Friday's sentencing of Larry Franklin, the former Pentagon analyst who was convicted of communicating classified information to staffers at the America Israel Public Affairs Association [AIPAC] and to an Israeli diplomat, is only the first of the trials in the case, but it can serve as an indicator to what can be expected when the second begins in late April.

Judge T.S. Ellis of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, set forth two important principles when sentencing Franklin to 12 1/2 years in prison: The first was accepting Franklin's claim that he had no intention other than helping what he believed to be American interests, and the second was that no matter what the intentions might have been, the law is the law and whoever breaks it faces harsh punishment.

For former AIPAC staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, this means good news and bad news. The good news is that the court does not seem to see the matter as an espionage case or as an act directed at harming the U.S. or assisting a foreign nation. The bad news is that this perception doesn't really make any difference on the legal level [the question of jail time].

Europe is in an awkward position. The reason is simple. Swiss Senator Dick Marty, who was is charge of investigating the transport of CIA prisoners, asserts that several members of the European Union (E.U.) and the Council of Europe, together with E.U. candidate countries, cannot feign ignorance. Even if it is possible that the leaders of certain countries may have been unaware of what the CIA was up to, the same cannot be said about the intelligence services. Without the collaboration of the latter, indeed the top-ranking officials of some ministries, the American agency would never have been able to act the way it did.

In his preliminary report, Senator Marty asserts that the number of flights is in the hundreds and not the dozens. He also asserts that about 100 of these prisoners, after stopping in Europe, were handed over to a third party, mainly Egypt, where they were tortured for the benefit of the United States. The Europeans who collaborated with American officials on this program knew they were doing so.

What makes matters worse for Europeans is that the Swiss Senator highlighted in his analysis their blatant lack of cooperation [with his investigation]. Indeed, only the day before he published his report did he finally receive copies of documents he had sought from Eurocontrol [Europe's air traffic watchdog [RealVideo] and the E.U. Satellite Center [Agency for space imagery [RealVideo]. Consequently, Marty is asking for an extension of his mandate so that he can check whether or not prisons like Guantanamo Bay, in other words places where human and civil rights aren't respected, existed in Romania and Poland.

Until the next addition, what this report puts forward is the lie of some European leaders who quickly denied the existence of such places, after the revelations in the Washington Post last November. We can say it again: according to the Swiss Senator, they were in on it.

As far as Great Britain is concerned, the Minister of European Affairs had the nerve to belittle Marty's work when one of the most important witnesses in this case is the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray. Before being fired by his bosses from the Foreign Office, this diplomat had the proof that the CIA and his British equivalent, MI6, had collaborated in many occasions.

On the subject, the Swiss politician justly reminded E.U. members of their duties, like to respect the European Conventions on Human Rights, which they must abide by in order to be part of the club. By acting the way they have, some countries have disowned the signatures they had put into these conventions.

Consequently, "it seems important to analyze, and even to improve, national administrative procedures for surveillance and parliamentary control of spy agencies to make sure that abuses can no longer be perpetrated under the cover of confidentiality and standard procedure."

Moreover, Marty denounced the abusive use of the famous excuses "State secrets" and the "superiority of the national interest," to such an extent that he encouraged members of Parliament to engage in a far-ranging and in-depth debate on these issues.

What is beyond doubt is that they ought to give Senator Marty the extension of that he wants, so that the principles so dear to Europeans won't be scorned again.

The fighting near the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank raised tensions just a week after the parliamentary vote, in which Hamas trounced Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's long-dominant Fatah movement.

Islamic Jihad, a group that like Hamas is committed to
Israel's destruction and has carried out suicide bombings, urged Hamas and other armed factions to step up attacks on the Jewish state in response.

Israel has called for a boycott of any Palestinian government that includes Hamas, and said on Tuesday it expected to suspend monthly tax payments to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, a severe financial blow.

Israel collects customs revenue on behalf of the Palestinians and hands it over to the governing Palestinian Authority each month.

The next payment is due on Wednesday, February 1, and was expected to total about $55 million. The salaries of about 140,000 Palestinian employees depend to a large extent on the customs revenue, though Hamas may be able to find alternative sources of funding in the Arab world.

In a bid to keep aid flowing, Hamas leaders have suggested they might not have representatives in the government but rather put unaffiliated technocrats in the cabinet.

CALL TO ARMS

The two Islamic Jihad militants were killed in a raid in the West Bank village of Arrabe, near Jenin, the army said. There was at least one Israeli casualty, Palestinian witnesses said.

After the incident, Nafez Azzam, an Islamic Jihad leader, called for other factions "to resume resistance against the occupation," a reference to attacks scaled back under a truce last year.

The Quartet of major powers trying to broker Middle East peace -- Russia, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations -- said earlier this week that Hamas must reject violence and recognize Israel or risk losing international aid.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday the world should not cut off funding to the Palestinians after Hamas's victory.

Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri called on other Quartet members to follow Russia's lead and "not to punish the Palestinian people for practising their democratic choice."

Jordan's ambassador to the Palestinian Authority also said on Tuesday that Amman "will continue to support the Palestinian people regardless of who is in government."

The Palestinian Authority faces a financial crunch if Israel withholds the tax money.

Unemployment in the Palestinian territories runs high, at 22 percent, and half the Palestinian population lives in poverty. In Gaza, many Palestinians live on an average of $2 a day.

Israel's foreign ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said the automatic tax payments to the authority would probably stop until the completion of a policy review ordered by interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Palestinian Economy Minister Mazen Sonnoqrot decried what he called "an irresponsible and grave decision" and said it would have "negative economic and social consequences for the Palestinians."

Masri accused Israel of "trying to steal Palestinian money."

Fatah leaders have so far rejected joining any coalition with Hamas, whose anti-corruption platform, charity network and strong resistance to Israel since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000 propelled it to victory.

Saeed Seyam, a senior Hamas leader, said the group still hoped Fatah would agree to join a government with Hamas.

"But if they do not, then that is their own business," he said. "The Palestinian area is crowded with experts and qualified people."

Abbas plans to meet Hamas leaders in Gaza within the next two weeks, his chief of staff said, denying an Israeli television report the president would hold talks with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in Cairo in the next two days.

Speaking at his annual press conference in the Kremlin, Putin said Hamas "must put an end to its radical rhetoric, recognize Israel and establish contact with the international community. We urge Hamas to opt for such systematic work."

But he also warned that the refusal to provide assistance to the Palestinian people would be a mistake.

In a surprising election victory for Hamas, Hamas won 74 seats in the 132-member Palestinian legislative council while the mainstream Fatah movement secured only 45 seats, according to official results of the Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Putin described Hamas's victory in the vote as "a strong blow" to American diplomacy in the Middle East.

Russia is a member of the quartet mediating for peace in the Middle East which also includes the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.

In a statement issued last Thursday, the quartet called on Hamas to renounce terror, disarm and recognize the existence of Israel.

“Time is short. If we do not change the world now, there may be no 22nd century for humanity. Capitalism has destroyed the ecological equilibrium of the earth. It is now or never!”, Chavez declared. “We should go toward setting up a worldwide anti-imperialist movement. We have already taken steps in this direction”, Chavez told the cheering crowd. He commented that at the previous WSF in Porto Alegre in 2005, “many talks were occurring without conclusions. We are not here to waste our time. We must urgently build a new socialist movement.”

Chavez blasted the US empire. “It is the most perverse empire in history: It talks about freedom while invading and destroying other nations ... The empire is very powerful, but not infallible. This century we will bury the US empire. The empire has to face the people of Venezuela and Latin America. It has failed in Iraq already.”

He urged the audience to “imagine a world in which the US administration declares peace to the world, withdraws its forces, and uses its resources to produce medicines and food for the poor people of the world”.

Chavez contrasted the US’s record to the achievements of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, with the help of Cuba, which taught 1.5 million people to read through Mission Robinson in just two years.

“Injustice and inequality are losing: it is now up to us to define the formula of unity for victory. We need unity of all our currents. While respecting the right to autonomy of the movements, including the green movement and the various political and national movements, all of us should get together in a victorious offensive against imperialism.”

Many prominent figures in the international progressive movement were featured on a podium, including Aleida Guevara (Che’s daughter) and Cindy Sheehan (US anti-war leader whose son was killed in Iraq). Huge applause greeted Chavez’s speech, and the rally included a rousing rendition of the workers’ anthem, “The Internationale”.

Chavez’s stress on the need for urgent international political action against global capitalism and oppression was a major theme of the forum. The whole conference was filled with the overwhelming influence of the Venezuelan revolution. The “Bolivarian spirit” was pervasive from the very first day, when around 20,000 activists marched to launch the WSF. The lively and colourful march featured the banners, clothing and chants of the many national contingents, especially from Latin America.

One contingent was a group of around 15 Australians, marching with the banner of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network and chanting: “Chavez, friend! Australians are with you!”

A panel with speakers from the National Union of Workers, the worker-managed Alcasa aluminum factory, organisers from participatory budgets in Brazil, and well-known radical intellectuals, discussed how co-management and participatory budgeting were weapons in the struggle against capitalism and in building a democratic socialism of the 21st century. It also featured debate on the strengths and weakness of these various experiments so far.

Another panel of radical Latin American economists discussed how the Latin American integration project known as the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) was the antithesis of the US-inspired Free Trade Area of the Americas. The panellists discussed how ALBA gave activists a strategic and concrete alternative to struggle for and that it must be a social integration of peoples at every level rather than only of governments and elites.

Another well-attended forum discussed the Marxism of Che Guevara and its relevance. The panel concluded that while Che’s thought didn’t contain all the elements of 21st century socialism, he articulated its essence by arguing that socialism must be centered on developing new human beings liberated from alienation, and that this can only be achieved through their active participation in building a society free from capitalism and all forms of bureaucracy and hierarchy.

Another forum discussed the massive achievements of Venezuela’s social missions in improving the lives of the poor communities, and their role in transforming the communities into organised, conscious and creative social actors in constructing a new socialist Venezuela, thus giving them a revolutionary character in a capitalist society.

Meetings also discussed solidarity work in various countries and plans for coordination of international solidarity activities with the Venezuelan revolution in 2006.

The variety and breadth of topics covered the whole spectrum of debate in the world anti-capitalist globalisation movement. As the WSF draws toward a close, discussion is occurring on the future of the social forum movement and the urgent tasks facing us in the coming year.

"The military officials of the U.S. Embassy are involved in espionage and we have them infiltrated," said Chavez, urging the U.S. embassy to stop spying as "we are watching you."

The Venezuelan authorities accused a group of military officials at the U.S. embassy in Venezuela of involvement in a spying case during which several Venezuelan officers allegedly passed sensitive information to Washington.

The espionage allegations by Venezuela have increased tension between Caracas and Washington. Chavez threatened last week to arrest any American officials caught spying on the Venezuelan military.

In regard to the anti-imperialist struggle that lays behind the Sixth Annual World Social Forum in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez warned the U.S. government that he will imprison any U.S. public official, "but above all, [those in the] military" that attempt to obtain information regarding the Venezuelan National Armed Forces.

"The next time we detect military or public officials trying to obtain information regarding our armed forces, they will be imprisoned," Chavez said just after condemning George W. Bush as the biggest violator of human rights and promoter of terrorism in the world.

Chavez accused Washington of "wanting to include" Venezuela on the list of countries that "sponsor terrorism" when that fellow President George W. Bush's government is the "most vicious, murderous, genocidal, immoral, and brazen" of all "empires."

Chavez also demanded that Washington "cease attacks and genocide in Iraq" and that they withdraw U.S. troops from this Arab country.

"They [Washington] want to include Venezuela on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. The United States has five of our Cuban patriots imprisoned, and [Washington is] guilty of violating every law, from the torture of [detainees] in Guantanamo to the disappearance of individuals in secret CIA prisons around the world!" Chavez said.

Washington "is protecting two notorious terrorists, (Luis) Posada Carriles - and also for a long time Orlando Bosch … both were Venezuelan policemen found guilty of murder and torture [in Venezuela] and Washington is protecting them on U.S. territory," added the leftist head of state.

Caracas has asked Washington to extradite Posada Carriles, who has been detained in the United States since last May. [Posada Carriles] is the prime suspect behind the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Air passenger jet that was traveling from Caracas to Barbados and which caused 73 deaths.

The 77-year-old anti-Castro terrorist, originally from Cuba but naturalized in Venezuela in the 1960's, fled a prison in central Venezuela in 1985 while being tried for "homicide and treason."

