the few Iraqis who eventually agreed to be interviewed by UN weapons inspectors without any Iraqi government...

OSLO, Norway -- The Nobel Peace Prize awards committee reported a record 173 nominations for 2004, with known candidates including President Bush, jailed Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu and the pope. Committee secretary Geir Lundestad said the preliminary list includes 129 individuals and 44 organizations, and is likely to be expanded when awards committee members forward their own nominations at their first meeting of the year on March 2. Last year, there were 165 nominations, and the award went to lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win. The committee accepts...

Bush, Pope Among Nobel Peace Nominees By DOUG MELLGREN OSLO, Norway (AP) - The Nobel Peace Prize awards committee reported a record 173 nominations for 2004, with known candidates including President Bush, jailed Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu and the pope. Committee secretary Geir Lundestad said the preliminary list includes 129 individuals and 44 organizations, and is likely to be expanded when awards committee members forward their own nominations at their first meeting of the year on March 2. Last year, there were 165 nominations, and the award went to lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Iranian...

President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Pope John Paul II are among the 144 individuals and 50 organizations nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Today was the deadline for nominations. The winner of the $1.3 million award will be announced in mid-October. The prize has lost some of its luster since disastrous ex-president Jimmy Carter was handed it, and some of this year's nominees have a Carteresque flair: French President Jacques Chirac, the European Union and, reportedly, International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group. Others include: Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, former Czech President Vaclav Havel, former chief...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA has created a paramilitary unit to deal specifically with terrorists overseas, U.S. officials said Monday. The unit ``is taking the fight to terrorists in sanctuaries such as Afghanistan,'' one official said, declining to identify what other countries it is operating in. The official said the unit is drawing personnel from the CIA's existing paramilitary force, which is a part of the agency's Special Activities Division, which conducts covert operations. Johnny ``Mike'' Spann, the CIA officer killed in November in Afghanistan, was a member of that force. The size of the new unit is classified. The...

Deal reached to end Bethlehem siege Israel and the Palestinians have reached an agreement to end the standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Details have not yet been published, but it is understood that some of the Palestinians whose arrest Israel has been demanding will go to Gaza and others will be exiled, perhaps to Italy. The deal comes as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon heads for the United States where he is scheduled to meet President George W Bush on Tuesday. More than 200 Palestinians, including about 30 gunmen, fled into the church 2 April. Israeli...

I once enjoyed an hour-long debate with Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz – with whom I often disagree. But I thoroughly agree with his April 22 statement that killing terrorists is legal. He writes: I challenge Jack Straw to distinguish Israel's killing of Rantisi from the targeting of Al-Sadr, Saddam's sons, or Osama bin Laden. The United States Army was recently given a highly specific military order. According to the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the mission is to kill radical Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This order to target al-Sadr for extrajudicial killing is perfectly...

Saddam Hussein almost certainly has a nuclear weapons capability, in addition to extensive chemical and biological arsenals, say former intelligence experts familiar with Iraqi weapons programs. The question, they say, is whether that capability is limited to small ``dirty bombs,'' in which conventional explosives are packed into something compact like a suitcase and detonated to spread toxic radioactive debris over a relatively small area, or whether Iraq has a full-fledged atomic bomb. The experts were interviewed by The Tampa Tribune as U.N. weapons inspectors returned to Iraq in a new effort to root out weapons of mass destruction. Among them...

OSLO, Norway – Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who emptied the state's death row because he found the imposition of capital punishment unfair, is among those nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. The nominating deadline – entries had to be postmarked Friday – brought a flood of last-minute names to the committee charged with selecting the winner of the prestigious award. It is presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Swedish creator Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. The winner, announced in mid-October, takes home approximately $1 million. "There is a lot of mail and many new proposals, but beyond...

Israel's ambassador in London Zvi Stauber boasted this week that his embassy has been "maintaining close relations with the BBC." What is the value of such "close relations" if the result is that this great radio and TV network displays unceasing hostility toward Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon? Ambassador Stauber's strange claim - directed to the Foreign Ministry - was intended to protest Jerusalem's justified official censure of the BBC, which came after a repeat broadcast on the British World Service of a program about the danger Israel ostensibly poses because of nuclear weapons supposedly produced in the Dimona...

The US media still largley ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” Most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East. There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their...

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported. From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime. These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within. Iran is a country ready for a regime...

NICOSIA: Iraq is said to have reinforced its troops in the north and west of the country in preperation for a US-led attack on the regime of President Saddam Hussein. Opposition sources said Saddam ordered fresh troops to reinforce positions near the Kurdish autonomous zone in the north. The sources also said that the military has also brought artillery, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers into the areas of Mosul and Kirkuk in a redeployment that appeared to have been launched last month. Iraq has also shut down oil operations in the area of northern Iraq to prepare for...

JAFFA , 14 July — In 1923, a Russian poet, Carney Chukovsky wrote a delightful short tale for children, Tarakan the Giant Beetle, an all-time favorite nursery rhyme for Russian kids. It is a story of the animal kingdom intimidated by Tarakan. The Beetle threatened to devour the disobedient animals, and the awed lions and tigers have holed up in their lairs. True, a beetle has no fangs or horns, but the menacing Tarakan would brandish his great long mustachio, and no beast would dare to challenge the little monster, until a small sparrow flew in and ate up the...

<p>March 3, 2004 -- An infamous Israeli traitor has told for the first time how a beautiful female agent lured him into a Mossad "honey trap," and he is vowing not to be silenced. Mordechai Vanunu will leave an Israeli prison next month after serving 18 years in the slammer for treason and espionage for leaking secrets about Israel's nuclear arsenal to a British newspaper.</p>

Israel said yesterday that it would not abandon its "no show, no tell" nuclear policy, because the long-standing strategy of deliberate ambiguity had paid off. As Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Israel, officials from the Israeli prime minister down said there was no need for a change which could only set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Ariel Sharon told army radio: "I don't know what he is coming to see. Israel has to keep in its hand all the components of power necessary to protect itself." The prime minister...

GEORGE Galloway has enjoyed considerable success in the courts during his political career, winning an estimated total of £250,000 in libel damages. In some cases, the disputes have been settled before they reach the courts, but the Labour MP has proved time and again he will call on expensive lawyers when crossed. Mr Galloway’s biggest libel win was against the Daily Mirror and its sister paper in Scotland, the Daily Record, in December 1992. It followed the so-called "Mirrorgate" affair in which a US journalist claimed the Daily Mirror’s then foreign editor, Nick Davies, had been involved in arms dealing...