Wells, a college student with dual citizenship in the U.S. and Israel, was arrested Aug. 26 shortly after he made an emergency call from a pay phone and said there was a bomb on a JetBlue flight from Long Beach, California, to Fort
Lauderdale, Florida. In his plea agreement, Wells acknowledged he made the call to try to keep the plane from leaving.

Court documents said Wells did not have a bomb and was upset that an airline employee would not allow him to board because of federal rules that require airlines to close a flight 30 minutes before takeoff.

He told investigators he had hoped the threat would delay the flight and possibly allow him to board, authorities said.

Wells' lawyer, Donald Etra, said outside court that his client "apologizes to the passengers of JetBlue" who were delayed for about one hour while bomb-sniffing dogs searched the plane.

"This was a momentary gross lapse in judgment," Etra said.

The revelations are contained in a new book which has been published in the USA and Germany, written by a former Time magazine journalist, and which details how the Nazis sought to undermine the British economy and what became of the cash they produced.

The Germans produced £132m of forged Bank of England notes during the Second World War as part of an audacious plan to undermine and destroy the British economy. The sum was worth about £3bn in today's money. While the plan ultimately failed to deal the UK a fatal blow, it nevertheless frightened the Bank of England into withdrawing all notes worth more than £5 from circulation until the 1960s.

The notes were produced by a team of forgers and printing experts gathered from among Jewish concentration camp inmates. In the book, Krueger's Men, Lawrence Malkin reveals how some of the cash ended up in the hands of the Jewish underground at the end of the Second World War.

The Nazis laundered millions of pounds through a series of schemes including using business figures in occupied Europe who had concealed their Jewish origins. One of these businessman was Yaakov Levy, a successful jeweller and art expert in pre-war Germany.

In the weeks following the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Levy got supplies to Jewish refugees in Northern Italy who were fleeing south in hope of travelling to Israel. He also handed out large wads each containing about £50,000 of fake cash to organisers looking to help Jewish Holocaust survivors get from Europe to Israel.

In his book, which draws on new information from UK, US, German and Israeli archives, Malkin wrote: "The Jewish underground wanted van Harten's [Levy's] money and did not care whether it was counterfeit or real. They passed the bogus pounds to supply Holocaust survivors and help the Brichah [Jewish escape organisation] smuggle more refugees to Palestine. On the international arms market, they used the money to buy weapons for Jews arming themselves against the British and then the Arabs."

Palestinian government spokesman Ghazi Hamad denounced the proposal as a potential ruse for an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza -- something Israel has said repeatedly is not in the works.

"The call to retake the border is a serious escalation and an incitement for more Israeli aggression," Hamad said.

Israel began its assault in Gaza after Palestinian gunmen in the territory abducted a soldier in Israel in a raid in June.

Yishai's call to move back into the 12 km (7.5 mile) Gaza border zone, more than a year after Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, was echoed by two other cabinet ministers and a senior military commander.

Israel estimates that since the withdrawal of tons of munitions, including advanced shoulder-fired missiles, have been spirited into Gaza from Egypt through underground tunnels.

That has rung alarm bells in an Israeli military still reeling from its difficulty in beating back well-armed Hezbollah guerillas during the recent Lebanon war, and which has been hard put to stop the rocket fire by Gazan militants.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was expected to convene top ministers on Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss the option of a major anti-smuggling operation in Gaza, political sources said.

But the sources voiced doubt that any such mission, with its attendant Palestinian casualties and strains on Israel's strategic ties with Egypt, would go ahead before a planned trip by Olmert to the United States in mid-November.

In the latest violence, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian gunman near the West Bank city of Jenin amid clashes, medics and the army said.

In mounting Palestinian violence, masked gunmen shot dead a security officer loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas's
Fatah group, locked in a power struggle with the governing Hamas movement.

Earlier, masked gunmen in Gaza killed a senior militant loyal to Fatah. Another militant who supported Fatah was killed by unknown assailants near the West Bank city of Jericho, witnesses said.

There was no claim of responsibility for any of the shootings. At least 19 Palestinians have been killed in inter-factional fighting this month.

BEIRUT, LEBANON - "Watch out! Watch out!" shouted my Lebanese colleague as I approached an unexploded cluster bomb near a soccer field in the southern Lebanese village of Soultaniye. As I tried to get a close-up photograph, he warned me to proceed cautiously so my shoes wouldn't inadvertently sprinkle dirt on the bomblet or otherwise disturb it, causing it to explode.

This close call came during a recent Amnesty International mission to assess the impact on civilians of this summer's war between Hizbullah and
Israel. At the United Nation's Mine Action Coordination Center, I learned of Hussein Qaduh, a student who had been critically injured in a cluster-bomb explosion the previous evening.

One of his friends showed me where Hussein had been injured. More than a dozen unexploded bomblets still lay on the playing field and the path beside it; the adjacent wall and houses bore the signature pockmarks of exploded cluster bombs. Strewn across the spot where Hussein fell were stained pages from a notebook that villagers used to try to stem his bleeding. In the nearby village of Majdel Silim, villagers were eager, even insistent, to show me where bomblets had landed - on balconies, outside front doors, in trees and gardens, and even inside homes. A mother whose son had suffered cluster-bomb injuries pointed to the tree branches above us.

Tragically, the problem of unexploded ordnance, especially cluster bombs, has emerged as perhaps the conflict's most enduring legacy, one that will hamper southern Lebanon's recovery for years. The
United Nations has identified more than 750 sites where cluster bombs were fired, with estimates indicating that at least 1 million unexploded cluster bomblets litter the villages, fields, gardens, and orchards of southern Lebanon.