With regard to the bombing of the Cuban passenger jet, the Venezuelan judicial system acquitted anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch in August 1987, who was imprisoned in [Venezuela] for 11 years under suspicion of intellectual involvement in the crime.

Chavez insisted that the Bush Government intends to put an end to [Chavez'] "Bolivarian Revolution," and that it associates this objective with a case of "espionage" involving a military attache from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas and at least 24 Venezuelan Marines.

"We have just discovered one more case of espionage here … we would like to say [to the United States] that despite the many tools of power and technology they may bring into play, they will never succeed [in controlling] us," claimed the Venezuelan Chief-of-State.

Venezuelan Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel, claimed today that the [Venezuelan] Government "has duly verified confidential information that officials under assignment with the North American military are indeed involved" into alleged espionage.

On Thursday, the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, said that Caracas had not informed him of the alleged "espionage" that would involve John Correa, according to local sources, the Embassy's naval attache.

Chavez emphasized that "the fundamental reason" behind Bush's attempts to end the "Bolivarian Revolution" is his desire to take control of Venezuela's natural gas and petroleum, which Washington controlled for 100 years.

Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest exporter of crude oil and home to the eighth-largest natural gas reserves on the planet, is the fourth most important supplier to the United States, where it owns a network of nearly 14,000 service stations.

Caracas and Washington have maintained bitter diplomatic relations, characterized by an unrelenting exchange of accusations against one another, referring to the "imperialist and interventionist" tendencies of Bush's government and the "totalitarian intentions" of Chavez.

"The journalist called on her family, her colleagues and Americans throughout the world to ask the US military authorities and the Iraqi interior ministry to free all Iraqi prisoners, saying this could contribute to her release," Al Jazeera's presenter said.

In the tape broadcast on January 17, a tired Carroll had spoken calmly, dressed in a grey sweatshirt, her hair loose.

The trouble-plagued trial of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants is set to resume Wednesday but without its key defendants or their lawyers.

Defense lawyers have said they have no intention in the near future of returning to the court, which is now run by a much stricter judge who ejected Saddam and three other defendants for their courtroom behavior on Sunday.

One of the defence team, Jordanian lawyer Saleh al-Armuti, told AFP on Tuesday that the boycott would continue until the judge was replaced.

Carroll, who started working in Iraq soon after the fall of Saddam, was freelancing for the US-based Christian Science Monitor and had just visited the headquarters of Sunni politician Adnan al-Dulaimi when she was kidnapped.

"For a third time, I appeal to the kidnappers hoping they will release her as soon as possible," Dulaimi told AFP. "We demand the release of the Iraqi female prisoners in US prisons to defuse the crisis and avoid harming the journalist."

"Her capitivity is bad for the Sunnis," he added, appealing to her captors, "especially those in the western areas like Fallujah and Ramadi, and will only cause them more trouble."

The latest video was widely reported in the United States, but television stations refused to broadcast more than a few seconds of it, calling it too disturbing.

In the past, other young foreign female hostages such as the French and Italian women taken in the past two years appeared weeping and distressed in kidnapper videos. All three were eventually freed.

While US and Iraqi authorities refused to free any prisoners to placate Carroll's kidnappers, more than 400 Iraqi detainees, including five women, were released last week after what the authorities said were normal reviews.

Four Iraqi women are still held in US-administered prisons.

The new tape comes amid a spike in hostage-taking in Iraq, with insurgents releasing tapes of several foreign captives.

A group holding four Western peace activists, captive in Iraq since November, last week issued a new video of their captives, saying it was giving a "last chance" for its demands to be met.

Two German engineers seized in northern Iraq appealed on Friday to Germany to save their lives.

Earlier this month, two Kenyan telecommunications engineers were kidnapped in Baghdad, but no information has been released on their status or whereabouts.

Meanwhile, in northern Iraq, officials in the Kurdish autonomous region were moving to stave off a feared spread of bird flu after a young girl was confirmed Monday to have died of the virus on January 17.

A buffer zone along the Iranian and Turkish borders has been declared and already some half a million birds in these regions have been culled, said Tahseen Nameq, head of the joint Kurdish committee to confront the disease.

"We are suffering from a lack of medicine to combat the virus," Nameq told AFP, revealing that health officials only had enough medecine to treat five patients.

In the battle against insurgents, security officials in the northern town of Samarra reported the launch of a major joint US-Iraqi operation.

Entry to the city has been restricted and a curfew has reportedly been imposed and at least six people have been arrested. The operation follows an attack on a US observation post on Sunday that produced no casualties.

The US military also reported a joint operation with Iraqi forces in Baquba on Sunday that resulted in the arrests of 18 suspected insurgents.

On Monday, US marines in Ramadi resorted to airpower to kill two insurgents who had fired five rocket-propelled grenades at them. The air strike also injured at least one civilian.

A Japanese newspaper reported that Tokyo's first foreign military deployment will end in May when it pulls out of Iraq. Japan has 600 troops in the southern town of Samawa on a humanitarian mission focused on reconstruction.

Putin said the new missiles were capable of carrying nuclear warheads. He wouldn't say whether the Russian military already had commissioned any such missiles.

He said he had shown the working principles of the missile systems to French President Jacques Chirac during a visit to a Russian military facility.

"He knows what I'm talking about," news agencies quoted Putin as telling reporters after state-run news channels had cut their live broadcast of the news conference.

In April 2004, Chirac became the first Western leader to visit Russia's top-secret Titov space control center, which is also involved in launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Putin said that the new missiles were capable of changing both the altitude and the direction of their flight, making it impossible for an enemy to intercept them.

"A missile defense system is designed to counter missiles moving along a ballistic trajectory," Putin was quoted as saying.

Putin and other Russian officials have boasted of the new missiles in similar comments in recent years, but they haven't identified them or given any further details other than about their ability to change their flight path on approach to a target.

Most analysts viewed the earlier announcements about "hypersonic" missile systems as Moscow's response to U.S. missile defense plans.

Military analysts have said that the military had experimented with a maneuvering warhead during a missile launch several years ago, but voiced doubt about Russia's ability to deploy such weapons anytime soon.

Analysts said the new warheads, designed to zigzag on their approach to targets, could be fitted to new land-based Topol-M missiles and the prospective Bulava missiles, now under development.

On other topics at the news conference, Putin:

- Urged the militant Palestinian group Hamas to engage in peaceful dialogue, and said Russia's position on the Middle East differed from that of the United States and Europe.

Hamas should "refrain from extremist declarations, acknowledge Israel's right to exist and put its contacts with the international community in order," Putin said. He said "Russia has never declared Hamas a terrorist organization, but it doesn't mean we support and accept everything Hamas has done and all the statements it has made."

- Lashed out at the government of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili for its criticism of Moscow over last week's gas pipeline explosion, which resulted in a weeklong cutoff of Russian gas from the Caucasus Mountains nation.

While repair teams were working to fix the pipeline in freezing temperatures, "we only saw them spitting at us," Putin said. "Georgian citizens must know that such a policy toward Russia won't help to improve conditions of ordinary people."

- Praised his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, for taking Russia on the democratic path amid the turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"During the time when Yeltsin led Russia, Russian citizens got the most important thing: freedom," Putin said during a wide-ranging annual news conference. "This is a great historic accomplishment of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin."

Many Russians hold Yeltsin, who turns 75 on Wednesday, responsible for the post-Soviet economic meltdown that led to a dramatic plunge in living standards. Putin owes his rise to power to Yeltsin, who picked him as his prime minister and then named him acting president.

Through a royal proclamation in the morning of Feb. 1, 2005, King Gyanendra dismissed a coalition government led by Sher Bahadur Deuba, jailed hundreds of activists across the country, declared state of emergency and imposed harsh press censorship, cut telephone and mobile services across the country.

The state of emergency was lifted three months later.

The country's municipal polls are scheduled for Feb. 8.

"As far as the extradition issue is concerned, they may stay here. It is good to feel they are under our control," Putin said at his annual press conference in the Kremlin.

"The problem we have encountered will not lower the level of our cooperation with the United Kingdom," he said.

Meanwhile, Putin used the spy row to defend a new Russian law on NGOs, saying NGOs in the country should not be run by "puppeteers" from outside Russia.

NGOs are needed as a means to check on bodies of power and the state will support them but require their financing to be transparent.

Earlier this month, Putin signed into law a bill on NGOs, which required all domestic NGOs in Russia that receive overseas funds to declare their origins and purpose and regulated the registration procedure for the establishment of branch offices in Russia by foreign NGOs and social groups.

When I've written about "sex slavery" in the past, from Cambodia, I've sensed that readers assume the term is hyperbole. See if you still think so after hearing the story of Geeta Ghosh.

Geeta grew up in a village in rural India and attended only two months of school; like many of the girls who are trafficked, she is illiterate. Her own family abused her, but at age 11 she found refuge with her best friend's aunt.

For a year, "Auntie" looked after Geeta with a warmth that she had never found at home. Then one day when Geeta was 12 - but still physically a little girl, well short of puberty - the aunt took her to a beauty parlor. "You look a bit ugly, so why not try to look prettier?" Auntie suggested.

Then the aunt locked her in a soundproof room in a brothel with an Arab man who bought her virginity. "I was very terrified to see this huge man in front of me," Geeta remembers, adding, "I cried a lot and fell to his feet, pleading."

"He pulled off my dress, and the rapes went on for a month like that. He made me sleep naked beside him, and he drank a lot, and he hurt me so much."

After that, the brothel owner peddled Geeta daily for five years - and only after eight months as a prostitute did she mature enough to get her first period. The brothel owner kept her confined in the brothel for the first three years, beating her with sticks and threatening her with a knife to warn what would happen if Geeta tried to escape.

"There was a big drain in the house for sewage," Geeta remembers. "The madam said, 'If you ever try to run away, we'll chop you up and throw the pieces down this drain.' "

After three years, Geeta was allowed on the street in front of the brothel. But although police officers sometimes walked by, she says that running to them would have been pointless - the madam paid them good bribes, so they would simply have returned her to the brothel.

One taxi driver regularly visited Geeta, and gradually they became close. "It may not have been love, but he was sympathetic," she says. Finally, he helped her escape from the brothel, and now they are married and have four children.

In the five years in which Geeta was imprisoned in the brothel, she never was given any money. Every single rupee she earned went to her owner.

I visited the one-room hovel where Geeta and her family now live in a Calcutta slum. The home is the size of a walk-in American closet, mostly taken up by a bed raised up on bricks. Three of the children sleep on the bed, and the parents and the youngest child sleep underneath it. The slum is squalid, and a nearby sewage canal sometimes floods their home - but Geeta is happy, because she is free.

All around India and the world, girls are still locked up in brothels as Geeta was. Indeed, sex trafficking is one problem that appears to have become worse around the globe, as organized crime, increased mobility and the rise of markets have turned pubescent flesh into a tradable international commodity. Moreover, fear of AIDS has nurtured markets for virgins and younger children who customers think are less likely to have H.I.V.

The Lancet, the British medical journal, has estimated: "The number of prostituted children is thought to be increasing and could be as high as 10 million."

Of course, not all can realistically be called "slaves." There is a continuum of coercion among under-age prostitutes that runs all the way from older teenagers who choose prostitution to 10-year-olds who are kidnapped off the street and locked up in cages.

In my next column, I'll talk about what can be done to help sex trafficking victims like Geeta. It's time to emancipate them.

"An Israeli patrol noticed two figures placing a suspicious object on the road," the spokeswoman said.

"The force called on them to identify themselves. They did not. The patrol then fired in the air and then at one of the figures, and saw he was hit."

An army doctor pronounced the Palestinian dead at the scene. The spokeswoman described him as a youth but said she did not know his age. She said the second Palestinian escaped.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper said it appeared that two children had been building a stone barrier across the road, near the Jewish settlement of Shilo.

"We are checking the circumstances [of the shooting]," the spokeswoman said. She said that it was not immediately clear exactly what the two Palestinians had placed on the road.

Earlier, Liberal Leader Paul Martin announced that he will step down as leader.

The Conservatives were elected in 124 ridings, the Liberals were elected in 102 (leading in one other), the Bloc was elected in 51 and the NDP was elected in 29. One Independent was elected, in Quebec.

"There will be another chance and there will be another time," Martin told a roomful of supporters in Montreal. He said he called Harper to congratulate him.

