United States presidential candidate of the Republican, Newt Gingrich reap the controversy. In an interview, he stated that Palestinians are deliberately "created" the people who want to destroy Israel.
From Vogue UK, France's first lady Carla Bruni - Sarkozy was pregnant. Nicholas Sarkozy's 83-year-old father, Pal, told a German newspaper the happy news, revealing he hopes it will be a girl.
Barbara Boxer obviously has no respect for the military and their customs. Someone needs to tell her that Senators aren’t in the chain of command either. Why are liberals uncomfortable with the military? Why do some liberals apparently despise our military?
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to Brigadier General Michael Walsh during Senate hearing Tuesday, when he the general repeatedly said, "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," when answering Boxer's questions at hearing she chaired on New Orleans' levee system.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, reversing himself under U.S. pressure but attaching conditions such as having no army that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.
A week after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would also have to recognize Israel as the Jewish state _ essentially saying Palestinian refugees must give up the goal of returning to Israel.
With those conditions, he said, he could accept "a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state."
Watch this clip of Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech
This morning Barack called John McCain to suggest a joint statement of principles that would help Congress resolve the immediate financial crisis.
Then John McCain went on television and said he was suspending his campaign and that Friday's presidential debate should be postponed.
Barack spoke about the crisis and took questions from reporters a few hours ago.
He also made it clear that -- with only 40 days left for the American people to decide who will be responsible for leading our economic future -- it is more important than ever that the scheduled debate takes place.
NHA TRANG, Vietnam - Behind all the hugs and smiles, the 80 Miss Universe contestants are engaged in a fierce competition. But two contestants with perhaps the greatest reason for hostilities have become fast friends.
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor, and Megan Levy
Baroness Thatcher has been released from hospital this afternoon after she was admitted overnight for precautionary tests.
The former Prime Minister smiled and waved as she walked out of St Thomas' Hospital in central London, where she was taken after falling ill last night.
The 82-year-old had been dining with friends in the Lords when she started feeling "slightly nauseous and faint", her private secretary, Mark Worthington, said.
"Her legs gave way a little bit under her," he said, adding that she had not fainted.
"We thought it safest to be sure about these things."
A close friend said: "She has always had low blood pressure. She is absolutely fine. She had a good night and all the tests were fine."
Lady Thatcher's daughter, Carol, said her mother was taken immediately to hospital given her medical history.
"You can see St. Thomas' hospital from [the Lords] and very wisely, at her age and with a history of little strokes, they decided to err on the side of caution," she said. "But it's good news today. She is doing well."
The former Prime Minister's health has been a concern since 2002 when she suffered a series of minor strokes.
She has become increasingly frail, prone to short-term memory lapses and has reduced the number of her public engagements.
In 2002 doctors advised her to stop making speeches in public. However she continued to do so, last appearing in public three weeks ago when she opened a new infirmary for Chelsea pensioners.
In January, she was presented with a lifetime achievement award by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, at a ceremony in London.
Mr Cameron described her as a "towering figure" who had "transformed our country".
Even in recent months the former prime minister has courted controversy, most notably after visiting Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street last autumn.
The visit caused Tory MPs to accuse Mr Brown of hypocrisy and sparked rumblings of protests among some Labour MPs.
Lady Thatcher's husband, Denis, died in 2003. She has two children, twins Carol and Mark.
The "Iron Lady" was prime minister from 1979, succeeding Labour's James Callaghan, until 1990 when she was effectively removed from office by her own party.During her years in power Britain fought Argentina to regain control of the Falkland Islands, a raft of industries were privatised, trade unions were reformed, income taxes were cut and the government staged a massive programme of council house sales.
Her premiership was also hit by a series of controversies - including the 1984-85 miners' strike, the Westland helicopter crisis and the introduction of the highly controversial poll tax, which saw rioting on London streets. She was succeeded by John Major.
source : http://www.telegraph.co.ukJAKARTA (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates landed in Jakarta on Monday, aiming to strengthen military ties with a country the Pentagon sees as a regional leader and secular model for Muslim states.
Gates will meet with Indonesia's president and defense minister to assess their equipment and military training needs. They also will discuss, but not sign, a statement of principles on defense cooperation similar to agreements Indonesia has with China and Australia, said U.S. officials traveling with Gates.
"Indonesia is a huge Islamic country, democratic, secular, and I think strengthening our relationship with Indonesia is very important, not just in a regional context but I think in terms of the role that Indonesia may be able to play more broadly," Gates said ahead of the visit.