This is especially devastating because most families in southern Lebanon are heavily dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. If farmers cannot tend to their fields soon, they may miss this year's harvest, as well as the planting or cultivating cycle for next year's crops.

Cluster munitions are not banned weapons, but their use in civilian areas violates the international ban on the use of indiscriminate weapons. According to the UN, 90 percent of the cluster bombs were dropped in the last 72 hours of the war - when all parties knew a cease-fire was imminent.

Reports last week that Hizbullah fired cluster bombs at civilian areas in northern Israel suggests these weapons are spreading to nonstate armed groups, further multiplying the danger they pose.

After initially denying that it used cluster bombs, Israel later said that all weapons they use are legal. But the military purpose of their use in these circumstances is inexplicable. Although Israel has provided some maps of the affected areas, the UN says it has still not provided specific coordinates that would expedite clearing. (An Israeli official told the German newspaper Der Spiegel that granting the request could jeopardize Israeli intelligence about Hizbullah.)

The US State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls is investigating the use of American-made cluster munitions in southern Lebanon, apparently to determine whether their use violates the terms in the (secret) agreements for their use. A congressional investigation into the munitions' use after Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon pressured the Reagan administration to ban sales of cluster weapons to Israel for six years.

Last month, Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Dianne Feinstein of California submitted an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill designed to prevent cluster-bomb use in or near populated areas. It failed.

Senators Leahy and Feinstein should reintroduce their amendment next year. Ideally, this bill would include a ban on the use of all cluster bombs that have high failure rates - which leads to the danger zones of unexploded bomblets - and a ban on the stockpiling or transfer of these submunitions. It deserves the support of every senator.

As with the movement that led to the 1999 global treaty banning land mines, there is mounting international pressure to stop the use of cluster munitions altogether. Belgium has already banned them, Norway has imposed a moratorium, and other countries back a convention to prevent their use. The Review Conference examining the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons meeting next month in Geneva is a key opportunity to build momentum for the international ban.

The stakes for civilians in Lebanon are high. They will suffer the effects of these weapons for years to come. But if action is taken now, the impact could be reduced. That's why Israel must share the coordinates of the areas it cluster-bombed with the UN Mine Action Coordination Center. The center also needs greater funding to clear the land of this contamination.

The human cost of using cluster bombs in this summer's conflict should provide enough impetus to abolish these indiscriminate killers once and for all.

* Curt Goering is the senior deputy executive director for policy and programs at Amnesty International USA.

He said the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf region was one of the world's most tense regions because of Israel's position and arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, and the efforts of other states in the region to build nuclear reactors "that was a great source of danger and concern to all."

Condemned

He pointed out the UAE strongly condemned the continued unilateral policy of Israel and appealed to the international community to put pressure on the Israeli government to implement the Security Council and General Assembly resolutions which called for Israel to accede to the non-proliferation treaty as all other states in the region had done.

He also urged the UN to force Israel to cooperate with the energy agency by declaring all its nuclear facilities and accepting the principle of verification and to cease the stockpiling and production of fissile material and all nuclear testing.

He said serious efforts were needed to achieve the alleviation of tension and instability in the region, adding that it was imperative to pave the way for renewing dialogue and returning to the peaceful negotiations process, which could ultimately resolve the question of Palestine and the Middle East.

His full text concluded by saying: "Finally, we hope the working delegations in this committee will support the two draft resolutions on the establishment of a zone free from all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and on the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, especially that they reflect the disturbing reality in the Middle East and are in line with the international efforts aimed at achieving comprehensive nuclear disarmament with a view to sparing our people and humanity the destructive scourge of wars."

A trade union, CFDT, has filed a discrimination complaint on behalf of Muslim workers, whose badges to work in sensitive zones at the airport were suspended.

Half a dozen luggage handlers have also appealed to an administrative tribunal against the decision to suspend their work badges, which gives airport personnel access to customs zones and sensitive areas near runways.

According to the French anti-discrimination group MRAP, roughly a hundred workers have lost their badges since August.

"In the fight against terrorism, Mr. Sarkozy's cause is just, but his methods are not. One does not fight terrorism by spurning people's rights," said two lawyers, respectively representing the CFDT trade union and the baggage handlers in their complaints.

But during a public gathering in Paris Saturday, the Interior Minister said he could "not accept that people with radical practices work at the airport."

If they consider themselves victims of discrimination "they can air their rights before the courts," said Sarkozy, who is seen as the hot favourite to represent the right in next year's presidential elections.

In April, a book claiming the airport had been infiltrated by Islamic militants stirred furor. Anti-terrorist officials cast doubts on claims made in 'The Mosques of Roissy', by right-wing French politician Philippe de Villiers.

An airport union, Sud Aérien, accused Villiers - another presidential hopeful in next year's elections - of playing on public fears of radical Islam to win votes.

But four months later, Sarkozy announced that unofficial prayer sites at the airport had been closed.

"In the six years I've worked at Roissy, I've never had a problem," said one Franco-Tunisian airport worker, Mohamed Seddiki, who said he received a letter from the local police precinct claiming he posed a "significant danger to airport security."

Seddiki's badge was withdrawn in early October. "In June they closed out prayer hall, and now they tell me I'm a danger to the airport," Seddiki said. "All of this is paranoia caused by de Villiers' book."

Like Seddiki, another Muslim worker also lost his badge earlier this month, after being questioned by police.

"I was asked if I prayed and if I'd made the pilgrimage to Mecca," said the worker, who refused to disclose his name. "Yes, I went to Mecca with my wife, and so what?"

Earlier, the airport's deputy police chief said that being a practising Muslim "was absolutely not a criterion" for suspending the access badges.

Rather, he referred to conclusions drawn by France's Anti-terrorist Coordination Unit (UCLAT) as the basis for the sanctions.