The Conservatives picked up more than 36 per cent of the popular vote, an increase of seven per cent from 2004. This compared to the Liberals with 30 per cent and the NDP with 17.5 per cent.

The NDP made major gains nationally, up 10 seats from the 2004 vote.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said that while Canadians voted for Harper to form a minority government, "they asked New Democrats to balance that government."

Layton was flanked by his wife, New Democrat Olivia Chow, who won her Toronto riding.

The Tories made significant gains in Ontario and Quebec, winning in least two dozen seats.

In Quebec, where they were shut out in 2004, the Tories made major inroads, getting elected in 10 ridings.

In vote-rich Ontario, the Liberals, who captured 75 seats in 2004, were elected in 54 ridings. But the Tories increased their support, elected in 40 ridings, a gain of 16. The NDP was elected in 12 ridings, up five.

The province, a Liberal stronghold, has 106 seats and is considered the key to victory.

Both Martin and Harper campaigned heavily in the strategic province.

In Quebec, the Bloc was elected in 51 of the province's 75 ridings, followed by the Liberals with 13 seats and the Tories with 10. In 2004, the Bloc received 54 seats, followed by the Liberals with 21. Independent candidate André Arthur, took the riding of Portneuf-Jacques Cartier from the Bloc.

While the Bloc ended up keeping most of its seats, it appeared it would do that with far fewer votes. Its share of the popular vote slipped to 42.4 per cent – a 6.5 percentage point drop from the 48.9 per cent it garnered in 2004.

Early in the campaign, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, who appeared to set an electoral goal of 50 per cent of the popular vote, focused his attacks on Martin. With polls suggesting Conservative popularity soaring in the province, Duceppe began slamming Harper.

In the Atlantic provinces, the Liberals, who won 22 seats in the June 2004 election, were elected in 20 of the region's 32 ridings. The Conservatives, who were hoping to make bigger inroads in the region, were elected in nine ridings, a gain of two.

The Conservatives also took a hit in British Columbia, losing five of their 22 seats. The NDP gained five seats and the Liberals picked up one.

All four major party leaders held on to their ridings. Among the high profile Liberal political casualties were Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, Transport Minister Tony Valeri, Heritage Minister Liza Frulla and Liberal Treasury Board president Reg Alcock.

Liberal Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell was defeated in Ontario by Conservative Tony Clement, former provincial Ontario health minister, by 21 votes.

The Tories swept Alberta and tightened their hold on the Prairies by two seats.

Many political observers have credited Harper for running a smooth campaign.

He regularly pumped out policy announcements throughout the unusually long 56-day campaign, leaving the Liberals mostly to react.

Martin campaigned on his record as finance minister and his implementation of eight consecutive balanced budgets. He also promised to lower personal income taxes, create a national child-care plan, ban handguns, subsidize post-secondary students and ban the federal use of the notwithstanding clause.

But he spent the last weeks of the campaign going after Harper. He accused him of having an extreme right-wing agenda that would threaten the rights of minorities and take away abortion rights.

Unlike the 2004 election, the Tories were also able to keep their so-called controversial MPs in check. Indeed, some reporters complained the party was purposely keeping some candidates away from the media spotlight.

In this campaign, it was the Liberals who were often in damage control mode.

In the early weeks of the campaign, Martin spokesman Scott Reid said parents would spend Harper's child-care subsidy on "beer and popcorn." Later, the Ontario vice-president of the party resigned after he compared NDP candidate Olivia Chow to a dog.

Martin was also questioned about a series of attack ads, in particular one that suggested Harper would post armed soldiers on the streets of Canadian cities.

And just last week, Martin again was on the defensive, having to declare Harper's patriotism after Canadian Auto Workers head Buzz Hargrove, who endorsed the Liberals, suggested the Tory leader was a separatist.

As Martin was forced to contend with the fallout of the sponsorship scandal, his party was hit with two RCMP probes, one into a possible government leak on income trusts and another into alleged illegal spending through the now-defunct unity lobby Option Canada. Opposition parties jumped on the investigations, claiming they were proof of what they called more corruption in the Liberal ranks.

Sharon, still unconscious, remains in critical but stable condition on Tuesday, the 20th day following a major stroke and massive cerebral hemorrhaging on Jan. 4.

After Sharon's hospitalization for the first stroke, his doctors declared that the prime minister had a hole in the septa between the heart chambers, a defect since his childhood.

However, Ha'aretz said that Sharon also suffered from more serious, life-threatening heart problems, including a large aneurysm in the septum.

This is known to be a source of cerebral blood embolisms and indeed led to the blood clot that caused Sharon's first stroke, said the paper.

The daily pointed out that Sharon also suffered from other heart diseases, including a shunt that causes blood to flow spontaneously through the hole in the septum from right to left, the wrong direction which is dangerous, and other conditions in the cardiac septum.

Those conditions created further risks of blood clots that could wind up in the brain, according to the report.

However, Yael Bossem-Levy, spokeswoman of Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital where Sharon is being treated, dismissed the Ha'aretz report as containing nothing new.

"Everything that appears in the item was discussed at the news conference", where the hole in the septum was disclosed, she said.

Sharon, who turns 78 in February, has been declared temporarily incapacitated and Ehud Olmert, his longtime close ally, is now serving as acting prime minister, presumably till the March 28 general elections.

Bill Ford, the chairman and chief executive, said: "We will be making painful sacrifices to protect Ford's heritage and secure our future."

Unions called it "Black Monday" for the workers.

Shrinking market share

Ford's market share and profitability has been undermined by Asian competitors.

"The automotive market in North America is rapidly becoming as crowded and fragmented as other global markets," Bill Ford said in a statement.

"Going forward, we will be able to deliver more innovative products, better returns for our shareholders and stability in the communities where we operate."

The company named five assembly factories that will be shut by 2008 - St Louis (Missouri), Atlanta (Georgia), Wixom (Michigan), Batavia (Ohio), and Windsor (Canada). The other two sites will be named later this year.

It said that in addition to the job cuts, salary-related costs were being cut 10% in North America with the previously announced reduction of 4000 white-collar positions.

The company said managerial ranks were being reduced by 12% by April.

Ford currently has about 120,000 workers in North America.

Its assembly capacity in North America will be reduced by 1.2 million units, or 26%, by the end of 2008.

Painful restructuring

The restructuring comes just four years after Ford cut 35,000 jobs worldwide, and eliminated several struggling brands and a million vehicles of capacity.

"We're going to do what we have to do. It's just very, very sad," Bill Ford told Time magazine before the latest announcement. But he said: "My goal is to fight Toyota and everyone else and come out on top."

Ford also reported much better than expected fourth-quarter earnings, but a slump in full-year profit.

For 2005, Ford's net earnings fell 43% to $2 billion, the company said, down from $3.5 billion in 2004.

Much of its fourth-quarter profit came from the sale of Hertz, the car rental agency, and Ford Credit, the financial services unit.

Ford's struggling North American automotive unit posted a $1.6 billion annual loss, down $3 billion from 2004.

Bill Ford told Time that in future there would be greater emphasis on hybrid petrol-electric engines and other environmental innovations and bolder designs.

"The old way of doing things doesn't work," he told the magazine. "Is [this] risky? Of course it's risky but I tell you what: Going the way we were going is the highest risk of all."

Sceptical analysts

Analysts said investors are more worried about whether Ford will ever get its auto operations back to profitability.

Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland, dismissed Ford's "Way Forward" plan.

"The announcement contains little new or unexpected. It is merely a slick restatement of Bill Ford's aspirations to do better," he said.

"The plan lacks a clear statement of how Ford is going to get its labour and design costs in line with its Japanese competitors. Lacking that, Ford will not be able to offer vehicles that are competitive in price, quality and content."

Neither will cutting production levels help Ford's declining market share. Ford's share of the US market has fallen from 26.4% to 17.4% in 10 years, the lowest since the 1920s.

The result would be an Airbus-dominated joint venture with a planned production capacity of four single-aisle A320 series each month.

The A320 family, comprising A319s, A320s and A321s, are medium-range, single-aisle, twin-engine jets capable of carrying up to about 180 passengers. The aircraft have been the European company's most popular models since they entered service in 1988.

As part of the wide-ranging accords signed by Premier Wen Jiabao during a visit to France in December, Airbus clinched an order of 150 A320 jets worth nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars.

Airbus also offered China a 5 percent stake in its A350 aircraft programme. The A350 is the company's response to Boeing'snew generation 787 "Dreamliner" passenger jets.

China is acknowledged as the world's fastest-growing aviation market and is a major battlefield for the world's two aerospace giants Boeing and Airbus.

Airbus' main focus this year is to have a greater presence in the market place with its aircraft by looking at all the elements of the market, including major, regional and start-ups, according to Laurence Barron, Airbus senior vice-president and Airbus China president.

He said Airbus hoped to have 50 percent of the market in China before 2013.

Boeing currently dominates the Chinese market with 67 percent, and Airbus holds 29 percent.

The survey was commissioned by the Dutch Social Affairs Ministry and was conducted in the spring of 2005, when researchers asked employers whether they had hired illegal labor in the past year.

The anonymous responses showed that 19 percent of the employers had at some point employed illegal labor, and small companies with fewer than 10 employees made significantly more use of illegal workers.

Some 42 percent of the employers did not check the work permits of the workers employed through an employment agency as required, and 14 percent of the employers said they work with agencies that have illegal workers on their books.

According to Dutch laws, since 1995 it has been compulsory for employers to apply for a work permit for any employees recruited from outside the EU. This also applies to workers from the new eastern European member states of the EU.

From the beginning of 2005, the fine for employing illegal workers in the Netherlands has been increased to 8,000 euros (about 9,600 U.S. dollars) per person.

But this has had scarcely any effect on deterring illegal laborso far, the survey said.

"Significant investments usually bring all three. It allows us to do what we want rather more quickly. It allows us to do some things better than we would otherwise do."

Quoting diverse sources, the plaintiffs set out their case that private corporate support was largely responsible for the success of the government's Apartheid policies.

The plaintiffs suggest that apartheid South Africa attracted foreign capital because it had two economies in one - the developed 'white' economy which provided a good market, and the underdeveloped 'black' economy that supplied cheap labor.

They said companies played a strategic role in the apartheid state's defence from civil unrest, with business leaders, including officers from Barclays, Standard Bank and Anglo American mining company appointed by then Pieter Willem Botha to a Defence Advisory Board.

"We have obtained some of the top business leaders in South Africa to serve on the Defence Advisory Board in order to advise me from the inside, not only about the armaments industry, but also about the best methods to be applied within the Defence Force," Botha is quoted as having told the House of Assembly.

The appellants said companies sought to camouflage their trade with the then pariah state, with many companies ostensibly withdrawing from South Africa while retaining lucrative licensing and franchise arrangements.

The appellants are seeking reparations, claiming that the 23 defendants listed aided and abetted the apartheid regime.

However, the defendants, contend that doing business in and with apartheid South Africa, "which industrialized nations permitted and encouraged," never violated the international norms envisaged by the legislation under which the claim is being brought.

The defendants suggest adjudication would offend the sovereignty of the Republic of South Africa and compromise the United States' relations with that country and other allies and friends.

The South African government, via the Justice Ministry, has filed an affidavit on behalf of the defendants.

Experts say the dollar is largely under the influence of external factors but proportionally the dollar has weakened more considerably against the ruble than against the euro.

"The dollar's fall versus the ruble was extraordinary," Yelena Khrupova from BrokerCreditServis brokerage said. She added that the dollar's depreciation was facilitated by the active sale of the U.S. currency on the Russian forex market.

According to Khrupova, the dollar's plunge against the ruble showed that the Central Bank of Russia was in no hurry to give a helping hand to the U.S. currency. The analyst said the country's chief bank was more concerned about maintaining ruble stability against the dollar-euro currency basket and curbing inflation, which went out of control in the first ten days of January.

On international forex markets, the dollar suffered a setback versus the euro last Monday, losing 1.41% against the single European currency and closing at $1.23 to the euro, the level registered in September 2005, Vladimir Abramov, an expert with Globexbank said.

Abramov said the complex situation around Iran, the unprecedented growth of gold prices and the narrowing spread between U.S. and EU interest rates were the main reasons for the dollar's fall against the euro. He added that investors' fears about the U.S. balance of payments deficit also precipitated the greenback's decline against the single European currency.