Gates' focus on offering support for Indonesia's ongoing defense and national security reforms reflects the Pentagon's desire to broaden the relationship and move beyond Washington's prior focus on Indonesia as a potential terrorist flashpoint after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country. But it is considered by experts inside the Pentagon as strongly secular.
Still, Indonesia has struggled to combat Islamic militant groups, particularly Jemaah Islamiah, a regional militant network blamed for a series of bombings in Indonesia and linked to the 2002 Bali bombings.
Those attacks, coupled with the intense focus by Washington on counter-terrorism after September 11, relegated Indonesia for years into the group of countries of concern among security experts.
U.S. defense officials, however, now argue Indonesia must be viewed more broadly.BU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- President Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late."
Bush said Iran funds terrorist extremists, undermines peace in Lebanon, sends arms to the Taliban, seeks to intimidate its neighbors with alarming rhetoric, defies the United Nations and destabilizes the entire region by refusing to be open about its nuclear program.
"Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terror," Bush said in a speech he delivered about mid-way through his eight-day Mideast trip that began with a renewed push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact -- an accord he said whose "time has come."
"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere," Bush said. "So the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf, and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."
Bush lauded democratic reforms in Gulf nations ruled by authoritarian leaders. He said the Iranian government in Tehran needs to make itself accountable to its people. And he called on the Palestinians to reject extremists, although he did not mention the Islamic radical group Hamas, which has gained control of the Gaza Strip.
"This new era is being built with the understanding that power is a trust that must be exercised with the consent of the governed," Bush said. Video Watch report on the state of democracy in the United Arab Emirates. »
Bush said advancing democracy and freedom is the core of his administration's foreign policy and critical to U.S. security.
The United States has no desire for territory. We seek our shared security in your liberty. We believe that stability can only come through a free and just Middle East where the extremists are marginalized," the president said.
He noted democratic reform in Iraq. "You have made your choice for democracy and have stood firm," Bush said, speaking to the Iraqi people. "The terrorists and extremists cannot prevail."
Making an equally direct appeal to the Palestinians, Bush said "The dignity and sovereignty that is your right is within your grasp."
Bush spoke at the Emirates Palace, at an opulent, gold-trimmed hotel where a suite goes for $2,450 a night. Built at a cost of $3 billion, the hotel is a kilometer long from end to end and has a 1.3 kilometer white sand beach -- every grain of it imported from Algeria, according to Steven Pike, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy here.
Half the audience was dressed in western attire and the other half in Arabic clothes -- white robes and headdresses for men and black abayas, many with jeweled edges, for women.
Shortly after landing during a steady rain on the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Bush met at a ceremonial palace with Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who was appointed president of the United Arab Emirates in 2004 following the death of his father, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan.
The UAE president presented Bush with a ceremonial sash that looked like a thick golden necklace about two feet long. A portrait of the late president hung on the wall behind them.
Earlier Sunday in Bahrain, U.S. Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf, told Bush that he took it "deadly seriously" when an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats on January 6 charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near Iranian waters. The Iranian naval forces vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire
Bush spoke with Cosgriff after he had a breakfast of pancakes and bacon with troops of the U.S. 5th Fleet based in Bahrain.
In visits over three days in Kuwait, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, Bush also was urging continued and visible Arab support for fragile peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Arab backing, and probably funding, is considered essential to make any agreement stick.
He has played up democratic advances such as suffrage for women in Kuwait, granted in 2005, or the election of a woman member of parliament in Bahrain in 2006. He has avoided any public scolding of his hosts. Bush opened a meeting with women activists in Kuwait on Saturday by thanking the country's leader and noting that Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah had told him he has no regrets about giving women the vote.
A State Department report last year said that Kuwaitis have no right to change their government or to form political parties, are mistreated in custody and have limited rights of free speech and religion. The report, the most recent, covered 2006.
The same human rights report said Bahrain restricts freedoms of press, speech, assembly, association, and some religious practices. Last month the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said authorities were holding 39 people picked up in police raids following a week of anti-government demonstrations.
And in the UAE, the State Department report found what it called significant human rights problems including: no citizens' right to change the government and no popularly elected representatives of any kind; flogging as judicially sanctioned punishment; arbitrary detention and incommunicado detention, restrictions on freedom of speech and the press.
Arab eyes rolled three years ago when Bush announced a "freedom agenda," a policy to seed democracy and measure even close friends by their performance.
"We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right," Bush said in his second inaugural address in 2005.
"America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies. We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people."