At the same time, Dmitry Baibikov, from Moscow Industrial Bank, said the dollar would likely rise above the level of 28 rubles by the end of this week and "only geopolitical events" can strongly influence its dynamics.

Although gas consumption in Ukraine has risen to record levels because of a severe cold snap gripping the country, “the increase of gas use in Ukraine has not at all affected the carrying out of our transport obligations,” spokesman Valentin Mondrievsky told AFP.

Russia’s state-owned Gazprom monopoly on Monday admitted for the first time that it was not entirely fulfilling its contractual obligations to clients abroad because Ukraine was retaining some of the exports.

“You can call it withholding or taking, legal or illegal — call it whatever you like,” Gazprom’s deputy chief Alexander Medvedev said.

“But what is happening is that gas is remaining in Ukraine at higher volumes than envisioned. This prevents us from fully fulfilling our obligations to our foreign customers,” he said.

Around 80 percent of Gazprom’s exports to Europe pass through a pipeline network located on Ukrainian territory.

Temperatures in some parts of the country have plunged to lower than minus 30 C (minus 22 F), placing the country’s energy systems under enormous strain.

The Ukrainian premier said Ukraine had consumed a record 407 million cubic meters of gas in the past day, some 43 percent more than during an average winter day when temperatures hover around 0 C (32 F).

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have persisted over a new gas pricing deal signed by the two sides on Jan. 4 that resulted in the near-doubling of the price Ukraine pays for natural gas.

European countries including Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia and Romania have recently reported drops in supplies of gas shipped to them by Gazprom.

Bosnia said Monday its supplies had been curtailed by one-fourth for the past five days.

Gazprom’s travails were compounded Sunday when explosions on a section of pipeline in southern Russia halted gas supplies to another ex-Soviet republic, Georgia, where President Mikhail Saakashvili accused Moscow of deliberate disruption to his country’s energy supply.

The company used an alternative pipeline route through neighboring Azerbaijan to restore some supplies to Georgia on Monday.

Gazprom had previously stated that it was fulfilling all of its basic gas delivery obligations to clients in Europe but was not in a position to meet their demands over and above those obligations, due to severe cold weather gripping Russia and soaring demand at home.

"His brand of wisdom, scholarship, far-sightedness and above all humour has ensured that Zaki played an extraordinarily important role in the life of this country and amongst the Muslim community," he said in a statement.

"His presence will be sorely missed but his hard-won legacy will, I hope, provide a fitting tribute to a truly remarkable and warm-hearted man."

The cleric formed part of a group including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, that issued a statement following the July 7 London bombings declaring faith leaders united in "resisting and overcoming the evil of terrorism".

But he sparked controversy a month later when he urged women to stop wearing Islamic veils amid fears of a violent backlash against the Muslim community. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the organisation offered "its heartfelt condolences to Dr Badawi's family".

Ahmed J Versi, editor of the Muslim News, said: "His demise will be a great loss to all the communities. His devotion to interfaith dialogue was unparalleled."

Dr Badawi was detained at JFK airport in New York last August and was prevented from entering the US. A week later he was given an "unreserved apology" and assurances of a visa by the US Embassy in London.

The cleric said he had been invited to return to the US straightaway, but officials could not explain why he was turned away from the country.

Dr Badawi, born in Egypt in 1922, was the holder of an honorary knighthood and in 2003 was a guest of the Queen at a state banquet for the US president, George Bush.

Sheikh Sabah, 77, was de facto ruler for several years after the late emir suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2001. He is believed to have unanimous support in the legislature, which needs only a majority vote to sanction the appointment.

The Kuwaiti political classes have claimed the transfer of power as a triumph for the Gulf state's constitution.

Mohammed Jassem al-Saqr, an MP, told Al-Arabiya TV he did not "think there is any other third world state that has shown the respect for constitution and law that we have displayed today".

Ahmed al-Rubei, a former minister and a liberal newspaper columnist, told Kuwait TV that the country had proved its maturity.

"We've done what has never happened in the Middle East. If half of this crisis had taken place [somewhere else] in the Middle East, tanks would have rolled in the streets and armed forces would have been asked to be on alert. We didn't witness any extra security scene or measure."

Members of the ruling family have held several meetings over the past few days to discuss the succession tangle. Removing the ailing emir breaks a long-standing tradition in which the post alternates between two branches of the family.

According to the pan-Arab daily, al-Quds al-Arabi, the ousted emir was unable to concentrate or identify people and may have Alzheimer's disease. Jassem al-Kharafi, the parliament speaker, said all 65 MPs and cabinet members who attended the session voted to remove Sheikh Saad. "The house listened to the emir's medical report and it became evident to the house, beyond any doubt, to transfer the emir's responsibilities permanently," he told a press conference.

"The emir remains in the hearts of all Kuwaiti people. We all love, appreciate and respect him, but this is God's will. We can only wish him a quick recovery."

Since he succeeded, Sheikh Saad had appeared only in a wheelchair and had not spoken in public. His health started to deteriorate after he was treated for a bleeding colon in 1997.

Sheikh Sabah has a pacemaker but otherwise is said to be in good health.

After meeting Shannon a day earlier, Morales told reporters: "Relations between Bolivia and the United States are going to continue."

Chile's presence

The presence of Ricardo Lagos, Chile's president, also held symbolic weight.

"From 500 years of resistance we pass to another 500 years in power"

Bolivia and Chile broke off diplomatic relations in 1978 amid strained ties dating from a 19th-century war in which Chile won mineral-rich Pacific coastal territory from Bolivia, leaving the country landlocked.

Lagos met Morales hours before his swearing in at Morales's apartment. Together they raised their hands on the balcony to the crowd outside and referred to each other as "brothers" and "friends".

"Today, a leader with extraordinary legitimacy takes office and we hope to have the best of relations," said Lagos, the first Chilean leader to attend the inauguration of a Bolivian president. "We have excluded nothing from our talks."

New chapter

Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean president-elect, declined an invitation to attend the inauguration but told journalists last week she hoped that Chile and Bolivia could re-establish full diplomatic relations.

In his inaugural speech, Morales declared that "the 500 years of Indian resistance have not been in vain".

"From 500 years of resistance we pass to another 500 years in power," he said. "We're going to put an end to injustice, to inequality."

Morales blamed neo-liberal economic policies of the past and the "looting of our natural resources" for the widespread poverty in the country.

Domestic popularity

Miners and Indians packed the colonial government square chanting "Evo, Evo" and waving the indigenous rainbow-hued flag, the Wiphala.

Bolivia's people hope that the election of an indigenous Indian to the highest political office will bring stability after street protests toppled two previous presidents and dozens died in clashes with security forces.

Teofira Marca Sajamaan, an Indian woman from Morales's home province of Oruro, said: "We have a lot of faith that he can help us because he is a poor man like us."

Rescuers broke through the floor of a train carriage perched on a cliff below the railway line to retrieve the corpse, an AFP photographer at the site saw.

Shards of metal and glass were scattered around the site of what was believed to be the worst railway crash in the former Yugoslav republic's history.

Clothes and shoes -- some clearly children's -- lay in piles on the hillside.

Montenegrin Interior Minister Jusuf Kalamperovic said brake failure was the suspected cause of the accident and announced a "thorough investigation" into the incident.

The driver, who was also injured, was detained for questioning by an investigating magistrate, an official source told AFP.

Before the latest body was pulled from the train, the death toll had been put at 44 by Podgorica hospital director Miodrag Djurovic.

The dead included at least five children, while the number of people on the packed passenger train who suffered injuries jumped to 198, he told journalists.

"Fifty people are in a very serious state. During the night we carried out 18 difficult operations," he said.

The train fell into a canyon of the River Moraca, in a densely forested area some 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of Podogorica, where it was headed from the northern town Bijelo Polje, at about 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Monday.

Train carriages were left hanging below the railway line on a cliff high above a road.

Witnesses said about 300 people were on the train at the time, among them many children returning from a ski trip in northern Montenegro.

Montenegro Transport Minister Andrija Lompar offered to resign on Monday night after an emergency government session at which three days of official mourning were declared in honour of the crash victims.

The "biggest accident ever is such an enormous strain on my career ... This is my personal decision," Lompar said when announcing his decision to step down.

The railway system in the tiny Balkan republic, whose authorities have always had problems upgrading the transport network due to its rugged mountains, has suffered from years of under-funding.

Offers of aid and condolences flooded in from the region on Tuesday, with donations of financial help and blood coming from ordinary citizens, including 50,000 euros (60,000 dollars) from a local union of mine workers.

Many hospitals in former Yugoslav republics, including Macedonia and Slovenia, had offered assistance during the night, but it was decided no extra help was required, said the Podgorica hospital director.

The state-run RTCG television network interrupted normal programming to play classical music between news broadcasts providing updates on the situation from the crash site and hospitals.

Montenegro, which has a population of about 650,000, formed a loose union with Serbia in 2003, replacing former Yugoslavia in a bid to shake off the legacy of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Trains are a popular form of transport in the former Yugoslav republic because of low ticket prices and dangerous roads.

The railway track on which Monday's accident occurred, linking the Serbian capital Belgrade to the coastal Montenegrin port of Bar, was built in 1976.

The figures were compiled during several recent trips to the country occupied since March 2003 by US-led forces, The Independent newspaper's Beirut-based correspondent told a news conference in Madrid where he was promoting his book "The Great War for Civilisation".

The casualty rate meant up to 48,000 Iraqis a year were dying in the conflict, "the figure of 30,000 plus is ridiculous", Fisk said, adding that the West did not care about Iraqi deaths.

Bush quoted the figure in the lead-up to Iraq's general election in December. The White House later made clear it was not an official government estimate but was based on media reports.

The Americans were trapped and the only way out was to talk directly to the insurgents, mostly former Iraqi soldiers who had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, said the Arabic-speaking journalist, who has specialised in Middle Eastern affairs for more than two decades.

One of the few reporters to interview Osama bin Laden, Fisk said Al-Qaeda's creator was initially supported by Washington in the same way that Saddam Hussein was once backed by the Americans.

"Most of the people we hate we actually created," he said.

The weapons had been part of Saddam Hussein's arsenal, much of which was looted after the invasion. But until now, insurgents had never successfully used them against an American aircraft.

"It could be just a lucky shot," said Gen. John Keane, the Army's acting chief of staff. "Or it could be that they have invested in a training program, and they now have some qualified operators and that'll be more of a threat than it has been in the past."

Apache helicopters are designed to be able to survive attacks by missiles like the SA-7, but the military is investigating why the chopper targeted in Monday's attack did not.

Insurgents Designing Aerial IEDs

There are also indications insurgents are developing what one Army general calls aerial IEDs — sophisticated bombs designed to leap in the air and detonate when a helicopter passes by.

Insurgents are believed to be making these devices from remnants of Saddam Hussein's anti-aircraft weapons.

"An aerial IED would be another indication of the enemy's innovation and creativity," said Keane. "Clearly they recognize that the publicity that surrounds a destroyed or damaged aircraft is significantly greater than the publicity that surrounds a destroyed or damaged vehicle."

The blasts occurred as the mother of abducted American reporter Jill Carroll appealed for her daughter's release after her captors threatened to kill her if U.S. authorities don't release all Iraqi women in military custody.

An Iraqi official confirmed the government had asked the Americans to free six of the eight Iraqi females in military custody but not as part of a bid to free Carroll, seized in Baghdad on Jan. 7.

The status of prisoners held by coalition forces is reviewed twice a week by a committee made up of the justice, human rights and interior ministries, and a representative of the US-led coalition.

The justice ministry spokesman said it was this committee which had studied the cases of the six women and found insufficient evidence against them.

However, the US military stressed that decisions over such matters were a detailed process that were unrelated to any other operational activity.

The demand that all Iraqi female prisoners held by coalition forces should be released was made in a video of Ms Carroll which aired on Arab TV channel al-Jazeera on Tuesday.

Her captors said the 28-year-old journalist would be killed within 72 hours if their demand was not met.

The video showed Ms Carroll apparently speaking to the camera, but did not include her voice.

Al-Jazeera did not say where it got the tape. The station itself has called for her release.

It was the first sighting of Ms Carroll since gunmen abducted her in Baghdad 10 days earlier, fatally wounding her translator during the attack.

Past demands

She is the 31st foreign journalist kidnapped in Iraq since the invasion almost three years ago, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres.

Ms Carroll has been a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, among others.

She had been reporting from the Middle East for Jordanian, Italian and other media organisations for the past three years, the Christian Science Monitor said in a statement.

The Monitor describes itself as a non-religious newspaper.

It is not the first time that the abductors of Western hostages in Iraq have called for the release of women prisoners.

In October 2004, Briton Ken Bigley and two American hostages were beheaded by members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who had demanded female prisoners be freed.

At the time the Bush administration said that only two women were being held in Iraq - Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, nicknamed by the US "Mrs Anthrax" and Rihab Taha, also known as "Dr Germ".

The pair were amongst a group of eight senior aides to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who were released in December 2005.

In November 2004, British aid worker Margaret Hassan was abducted and murdered in Iraq. Before her death she appeared in a similar hostage video calling for foreign troop withdrawals and the release of women prisoners.

The defence minister made the announcement to parliament's defence committee, less than three months before Italians go to the polls in a general election in which withdrawal is likely to be a major issue.

Italy's current contingent of 2,900 is the fourth-largest of the foreign coalition in Iraq, after the United States, Britain and South Korea.

Martino said however that Italian soldiers may be present on Iraqi soil after this year, but only as protection for a civilian mission.

"We are capable of assuming the responsibility and management of a possible reconstruction team in Dhi Qar province," he added, referring to a commitment that he described as "mainly civilian, but which would not exclude a military presence, very different from the current one, to assure the safety of civilian staff."

Martino had already told the Italian entertainment weekly Diva e Donna, published Wednesday, that Rome planned to halve its troop deployment by May.

"Last August we had 3,200 soldiers there, in September there were 2,900 and I expect that by May the contingent will be halved," the minister said.

The phased withdrawal continues apace this month with the repatriation of a further 300 troops.

"Another 1,000 soldiers will be brought home between now and June 2006," Martino told parliament, with 1,600 still in the country at that date.

Twenty-five Italian soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi defied popular street protests to send a 3,000-strong contingent to Iraq in June 2003.

Most died in a suicide attack on their headquarters in the southern town of Nasiriyah that November.

Martino's announcement to the parliamentary committee will go some way to defusing a potentially embarrassing election issue for Berlusconi, who is seeking re-election in the April 9 polls.

Opposition leader Romano Prodi, an outspoken critic of the deployment, went on record last year as saying he would order the immediate withdrawal of the contingent if elected, saying they are seen as an occupying force.

U.S. gunfire killed Nicola Calipari near the checkpoint on March 4, as the agent was heading to Baghdad airport in a car with an Italian journalist who had just been released after being held hostage by militants.

The ANSA and Apcom news agencies reported Tuesday that prosecutors planned to charge the soldier with murdering Calipari and attempting to murder the agent driving the car as well as the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, who were both wounded during the incident. State TV news Tg1, and private SKY TG 24 television news also carried the report.

The prosecutor in charge of the case, Franco Ionta, could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, said the Pentagon had not seen any charges actually filed and declined to comment.

An Italian government report in May blamed U.S. military authorities for failing to signal there was a military checkpoint ahead on the road. It also contended that stress, inexperience and fatigue played a role in the shooting.

The Americans insisted that the car was going fast enough to alarm the soldiers. The Italians have said the vehicle was traveling slowly.

Police and ballistic experts assigned by Rome prosecutors to examine the car have concluded it was traveling slower than the U.S. military claimed. They agreed with U.S. findings that only one soldier fired at the car.

The shooting angered Italians, already largely opposed to the war in Iraq, and led many to step up calls for withdrawing the Italian contingent. Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who sent some 3,000 troops to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's ouster, insisted the incident would not affect troop levels or Italy's friendship with Washington.

Jarjoura told Lebanese satellite NEW TV channel in an interview overnight that some Lebanese figures, particularly Deputy and Minister Marwan Hamada, forced him, in return to some promises, to retell the fabricated story to the international probe and the Lebanese Attorney Said Mirza as well as Bahiya Hariri, sister of the slain Hariri.

He said he is a Syrian national of Lebanese mother, adding he went to Lebanon to work and before that he looked for a job in Egypt, Iraq and Oman. He went back to Lebanon 14 days before late Hariri was assassinated with a Lebanese passport where he stayed there for six months at his grandfather house.

The witness said the Lebanese military detained him at an army checkpoint six months after the expiry of his residence in Lebanon as written in the passport. After that, he was taken to prison where all his former inmates were released except him.

He added that three days later he was taken the Interrogation Department in Beirut where they told him he was working for the Syrian state security intelligence, and asked him if he had any information about the assassination of Hariri. He said he denied having any information on the issue, but despite that he was left to an assistant in the interrogation called Mohammad or Ahmad, to blackmail him.

Jarjoura said he was set free three days later, but a man called Wisam contacted him. This man turned out to be an intelligence agent and a bodyguard of Marwan Hamada as he took him to Hamada’s house.

He added that he was taken several times to Information and Interrogation security offices in Beirut, and finally he met Marwan Hamada in his house and was inspected by Wisam himself.

The witness said he told Hamada that he knew nothing and he wanted no money or anything else, but Hamada hit kicked and swore him badly and told his bodyguards to coerce him into assisting them to fabricate the story about the assassination of Hariri and implicate Syria.

He added that Hamada and others told him to go to Ms. Bahiya Hariri house and tell her that he had information about who killed late Hariri without saying that he met Hamada. They ordered him to tell Bahiya that he worked for the Syrian intelligence which trained him. “They made me memorize what I’m going to say to Bahiya…and tell her that Syrian General Hassan Khallouf and General Hassan Khalil had trained me to monitor figures in Lebanon, including the procession of Rafik Hariri.”

He said he told her what was ordered to state, and thought of escaping to report to his government but failed to do so as he was under constant monitoring by the Lebanese security.

Jarjoura said they forced to add other names to the alleged list he was monitoring, including Sa’ad al-hariri, Walid Jumblatt, Marwan Hamada, Jebran Tueni, Samir Qassir, Layla Muawad, Elias Atallah, Fares Said, Boutross Harb and Samir franjieh. They also asked him to say that Syrian Gen. Hassan Khalil and Gen. Hassan Khallouf gave him these names by means of Brigadier Gen. Suheil Barakat of Palestine security branch.

He added that last time he gave his registered testimony before the investigation committee was in the presence of a Lebanese woman translator, saying they showed him the photo of President Bashar al-Assad, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister. Later they showed him the photo of Gen. Assef Shawkat and the four other detainees in Montverde but he didn’t recognize them.

Jarjoura said he was sadly forced into a perjury by swearing the Bible for the first time in his life, adding he is repentant to do so.

He pointed out that “ I have more important things than his current testimony and would only disclose them to my government in Syria ….I will not sell my country off ….I received no money from anybody…and I was not sentenced in Lebanon…and all the false information came from Marwan hamada.”

The witness said he sought several times to escape but couldn’t.

Gbagbo issued a statement after meeting Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in an effort to restore peace.

UN peacekeepers in Abidjan are under siege by government supporters who have tried to force their way into the UN headquarters in the capital.

More than 2,000 protesters tried to break into the building on Wednesday and had to be held back by warning shots and tear gas.

More than 300 troops have also been forced to withdraw from two UN bases in the west of the country after clashes over the past three days that have left at least four protesters dead.

"A number of attackers were killed and others wounded," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York. "UN forces are exercising maximum restraint in dealing with these attacks. Non-lethal methods are being used to disburse crowds and deter attacks."

Dujarric says the unrest is being incited by "hate media" broadcasting messages aimed at stirring trouble in the West African country, and they are "unacceptable and must cease immediately."

The UN Security Council is expressing "great concern" at the unrest and is expected to meet on Thursday to consider sanctions against the country.

Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, has been sharply divided since a failed coup attempt in 2002.

"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to northwestern France, where France's nuclear submarines are based.

"This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind."

Chirac said all of France's nuclear forces had been configured with this strategy in mind and the number of nuclear warheads on French nuclear submarines had been reduced to allow targeted strikes.

It was the first time he had so clearly linked the threat of a nuclear response to a terrorist attack, but he made no mention of any specific threat against France.

"Against a regional power, our choice would not be between inaction or annihilation," he said.

"The flexibility and reactivity of our strategic forces would enable us to exercise our response directly against its centers of power and its capacity to act."

Canadian border guards called RCMP after finding a 9-mm handgun, two shotguns and a rifle in the car at about 9:30 PT.

When they looked under the hood, they found what they believed was a bomb - a tubular package with wires sticking out of it - in the engine compartment.

"The driver was interviewed by border services officers, who were suspicious," said Paula Shore, a spokeswoman for Canada Border Services Agency.

"Our border services officers are trained to look for inconsistencies. It's never just one thing that makes them want to take another look at someone."

The RCMP explosives squad determined, however, that the suspicious package was not an explosive.

Surrey RCMP and the Washington State Patrol near Blaine, Wash., diverted traffic for more than two hours from the Peace Arch border, the busiest crossing west of Detroit.

The vehicle's driver was taken into custody for questioning but no charges were laid. He is believed to be a U.S. citizen. His parents live in Oregon.

In East Jerusalem, where 100,000 Palestinians are eligible to vote, just 6,300 residents are allowed to cast their ballot inside the city, while the remainder have to travel outside Jerusalem's boundaries.

Polls opened at 0700 (0500 GMT) and are set to close at 1900 (1700 GMT).

The BBC's Alan Johnston, at a polling station in a school in Gaza City, said voting got off to a brisk start.

About 60 people were waiting to get into the school to vote when the doors opened, while hundreds of people have been queuing at polling stations elsewhere.

In other parts of the city, members of Hamas were out in force, greeting voters as they arrived.

Hamas is accusing Fatah of corruption and incompetence, and opinion polls have put the group only a few points behind Fatah.

In Rimal neighbourhood, Hamas activists wearing green hats and bandanas held computerised lists of voters and assigned volunteers to drive supporters to the polling station.

Samer Lulu, 29, said he voted for Hamas because he was tired of corruption.

"With religious people at least we will have our public money in clean hands," AP news agency quoted him as saying.

'Historic' day

In East Jerusalem, voting is taking place at the central post office.

There, an unnamed 34-year-old woman said she voted for Fatah "because I remain faithful to Yasser Arafat," a badge of the late Palestinian leader pinned to her lapel, AFP news agency reported.

At one point, a group of right-wing Israeli MPs and their supporters tried to force their way into the post office, but were blocked by Israeli police.

Israeli security forces are reported to be keeping a low profile.

On the eve of the vote, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he was determined to ensure the vote was a success and "conducted in a free and honest way".

"This great day will be of historic significance, a decisive step on the road to freedom and independence," he said in a televised address.

Israel's acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert welcomed the election as an historic opportunity for the Palestinians, but urged voters not to plump for "extremists" - a reference to Hamas.

The militant group's involvement has caused serious concern in Israel, the US and Europe, where Hamas is banned as a terrorist organisation.

Hamas 'pragmatic'

The BBC's James Reynolds, in Jerusalem, says there is real excitement among Palestinians who have waited a long time to pick their parliament.

Many Palestinians say they want to punish Fatah, which is widely seen as ineffective and corrupt, our correspondent says.

Hamas has taken note of what it sees as an opportunity, he says, and has cast aside its hatred of the Palestinian parliament in the hope of converting popular support into a formal political voice.

This may show Hamas has added a measure of pragmatism to its arsenal, our correspondent says, but it has not given up its weapons.

The election, which has been repeatedly delayed, is the first since 1996.

"In the frameworks of a peace agreement, a government under my leadership would agree to make real territorial concessions but will not compromise our security borders," Netanyahu said. "We want there to be less friction. We want to remove outposts to help the Palestinian population. We will not reoccupy the Palestinian population."

Netanyahu outlined five points that will be the guidelines in the Likud's platform on diplomatic and security issues: "Yes to compromises within a peace agreement, yes to security borders, no to a unilateral withdrawal, yes to moving the security fence and yes to decreasing the friction with the Palestinians."

The Likud's "security borders" include the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights, Judean desert, an undivided Jerusalem, settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, and the hilltops overlooking Ben-Gurion Airport, the Gush Dan region and Road 443.

Netanyahu said that he would be willing to negotiate a permanent-status accord with a responsible Palestinian leadership while sticking to those borders on the basis of reciprocity. Any agreement reached with the Palestinians would then be brought to a vote among the Israeli people in a national referendum.