The policy has been selectively enforced, and has had unintended consequences where applied. For example, Palestinian Hamas militants won a free election two years ago that set back peace efforts. U.S. officials say they do not regret supporting the election
Source : www.cnn.com
Palestinian families fled their homes in a village near Khan Yunis on Thursday during an Israeli
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces operating in Gaza killed at least nine Palestinians on Thursday and blew up the houses of some known militant commanders, as the Palestinians fired a Katyusha rocket from Gaza that landed in northern Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people.The rocket landed in an open field and did no damage, but it traveled more than 10 miles, the farthest of any rocket so far from Gaza, the Israeli police said. The Katyusha, a manufactured missile of 122 millimeters, has a range of up to 13.7 miles. There are thought to be fewer than 20 of them in Gaza.
But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Thursday’s firing showed that the Palestinians were improving their ability to use the weapon and to exploit its range, which could endanger a quarter of a million Israelis, and he called on Egypt to do more to stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
“It’s a sign of things to come and an issue of great concern,”
Mr. Regev said. “These rockets are not homemade and are smuggled in, and our concern is not one or two Katyushas, but a whole range of weapons, including antitank and antiaircraft rockets.”
Israel is upset with Cairo for allowing more than 2,000 Gazans to return home from the hajj pilgrimage through the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, rather than, as originally agreed, through the Kerem Shalom crossing controlled by Israel. Israel wanted to check the returning pilgrims to see if they were smuggling cash back for Hamas, which runs Gaza, or if some of those returning were wanted militants who had received military training in Lebanon, Syria or Iran.
Mr. Regev denied that there was a diplomatic crisis with Egypt, but said, “There is tension.” Egypt is a crucial ally of Israel, he said. “So we want to try to encourage Egypt to do more, but at the same time to ensure that the relationship remains stable,” Mr. Regev said. “Peace with Egypt is fundamental to us. But if Hamas is allowed through a porous border to strengthen itself, build a more formidable military regime and expand the range of its rockets, it’s not in Egypt’s interests, either.”
Israel continued its attacks on Palestinian militants in Gaza, especially from Islamic Jihad. In an incursion in southern Gaza, in a village near Khan Yunis, Israeli troops and tanks, backed by helicopter gunships, destroyed a house, killing two brothers, Ahmad and Sami Fayyad, their sister, Asma Fayyad, 24, and their mother, Karima Fayyad, 60. Their father, Muhammad Fayyad, a farmer, was wounded.
Medics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said that Sami Fayyad’s wife was wounded, and that the couple’s 3-year-old daughter was clinically dead.
Sami Fayyad, 30, was a fighter with Islamic Jihad’s military wing. Ahmad Fayyad, 32, was a former member of the Palestinian Authority security forces. Israeli Army spokesmen said the brothers were firing on Israeli forces from alongside and inside the house. The house was hit by at least one tank shell, and Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces, using armored bulldozers, then collapsed the rest of the house.
In a statement, Israel said blame for the deaths of the women “lies with the gunmen, who operated intentionally from a civilian environment.”
At the Khan Yunis hospital were the bodies of two other Palestinian fighters killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops. Munir Burhom, 22, and Burhom Abu Lehyia, age unknown, were members of Hamas’s military wing.
Two more Hamas fighters were also killed Thursday, while more than 30 people were wounded, including five children on the way to school, hit by shrapnel. Three bodies, so far unidentified, were taken from a house destroyed by Israel.
Early Friday, Israeli troops killed at least one Palestinian militant in a clash near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, Reuters reported. It said an Israeli Army spokeswoman said troops had shot at a gunman and confirmed hitting him.
The Israelis also carried out airstrikes on what they said was an Islamic Jihad warehouse in Gaza City and three other military targets. But Palestinians said the Israelis also bombed the Gaza City homes of two senior Islamic Jihad commanders whom the Israelis killed in rocket attacks a week ago or more ago.
The homes, of Karim Dahdouh and Muhammad Abdallah Abu Murshad, were bombed from the air and destroyed. At the time, Israel said they were responsible for making rockets and launching hundreds of them at Israel. Mr. Dahdouh was killed Dec. 17; Mr. Murshad was killed a week ago.
The Israelis, like the British during the Mandate, often destroy the homes of prominent enemies, usually by bulldozer in the occupied West Bank. To destroy homes from the air in Gaza, where Israel no longer keeps a permanent military presence, seems to be a new policy, intended to deter other militants by underlining the risk not just to their own lives but to the livelihood of their families.
Israeli military officials insisted, however, that the four targets bombed were specific military objectives and not homes, and that only one airstrike took place in Gaza City, on the warehouse.