As reported exclusively in Sunday's Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu said that he would favor shifting the security fence to ensure that Ben-Gurion Airport, Road 443 and Road Six would not be in the range of missiles. Netanyahu said that a buffer zone would also be needed near the Dead Sea to respond to the security threat from the east.

Netanyahu's associates said that shifting the fence would require legal action. They said that the fence has been moved from the route recommended by security officials because the Supreme Court relied on international law in lieu of Israeli laws. Netanyahu wants the law changed to give the Supreme Court the means to accept the original route.

Lashing out at the two parties that a Likud spokesman on Sunday called "Siamese twins," Netanyahu said that both Labor and Kadima see the 1967 borders as their endgame with only minor adjustments. He said that by contrast, the Likud believes that withdrawing to the 1967 borders would perpetuate the conflict.

"The government's policies have strengthened Hamas and weakened the Palestinian Authority," Netanyahu said. "Reciprocity rewards those who behave positively and punishes those who violate agreements."

The foreign minstry said it had handed the US ambassador in the Central Asian state a note specifying the new conditions.

They call for "a significant increase in the lease fees, payment for ecological damage, as well as a few other points reflecting Kyrgyzstan's national internests," the ministry said in a statement.

The statement gave no further details. But parliament speaker Omurbek Tekebayev said earlier this month that Kyrgyzstan is seeking to sharply increase, to 50 million dollars (41.4 million euros) a year, the amount the United States pays for the Manas airbase,

Under the current complicated system, the land on which the airbase is located is controled by several entities, which charge anything between three cents and four dollars per square meter.

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said last month that Washington should pay "tens of times more" for use of the airbase.

Bakiyev earlier raised environmental concerns as a reason to "review" the rent paid by Washington for use of the base.

Last year US forces were evicted from a base in another ex-Soviet republic in Central Asia, Uzbekistan, which was set up to support operations in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

The eviction has forced the Americans to rely more heavily on the base in Kyrgyzstan.

Kuwait's parliament has taken the unprecedented step of unanimously voting to oust the ailing emir and replace him with the Prime Minister, ending the country's succession crisis.

Legislators and cabinet ministers agreed to depose their leader just minutes before a letter of abdication from the increasingly frail emir arrived in parliament.

Sheik Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, who had been ruler for little more than a week, will be replaced by the Prime Minister, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah. The day-to-day running of the country will be handed over to the cabinet.

"After listening to the medical report, the assembly with its 65 members agreed to remove him from the post of emir," the parliamentary speaker, Jassem al-Kharafi, said. "The emir remains in the hearts of all Kuwaiti people. We all love, appreciate and respect him, but this is God's will. We can only wish him a quick recovery."

The parliament will now elect a new leader, widely expected to be Sheikh Sabah, by a simple majority, bypassing centuries of tradition that alternated the Kuwaiti succession between two branches of the Sabah dynasty.

The move, a rare assertion of parliamentary power in an area of the world where hereditary monarchies are near absolute, ends speculation over whether the new emir was fit enough to rule. "Today, Kuwait has rid itself of tribal and social constraints," an analyst, Mohammed al-Jassem, told Reuters. "The constitution alone now governs the politics of Kuwait."

Sheikh Saad was proclaimed king on 15 January, just hours after the death of Sheikh Jaber, who had ruled Kuwait since 1977. But rumours over Sheikh Saad's health led to a divide within the royal family as to whether he was physically capable of ruling one of the world's richest countries.

Little information on the health of the Kuwaiti royal family is ever released. It has been common knowledge for years, however, that Sheikh Saad, 75, suffers from increasingly bad health. In 1997 he was treated for a bleeding colon and last year he spent a week in hospital for high blood pressure. Some have suggested the newly-ousted ruler suffers from Alzheimer's and would have been unable even to utter the short 30-word oath in parliament that would have made his rule official. Since his succession, Sheikh Saad had appeared only in a wheelchair and had not spoken in public.

Health problems have dogged the Sabah dynasty for several years, and finding a suitable successor to Sheikh Jaber was always going to prove problematic. Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah had, in effect, been running the country since Sheikh Jaber suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2001. But even the Prime Minister, who is also in his mid-seventies, is known to have health complications.

Parliament's decision comes after a particularly difficult week for Kuwaitis who look upon their royal family with great affection. The succession crisis has also affected business in the Gulf state, which contains roughly 10 per cent of the world's crude oil reserves. Parliament has been unable to debate an $8.5bn (£4.7bn) plan to boost oil output with the help of foreign firms since the crisis began.

Last Friday, Al-Qabas, a leading Kuwaiti daily newspaper, took the remarkable step of calling for Sheikh Saad's abdication, urging him to hand the throne to "he who is able among the sons of the honourable ruling family". The decision by Al-Qabas to publicise its views on the royal family was widely seen as evidence of not only how important the succession crisis was to Kuwaitis but also their heightened concerns over business in the oil-rich state.

'Public interest'

At the Court of Appeal, judges agreed that the £150,000 damages awarded to Mr Galloway by High Court judge Mr Justice Eady in December 2004 should not be reduced.

"Given the seriousness of the key allegation - Mr Galloway had taken money from Iraq for personal profit - we can see no basis upon which this court should interfere with the amount of damages."

James Price QC, for the newspaper, told the Court of Appeal that the story was in the public interest, whether or not the documents - found at the Iraqi foreign ministry following the fall of Baghdad - were true.

He said the story, published in April 2003, had been covered by the legal defence of privilege because it was "of truly global significance".

The newspaper had apparently found evidence that a British MP, the leader of a worldwide campaign against sanctions in Saddam Hussein's Iraq and high-profile member of the anti-war lobby, had been accepting substantial amounts of money from the "oil for food" programme, Mr Price added.

He said the newspaper had never sought to prove Mr Galloway had taken money from the programme, designed to help sick and hungry Iraqis while the West imposed trade sanctions.

'Witch-hunt'

Mr Price said Mr Justice Eady had rejected the defence of privilege at the trial because the newspaper had also published its own conclusions.

He went on: "If it was entitled to publish documents under the protection of privilege, it was entitled to comment on them."

Privilege should not be lost because the newspaper took a different view of the correct interpretation of the documents to that of the trial judge, he said.

Outside the court, John Rees from the Respect party, said he was delighted with the verdict, claiming there had been "a sustained witch-hunt" against Mr Galloway.

Video footage

Meanwhile, Sir Philip Mawer, the parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, is taking legal advice about whether to reopen his investigation into complaints about Mr Galloway's conduct.

Tory MP Andrew Robathan and a member of the public complained in April 2003 that Mr Galloway had allegedly earned £375,000 from the Iraqi regime but failed to declare the money in the Register of Members' Interests.

The commissioner's report and recommendations will go to the Standards and Privileges Committee before it is published.

Meanwhile, footage has emerged of Mr Galloway with Saddam Hussein's son, Uday. Uday and his brother Qusay were killed when US forces raided a house in Mosul on 22 July 2003.

Mr Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party for comments about the Iraq war, and went on to win the parliamentary seat of Bethnal Green at the 2005 general election as leader of the anti-war Respect party, ousting Labour's Oona King.

A journalist who helped expose a series of police errors in the shooting of a Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber has been arrested on suspicion of theft, a newspaper said.

The scoop in August by television broadcaster ITV News was based on leaked statements from the official inquiry into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes at a London subway station on June 22.

The documents from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) revealed among other factors that the 27-year-old electrician had been held down when he was shot by armed officers.

The journalist, who works as a news producer for ITV News, is thought to have obtained copies of the text, The Guardian newspaper reported.

Leicestershire Police arrested him in October and raided his home, the daily said, quoting an ITV News insider.

The anonymous insider said police seemed to be looking for evidence that money was paid for the information. This did not appear to be the case.

A 43-year-old IPCC employee has also been arrested and since resigned from the commission, according to the newspaper. Police have also arrested a 30-year-old woman over the affair. All three people remain on police bail.

The de Menezes expose by ITV News is regarded as one of the biggest scoops in the history of British television news.

David Mannion, the broadcaster's editor in chief, told The Guardian: "We absolutely stand by the story, the way we covered it and the way we got the story; it was to our usual high editorial standards."

De Menezes was shot seven times on a subway train at Stockwell Underground station in south London the day after an alleged attempt to replicate the July 7 attacks on the capital's transport system.

By creating a unique address for China, Google hopes to make its search engine more widely available and easier to use in the world's most populous country.

Because of government barriers set up to suppress information, Google's China users previously have been blocked from using the search engine or encountered lengthy delays in response time.

The service troubles have frustrated many Chinese users, hobbling Google's efforts to expand its market share in a country that expected to emerge as an Internet gold mine over the next decade.

China already has more than 100 million Web surfers and the audience is expected to swell substantially _ an alluring prospect for Google as it tries to boost its already rapidly rising profits.

Baidu.com Inc., a Beijing-based company in which Google owns a 2.6 percent stake, currently runs China's most popular search engine. But a recent Keynote Systems survey of China's Internet preferences concluded that Baidu remains vulnerable to challenges from Google and Yahoo Inc.

To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit Web content that the country's government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisons on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.

Although China has loosened some of its controls in recent years, some topics, such as Taiwan's independence and 1989's Tiananmen Square massacre, remain forbidden subjects.

Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

"We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel.

Google's decision rankled Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog group that has sharply criticized Internet companies including Yahoo and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com for submitting to China's censorship regime.

"This is a real shame," said Julien Pain, head of Reporters Without Borders' Internet desk. "When a search engine collaborates with the government like this, it makes it much easier for the Chinese government to control what is being said on the Internet."

When Google censors results in China, it intends to post notifications alerting users that some content has been removed _ to comply with local laws. The company provides similar alerts in Germany and France when, to comply with national laws, it censors results to remove references to Nazi paraphernalia.

Google is cooperating with China's government at the same time it is battling the U.S. government over a subpoena seeking a breakdown of one week's worth of search requests _ a list that would cover millions of terms.

Reflecting its uneasy alliance with the Chinese government, Google isn't releasing all its services.

Neither Google's e-mail nor blogging services will be offered in China because the company doesn't want to risk being ordered by the government to turn over anyone's personal information. The e-mail service, called Gmail, creates a huge database of users' messages and makes them instantly searchable. The blogging services contain a wide range of personal background.

Yahoo came under fire last year after it provided the government with the e-mail account information of a Chinese journalist who was later convicted for violating state secrecy laws.

Initially, Google's Chinese service will be limited to searching Web pages and images. The company also will provide local search results and a special edition of its news service that will be confined to government-sanctioned media.

Asked after his meeting with Bush whether they discussed the attack, for which Washington refuses to take responsibility, Aziz told reporters: "We discussed every issue which related to relations between the two countries."

"We discussed the war on terror and the need for closer communication and coordination to take this effort forward," the prime minister said after a nearly two-hour long meeting with Bush.

During a brief joint public appearance in the Oval Office, the president praised Pakistan as a strong ally in the global war on terrorism and announced that he would visit Pakistan and India in March.

"I'm really looking forward to going to your country," said Bush, who had been expected to visit the region early this year. "I want to thank you for your invitation and your hospitality in advance."

Bush and Aziz papered over tensions resulting from the airstrike, and emphasized cooperation on issues like the global war on terrorism, fighting the spread of nuclear weapons technology, and trade.

They also highlighted US efforts to help Pakistan recover from the devastating October 2005 earthquake, the worst in the country's history, which killed nearly 74,000 people and left more than three million homeless.

"I was very pleased that the United States, our taxpayers, our military, could contribute to helping the people of Pakistan recover. They are our friends," said Bush.

"A sense of caring and sharing always builds a better relationship between countries. And that's what we are seeing between Pakistan and the United States," said the prime minister.

"We also strive for peace in our area. It's an area which has a lot of challenges, and we are pursuing peace with all our neighbors. We want a solution of all disputes, including the Kashmir dispute," said Aziz.

Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan each hold the Himalayan region of Kashmir in part but claim it in full. The dispute has kept ties between the neighbors tense for almost six decades and triggered two of their three wars since 1947.

The prime minister also said Pakistan wanted "a strong, stable Afghanistan" and that Islamabad was "against proliferation of nuclear weapons by anybody. And we want to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."

"I think the relationship with Pakistan is a vital relationship for the United States," said Bush. "We're working closely to defeat the terrorists who would like to harm America and harm Pakistan."

The meeting came after Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden threatened fresh attacks on the United States in a new audiotape, and following the suspected US Central Intelligence Agency airstrike on January 13.