A more primitive Qassam rocket landed in a backyard of the Israeli town of Sderot, damaging a house and sending the owner, a woman, into shock.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops in about 70 jeeps moved into the center of Nablus and arrested three senior members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, affiliated to Fatah, and dozens were wounded in the raid. The Israelis are pursuing leads to the killings of two Israeli settlers near Hebron last week, which Israel says was carried out by men affiliated with Fatah.
Mr. Olmert made a surprise visit to Jordan on Thursday to meet with King Abdullah II and update him on talks with the Palestinians before President Bush’s arrival in the region next Wednesday. In their talks, in Aqaba, the king warned Israel against expanding its settlements on occupied land and said such moves threatened to obstruct progress on a lasting peace accord, a palace official told Reuters. The king had met Wednesday with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli officials said Mr. Olmert told the king that Israel would not build any new settlements in the West Bank and would avoid further land appropriations there, briefed him on the Katyusha rocket strike and said that unless the Palestinians cracked down on terrorism, no progress could be made.
Separately, Israel announced that it had detected the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in poultry in a petting zoo near a kindergarten in the northern, coastal town of Binyamina. The government said that 18 contaminated birds were found dead last week, and it ordered the destruction of poultry and banned the transportation of animals in a two-mile radius of the town.
Friday will be the second anniversary of the stroke that incapacitated former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 79. Doctors at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv said that Mr. Sharon’s condition had changed little and that his body was functioning normally, although he is connected to a feeding tube. They said that he showed some responses to the sound of voices of his close family.
Mr. Sharon “has not been in deep coma since his admission and throughout this period there have been some signs of response to several kinds of stimuli,” the medical statement said.
Watching shoppers browsing fruit and clothes stalls, it looked like a typical Thursday afternoon at an east London market.
But just one subject was occupying the stallholders on Queen's Street market in Upton Park - the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
The strength of feeling amongst the Pakistanis in the area was shown by how many people were willing to talk to the BBC News website. At times, they were queuing to voice their opinions.
Despite differing political views, they were united in two things - their shock at events and despair for the future of Pakistan.
Powerless
Khalid Mahmood, a supporter of Nawaz Sharif, thought Benazir Bhutto was a good leader.
"I am very, very sad. It is very bad news, she was good for Pakistan. We are powerless now," he said.
"It is not good for the country, I don't feel safe to go back. Every day she had been on television, saying with Nawaz Sharif she was going to bring hope. Musharaff is behind it."
Abdul Khaliq was another in a group of men discussing events.
He called his nephew, Sadaf Rasheed on the phone in Karachi so he could describe what was happening there.
Mr Rasheed told the BBC News website: "It is really bad here. She was a great political leader. Everyone is at home, everything is closed. It is very sad for supporters of democracy and supporters of her.
"We don't have any vision now and everyone is wondering what will happen next."
Shehla Naz, 25, said her brother is a policeman who was on duty in Rawalpindi at the time of the killing. As soon as they heard the news she phoned home to check her family had not been harmed.
'Brilliant leader'
"She was a brilliant leader and most of the people in the country followed her," Ms Naz said.
"It is the end of the line. It has shocked us, it's unbelievable. We had been expecting her to become leader, expecting the country to grow more day by day.
"We are very upset and wondering what is going to happen, what is the future for Pakistan?"
Shahbaz Ahmad said he did not support Ms Bhutto politically, but had respected her as a leader.
"Politics in Pakistan has a different meaning. Here, in the UK, if politicians have something to say, they say it to the public. If you don't like what someone says, it doesn't mean you go and kill them. It shouldn't happen like this.
"When I heard this I had tears in my eyes, this is really bad. She was an asset to Pakistan. I don't support anyone, there is no one I am able to support in that country."
One man had less sympathy for Ms Bhutto. Hamid Sheikh, 17, said: "I am a bit shocked it happened. But this is what happens to corrupt politicians.
"Why did she go back there again? It was for power and money."
Mohammed Ariq, 57, said he did not support any of the politicians in Pakistan.
"They say Pakistan is free, but it's not free. It is going to get worse, not better. There are no human rights. Nobody there can make it better," he said.
Over in Southall, west London, Dalawar Chaudhry told the BBC News website the restaurant he runs had been full of diners when the news of Ms Bhutto's murder broke.
"People just couldn't believe it. They all left their tables and gathered round the TV set.
"There was an eerie silence at first as people took the news in - rather like when Diana, Princess of Wales, died. Then there was a public outpouring of grief with many people in tears."
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7162151.stm