The strike on the remote village of Damadola, in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, was reportedly aimed at killing Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, during a gathering of senior Al-Qaeda operatives there.

Bush spokesman Scott McClellan suggested that the United States reserved the right to future military strikes, telling reporters: "This president has made it clear we're going to pursue terrorists wherever they are."

But Bush and Aziz "talked about how we're working together in the war on terrorism and how it's important to continue working together. They talked about continuing to work to improve cooperation and coordination," he said.

It's what made them come from all over the world to this bitterly cold and snow-bound valley high in the Swiss Alps.

The badge is their passport to the World Economic Forum, and they are determined to make good use of it.

Networking is the name of the game, or schmoozing, as some would call it - except that the best schmoozer of them all, Bill Clinton, is not in Davos this year (for once).

You're here, you must be interesting

Business cards change hand at a rapid clip; old friends embrace; people move around with their eyes set chest-high where those white badges dangle, displaying name and affiliation of each participant.

It's a diverse bunch of people, but they have one thing in common, says one of the participants: "The great thing about Davos is this assumption that you must be interesting, just because you are here."

And in most cases the assumption is right.

Take Markus Brehler, the founder of Enocean.

His cutting-edge tech firm has developed ultra-low power sensors and switches that get their energy from unlikely sources like vibration and temperature. It's environmentally friendly and does away with miles of cabling.

It's his first time in Davos and he is keen to meet potential business contacts.

"But the best thing is the opportunity to take your mind away from running a company for a few days and learn new stuff," he says.

Take Matthieu Ricard, a molecular geneticist by training, now co-director of the Buddhist Shechen monastery in Nepal.

Dressed in purple and orange robes, he is here to discuss what makes people happy.

"We work so hard to improve ourselves, but our outer conditions contribute to just 15% of our well-being," he says. "I want to talk about what makes out the rest of our happiness."

And of course he wants to network as well, in the hope of finding help for the 16 clinics his monastery runs in Nepal and Tibet , and for his schools in the desperately poor districts high up in the Himalayas.

Njabulo Ndebele is the vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, and looking forward to a meeting with university presidents from around the world.

Wang Jianmao is a professor at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai and eager "to promote China, to make sure that it is treated as an equal member of the international community".

A man with a mission

The Davos agenda is packed. Too packed for many.

Amory Lovins runs the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental research lab.

He pulls out two large pieces of paper, tightly printed in small font to list the talks he has to give, sessions he hopes to attend, and the numerous events he would really love to go to but is unlikely to be able to squeeze in.

He dives into his backpack, pulls out a bowl and bangs it hard with a metal stick without making a dent.

"I'll give a speech to a meeting of the chief executives of all the world's top car makers this week," he says. "I'll show them this new light-weight carbon fibre thermo plastic composite material", which is lighter than steel or aluminium, just as tough and will do wonders for fuel efficiency.

Davos is full of people like that, and the best place to make connections and your case.

"You would never be able to meet that many interesting people in one place in normal life," says Mack Gill.

The 36-year old runs the rapidly growing offshore operation of financial software giant Sungard in India.

It's his first time in Davos, and he confesses to being "really excited" about the five days that lie ahead.

Talking trade

But it's not all talk.

Once again the forum has attracted many of the world's most influential trade ministers.

Nearly 30 of them are in town, and as in previous years they are meeting on the sidelines of the event to hammer out a framework that could restart the global trade round.

The fact that they do so surrounded by top executives of the world's largest multinational companies will fan the suspicion of critics of the world's trade regime.

Anti-poverty group Actionaid has just released a report to coincide with the WEF start, accusing corporate lobbyists of having "an undue influence on the current global trade talks".

And in a way Davos is indeed the perfect place to lobby, whether for a good cause or your country.

India is making Davos the focus of its new "India everywhere" campaign, with a huge delegation of top government officials and business leaders.

Others are betting on the powers of jazz.

The state of Louisiana has invited to a "Bring back New Orleans" party, hoping to persuade investors to return to the hurricane-battered region.

Many of the people that Louisiana needs to persuade will be among the white badge holders in Davos.

European leaders were already jittery after supplies were disrupted twice this month, once during a Russian dispute with Ukraine ostensibly over prices and later when extremely low temperatures caused surging demand in Russia.

Georgian officials, upset over what they contended were unexplained delays in repairing the sabotaged pipeline, cautioned that Europe should take a look at Georgia's unheated capital this week before become more reliant on Russia.

"The lesson that all of Europe should draw is the importance of alternative corridors of energy and of not being dependent on one source of energy, especially from a country such as Russia," George Arveladze, presidential chief of staff in Georgia, said in an interview Tuesday.

All this is proving an embarrassment for Moscow, since the problems coincided with the Kremlin's assuming the rotating presidency of the Group of 8 industrial countries and pushing a theme of energy security.

Officials of Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopoly, have repeatedly insisted that supplies are reliable at current levels and can easily be increased from vast Arctic reserves to meet growing demand in Europe, where the company expects to increase its market share to 38 percent by 2020.

Chechen separatists and terrorists have articulated a policy of targeting objects important to Russia's economy, and the country's energy infrastructure has been sabotaged before, although without causing major disruptions.

Last summer, the Federal Security Service said it had arrested 11 suspects in what it called a terrorist attack on a gas pipelines in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, a Muslim enclave east of Moscow.

A spokesman linked that attack to separatist movements in the north Caucasus, the southern region near Chechnya where the bombing took place Sunday.

Earlier, saboteurs struck gas pipelines in Dagestan, another Russian republic in the Caucasus Mountains. Two years ago, a bombing and explosion shut for several days the same mountain gas route to Georgia that was hit Sunday.

The strike before dawn on a main and reserve pipeline, running on opposite banks of the headwaters of the Terek River, at an elevation of about 1,000 meters, or 3,300 feet, set fire to residual gas in a reserve pipeline and punctured but did not ignite the compressed fuel in the active pipeline, said Vladimir Ivanov, a spokesman for a regional branch of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. He spoke in a telephone interview.

He said that whoever placed the bombs probably waded under cover of darkness across the shallow river from a nearby military highway.

Alerted by falling pressures, pipeline workers shut valves situated about three kilometers, or nearly two miles, from the blast site, Ivanov explained.

Repairs were delayed Tuesday by what Gazprom said was residual gas in a pipeline that prevented welding for fear of another explosion.

The work was also slowed by strong winds and subzero temperatures, Gazprom said, referring to the Celsius scale.

Meanwhile, an alternative supply route to Georgia was disrupted by the failure of a compressor station, officials reported.

Georgian officials, who have hinted that Russia was behind the bombing to undermine the economy of a pro-Western former Soviet state, dismissed Gazprom's explanation of the delay.

"Officials continue to request explanations from Gazprom and other offi- cials within the Russian government following the sudden and simultaneous interruptions, but have so far been met with silence," the government said Tuesday.

Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer, maintains about 100,000 kilometers of pipelines.

Many are above ground and easily accessible. The system is a web of interconnected pipes to ensure reliability, meaning that any single pipeline failure would probably not carry grave consequences, according to officials.

Still, security services have said they are on the alert.

"We have our methods of securing the gas pipeline, including the export routes," Sergei Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, a successor to the KGB, said in a telephone interview.

"Of course, I can't tell you the specific methods we use," he added.

Italian energy officials said that natural gas deliveries were off 8 percent because of Russian supply problems unrelated to the bombing. The cabinet of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi met to consider emergency measures.

Officials recommended that Italians shower rather than take baths and cover their pots and pans as they cook to conserve energy, the Bloomberg news agency reported.

"European energy policy must ... take account of two essential elements at an international level: the increasingly tense situation worldwide between oil and natural gas supply and demand (and) climate change," he said.

"The three goals of any responsible energy policy ... are security of supply, consideration for environmental impacts, both local and global, and competitiveness," Breton told his EU counterparts in Brussels.

In an 18-page document setting out the French plans, Breton cited International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that global energy consumption is due to surge by 60 percent by 2030.

Fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal — will still provide 85 percent of the world's energy, according to IEA figures.

Europe's dependence on gas has come under the spotlight in recent weeks, initially following a standoff between Russia and Ukraine which saw supplies temporarily reduced to some EU countries.

That case was followed a few days later by a cut in gas to Moldova — like Ukraine an ex-Soviet satellite on the expanded EU's border — and then to Georgia after mystery explosions on two key pipelines at the weekend.

While not referring explicitly to the latest incidents, the French minister said the EU must ensure it is not overly dependent on any one source.

"Guaranteeing the EU's security of supply with a view to sustainable development ... implies diversifying the energy sources and taking advantage of a broader supply spectrum," Breton said.

France is a leading producer of nuclear energy, which currently provides some 34 percent of Europe's elecricity, Breton noted. Nearly all electricity in France is produced by nuclear power and France exports electricity. Other key EU states such as Germany have long opposed atomic power.

While agreeing that each country must decide its own energy policy, he noted that the current level of nuclear power, if produced by fossil fuels, would produce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the entire European car fleet.

"Maintaining the current contribution of nuclear power to the European energy mix and preserving Europe's technological and industrial edge in this field are issues of strategic importance for the Union," he said.

Breton also noted that the IEA had concluded that, in its heavy reliance on fossil fuels, "we are on the wrong track."

"Climate change ... could have serious impacts in the near future, through changes to the water cycle and to basic economic activities such as agriculture and energy production," he said.

And he added: "France believes that the challenges to be met are so great that with respect to world energy supply and demand, no technology and no instrument of public policy should be necessarily ruled out."

The two countries are close security partners, but are currently engaged in a tug-of-war over the custody of four U.S. Marines charged by a Philippine court for raping a local woman.

Last week a Philippine legislative panel reviewing the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) agreed to scrap the treaty and seek a new one in a bid to grant Manila more authority to punish U.S. troops who may commit crimes in the country.

"An (U.S.) embassy official told me the Philippines does not only stand to lose a lot, but all if we abrogate the treaty," a senior Filipino diplomat, who declined to be named, told reporters.

"They are not happy with what's happening."

The terms of the VFA surfaced after the four U.S. Marines faced trial by a Philippine court for the rape in November last year of a 22-year-old Filipino woman inside a van at the former U.S. navy base in Subic Bay, northwest of Manila.

Washington has rejected a request by Manila to hand over the marines, saying the treaty allowed for U.S. custody until the case was concluded.

Despite weeks of small protest rallies, the rape case has not inflamed any serious anti-American sentiment among the public.

On Wednesday, Alberto Romulo, the foreign affairs secretary, told a senate budget hearing that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has agreed to abolish a government agency tasked to monitor the implementation of the security pact.

But some Filipino diplomats said Arroyo could replace it with a new body that would be clothed with wider powers to protect the country's interests.

The United States, Manila's former colonial master, has been a major source of military assistance for the poorly funded Philippine armed forces in the form of training and hardware such as helicopters, gunboats and rifles.

Since 2000 when U.S. troops returned to the Philippines to exercise and train with local military units, Washington has poured more than $300 million in security assistance to Manila, excluding funds to build roads and schools in poor communities.

Terror expert John Loftus has gone on record with the fact that one of the key figures behind the July 7 attacks, Haroon Rashid Aswat, was in the services of British Intelligence.

Aswat is a known Al Qaeda operative, yet has been used and protected on both sides of the Atlantic by MI6 and the CIA.

We have previously exposed how the Intelligence agencies funded, trained and armed Al Qaeda operatives.

The London Independent also reported 2 days before the Bombings how MI5 has previously used so called Al Qaeda operatives as informants, allowing them to be left alone as a trade off. This only came to light when Bisher al-Rawi was captured by the CIA and taken to the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. The original Independent link has now been removed.

We have previously revealed how former MI5 officer David Shayler has alleged, and French intel sources have corroborated, that the MI6 paid a LibyanAl Qaeda cell £100,000 in 1995 to assassinate colonel Qaddafi. The use of the group that has come to be known as "Al Qaeda" as assets by Intelligence services the world over is well documented.

In addition to this perhaps MI5 should investigate just who was behind the drills that were being conducted in the same spots as the bombings at exactly the same times.

Surely this is beyond a coincidence and can be considered "a lead" in any investigation. The company that ordered the drills has still not been named, we only know that those carrying out the drills were in the employ of a Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a 'crisis management' advice company, better known to you and I as a PR firm.

Managing Director Peter Poweris a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch.

Another lead to follow up would be to ascertain why credible witnesses described the bombs and resulting damage as coming from underneath the trains.

"The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag," one witness said.

And one more direction the investigation should take is to ascertain why many had prior knowledge of both the July 7 and 21 attacks and where that prior knowledge came from.

Scotland Yard informed the Israeli Embassy in London before the bombings on the 7th, they also knew the second round of bombings was going to happen. But it seems that somehow Israel already knew about the attacks because they had issued a warning to British intelligence "a couple of days before".

Further indication of prior knowledge can be found in activity on the stock market days before the attacks. Who shorted British pound? The currency fell an unprecedented 6% in 10 days before London terror attacks, suggesting that the perpetrators knew how to fix the market to reap huge profits, or that some traders had inside knowledge.

"This was an almost unprecedented weakness and far too sharp to be a coincidence," one economist with more than 35 years of experience in the investment industry commented.

In a similar vain it seems that Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan also had a feeling terror attacks were imminent.

It is highly likely that the MI5 report has been leaked on purpose in order to dispel rumours of inside involvement. Is it really likely that the world's foremost intelligence agency with all the technology, funding and manpower has absolutely no idea whatsoever about 7/7?

It is not unknown for MI5 to put out disinfo in order to shift the public perspective and possibly use in conjunction with later events.

At the height of the furor over the Princess Diana murder, purported MI5 documents were released that indicated a cover up had been carried out and that implicated the British secret services. It was later reveled that these documents had been carefully prepared to be easily spotted as fakes after some study.

One intriguing aspect of the London Bombing report is the fact that the MI5 codename for the event is "Stepford".

The four "bombers" are referred to as the "Stepford four". Why is this the case?

There is no place in the UK called Stepford, the word HAS to be a reference to the novel and film The Stepford Wives. Of course the plot of this sci-fi film is that the the wives of Stepford are actually completely submissive servants, gynoids created by an elite group of men.

The only entry in the dictionary for the word Stepford has the following description: pertaining to a person with a conforming and compliant attitude, much like a robot .

So does this explain why the four bombers seemed to be completely calm, acting normally, going for Big Macs, buying return tickets, arguing over being short changed before they blew themselves up?

I am NOT suggesting that they were literally robots before that gets taken out of context, yet the MI5 codename is very revealing in that it suggests the operation was a carefully coordinated and controlled one with four compliant and malleable patsies following direct orders.

Now if MI5 has no idea who was behind the operation or whether there were any orders coming from a mastermind, why would they give the event the codename "Stepford"?

We welcome any rational alternative explanations for this.

Perhaps even more intriguing is the codename for the July 21 failed bombings. MI5 refer to this event as "Hat".

What kind of codename is Hat? It describes nothing about the events of 21/7.

The literal meaning of the word hat is "a cover for the head". i don't see any other possible meaning the word hat can have.

If we are to take the first bombing operation as the "head" then are MI5 suggesting 21/7 is some kind of cover for it?

The offending cartoons, caricaturing the Prophet as a terrorist, first appeared in Denmark's Jylland Posten and were later republished in one Norwegian magazine. The Danish paper, in the wake of the resulting furor throughout the Islamic world, published an "apology" that made matters worse, saying that they had not meant to insult anyone. Since all visual portrayals of the Prophet Mohammed are strictly forbidden to Muslims, and the disrespect in the images was flagrant, the Danish newspaper's statement, coupled with their government's defense of free expression, only inflamed the situation.

A Fatah spokesman, Abu Qusai, explained his position by saying: "We respect other religions and cultures. It's a must that they should respect ours as well." Asked if their insistence that Danish and Norwegian nationals leave Gaza might have an adverse effect on Palestine, both internally and internationally, he replied, "We don't want these Danes and Norwegians to be harmed. We understand they personally had no part in the insult to the Prophet. But we do hope they'll press their governments to apologize to the Islamic world. Actually, we welcome foreigners as our guests, but basic respect for religion is a red line that no one should cross."

The Al Yasser Brigades, another militant faction linked to the defeated Fatah, demonstrated against the Nordic countries over the weekend, while the Popular Resistance Committee, a third armed militant group, staged a second demonstration in which people trampled the Danish flag and burned Danish and Norwegian flags. "The Danish government doesn’t want to apologize to Muslims for what they did to them," one of the demonstrators said. "We belong to Fatah. We defend our religion. So we ban Danes and Norwegians from entering the Gaza Strip until the Danish government apologizes."

The militant groups, however, constitute about 5000 men among the 1.3 million citizens of Gaza. Ordinary Palestinians expressed quite different views from the fiery rhetoric of the Fatah-linked militants. "When Fatah asks Danes and Norwegians to leave Gaza, that doesn’t mean that all Danes and Norwegians are bad. We understand that. We know the insult to the Prophet was the work of only a few," said one Gaza resident, Umm Wael Salam, 45.

The landslide victory of the Islamist movement Hamas in last week's parliamentary elections is not without its ironies. While one might expect the overtly Islamist Hamas members to be the first to take to the streets to demonstrate against an insult to the Prophet, instead the new ruling party distributed a somber, even statesmanlike, press release demanding that the issue could not and should not be resolved by violence against foreigners. Their statement insisted the resolution had to be a diplomatic one via a formal apology. It is, in fact, the militant wings of the defeated secular Fatah party that are creating disorder over the humiliation offered to Islam. Astute observers are wondering if the real humiliation of interest to Fatah is not disrespect to the Prophet, but the embarrassment Hamas may suffer in the international community if it cannot control the unruly militants. So far, though, the demonstrations against the Nordic oountries have been loud, but brief, with no harm done to any Danish or Norwegian citizens.

"A few days ago, a new foe arose," Netanyahu said at a campaign stop at the Park Hotel. "When Hitler rose to power, it was said that ruling would moderate him, and it was also said in regard to the Ayatollah's regime and the Taliban. There are urgent warning signs that [scream] out a lust for murder and destruction."

"The Likud will not continue transferring territory, [we] need to stop giving them money - neither ours nor the world's - and [we] must prevent them from establishing an army any which way possible," Netanyahu said, adding that the Likud will derail Hamas' continuing ascent.

"We will ratchet up international pressure so that the Palestinian government will change direction and will not threaten us," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu was accompanied at the event by Likud No. 2 MK Silvan Shalom. Both candidates took to the podium and praised one another in a display of unity.

The former foreign minister assailed the policy of Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, namely his decision to allow Hamas to participate in the elections.

"On our own volition we made a wrong decision and brought about the rise of Hamas," Shalom said. "And now the intelligence services are blamed for not anticipating the result in advance."

"What, does intelligence view the future through coffee?" Shalom said. "Does intelligence [serve as] an astrologist? If so, it should tell us what is going to happen on March 28 (the date of general elections)."

"[People] are looking for someone to blame, but Olmert, with his own hands, brought about the rise of Hamas by allowing elections in east Jerusalem," Shalom said.

In response, Kadima issued a statement saying the State of Israel "remembers very well Benjamin Netanyahu's resounding failure as prime minister."

EU authorities handled the issue at the General Affairs Council Monday and focused on "respect for beliefs".

After Libya closed down its representative office in the Danish capital Copenhagen, Palestinians protesting the cartoons raided an EU office in Gaza and an Iraqi group demanded attacks be instigated against Danish targets.

Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassadors to Copenhagen and the boycott against Danish products quickly spread to other Gulf countries and Egypt as well.

The boycott negatively affected the Danish economy from the very first day.

The dairy company, Arla Foods, has halted all exports to the Middle East and is considering laying off employees as it is losing around 1.3 million euros a day in lost sales.

Arla, unable to sell goods in the country, was forced to close its factory in Riyadh yesterday and halted the construction of its new factory. The pharmaceutical products of Novo Nordisk, selling 30 million euros annually, were removed from pharmacy shelves. Danish goods were also removed from stands in Kuwaiti markets, and the United Arab Emirates joined the boycott chain yesterday.

The organization of Muslim Brothers, the main opposition in Egypt, called for a boycott against Danish goods.

Marianne Carstenskiold from the Danish Industrialists Association said they are helpless, "We want to conduct dialogue with the region, but even if the problem is solved, it will take time to return to the old days."

The boycott also negatively affects Muslims living in Denmark. Some Danes have demanded via messages sent the local SMS network, "Do not buy anything from the restaurants and shops belonging to Muslims.".

The developments have caused many unwanted incidents.

Two Arla workers were beaten in Saudi Arabia and the EU office in Palestine was over taken by an armed group. The supporters of al-Fatah who raided the office demanded an apology from Denmark and Norway. The armed group called, Jaish al-Mujaheeden, called on its supporters to attack Danish and Norwegian targets. The Norwegian government had apologized when the Norwegian newspaper, Magazinet, reprinted the cartoons from Jyllands Posten. Scandinavian countries have asked their citizens not to travel to the Middle East.

The EU Commissioner for Commerce, Peter Mandelson, emphasized they will seek action from the World Trade Organization (WTO) if Saudi Arabia supports the boycott.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik stated after the EU General Affairs Council gathering yesterday, "With the help of freedom of expression and the press, some basic religious values should not be humiliated in order to find a solution."

The EU High Representative, Javier Solana, stressed “religious values should be respected and no religion should be humiliated."

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, backing the insulting cartoons published in Jyllands Posten on the grounds of "freedom of expression," said he did not approve of the cartoons adding, "I would never approve of the portrayal of Prophet Mohammed, Jesus or any other person in a humiliating way."

Rasmussen remarked that the government "will try its best to deal with the unfortunate events," while he continued to avoid making an official apology.

Danish companies make 2 billion euro turnover

The Islamic world produces an income of two billion euros for Denmark.

The country's leading cheese and butter producer, Arla's annual exports to Gulf countries reaches 400 million euros.

The Danish pharmaceutical firm, Novo Nordisk, and Danpo Chick and Grundfoss Water Pump companies export large amounts of goods to the region. Denmark's most fundamental trade partners among Muslim countries include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, and Indonesia. Saudi Arabia tops the list with 300 million euros in exports; while Turkey imports 280 million euros annually from Denmark.

Putin said the new missiles were capable of carrying nuclear warheads. He wouldn't say whether the Russian military already had commissioned any such missiles.

Putin said he had shown the working principles of the missile system to French President Jacques Chirac during a visit to a Russian military facility. "He knows what I'm talking about," Putin said.

In April 2004, Chirac became the first Western leader to visit Russia's top-secret Titov space control center, which controls all of its satellites and is involved in launching its intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Putin said the new missiles were capable of changing both altitude and direction, making it impossible for an enemy to intercept them since "a missile defense system is designed to counter missiles moving along a ballistic trajectory."

Putin and other Russian officials have boasted of the new missiles in similar comments in recent years, but they haven't identified them or given any further details other than about their ability to change their flight path on approach to a target.

Military analysts said Russian forces experimented with a maneuvering warhead during a missile launch several years ago, but voiced doubt about their ability to deploy such weapons anytime soon.

Analysts said the new warheads, designed to zigzag on their approach to targets, could be fitted to new land-based Topol-M missiles and the prospective Bulava missiles for the Russian navy, now under development.

Russia opposed Washington's withdrawal in 2002 from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to deploy a national missile defense shield, saying the 30-year-old U.S.-Soviet pact was a key element of international security. Putin called the decision a mistake that would hurt global security but not threaten Russia.

The ABM treaty banned missile defense systems on the assumption that the fear of retaliation would prevent each nation from launching a first strike -- a strategy known as mutually assured destruction.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia would commission new early warning radars to replace those located in the former Soviet republics. The new radars will "provide an earlier warning on launches of all missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles as well as tactical and cruise missiles," Ivanov said, according to Russian news reports.

The Russian military has used Soviet-built early warning radars located in Azerbaijan and Ukraine, and it has been involved in rent and other arguments over the issue. Ivanov said the commissioning of new radars will allow Russia to stop using them.

Giving the keynote speech at a Pacific Maritime Conference in Sydney, the retired admiral's scathing assessment of the ANZUS security pact included a prediction that in the next 50 years it would deliver very little of substance.

"It's interesting when you wander around the Australian community today and ask that question," he said.

"I know that things are going to change, I know that politics in the United States invariably swings from one side to the other but I think ordinary Australians are making some serious questions about these things."

He says that in 50 years time Australia will have become an insignificant country in the Asia-Pacific region.

Admiral Barrie also called for a return of conscription or national service as the only way to solve the ADF's recruitment problems.

He retired as the head of the ADF in 2002.